Learning Technologies: Design and Application

As I look back I realize how far I have come, not just with this course but also in this program as a whole.  As I read my original flight path work I come to realize that I did achieve many of the learning components that I was hoping for.  My intent was to focus on improving my working knowledge of LMS opportunities involving assessment, social software and multimedia.  I also felt pertinent to investigate the following components taken from the SECTIONS framework:

• Ease of use and reliability: how easy is it for both teachers and students to use? How reliable and well tested is the technology?
• Costs: what is the cost structure of each technology?  What is the unit cost per learner?
• Teaching and learning: what kinds of learning are needed? What instructional approaches will best meet these needs? What are the best technologies for supporting this teaching and learning?
• Organizational issues: What are the organizational requirements and the barriers to be removed before this technology can be used successfully?  What changes in organization need to be made

(Bates & Poole, 2003, pp. 79-80)

To some degree I encountered answers to my investigations, however, in some cases I strayed from my original plan outlined on my flight path.  The reasons for that occurred because I lost focus in what my original plan was, not due to a negative reason but partly because during my studies and investigations I found myself becoming side tracked with all the wonderful affordances and options available with Moodle and other the learning technologies I encountered.

I enjoyed my experience with the E-learning tool kit.  I found it refreshing that the resource was  available in wiki format, and provided an easy opportunity for learners to link to pertinent outside information and between other wiki pages.  I could appreciate the idea that any learner could make changes or add information to the tool kit as they see fit.  This seemed to me like a fitting option given the nature of the course and program.  Not only did the tool kit give me a valuable resource to use at my discretion, outside of the collaborative workspace of the rest of the course but it also allowed me to research information on tools which were new to me.

Overall I am quite happy with the experience of ETEC 565.  I appreciate all the hands on learning opportunities the course allows, from the creation of the LMS site to the digital story to the creation of a wiki and discussion forums.  Throughout the course I have taken some time to develop a framework for creating an entire course online using an LMS.  The journey has been long and it is not over yet but I feel the course has provided me with a great foundation with which to build on.  Previous to beginning this course I had little experience with authoring a course using a learning management system.  I found the learning curve with Moodle to be rather steep, however that was only due to the fact that we were consciously trying to create courses with such advanced criteria as GUIs and html pages.  Previously I had found Moodle to be quite easy however I realized I had been creating very simple pages which were less than visually attractive and had little to offer from a multimedia perspective.  Having now spent some time creating bigger and better things in Moodle including GUIs and html pages I feel I am ready to move on to a next step in my studies.

My experience with creating an assessment application in Moodle was a beneficial as well.  As I reflect on my flight path I remember that I was interested in researching options for assessment that would improve my practice.  The opportunity to create a quiz in Moodle I found to be an excellent option for providing timely feedback to students as it was electronically graded.  This was important to me as according to Chickering and Gamson (1987) good educational practice involved prompt feedback and I agree.  The process of creating the quiz and the ease of incorporating pictures and other media into it was refreshing and simple.

Looking back to my flight path when utilizing Moodle, one of the real perks of using this LMS was that it was completely free.  There was no cost for its use as it is open source and even if it were to be utilized by a large group of people the cost is fairly low at around $3600 for hosting and support of 2500 user accounts (Lambda Solutions Inc, 2011).   With Moodle constantly being upgraded and the opportunity for free support available it is certainly a reliable platform for instructional design however I did find it to be a bit clunky at first however with some practice I overcame those feelings.

As far as student ease of use is concerned the Moodle interface can be both slightly awkward and virtually coherent, depending on how the instructor designs the course.  Having gained some experience with the creation of html and GUI pages I believe I have unlocked the professional possibilities offered by the platform.

With regards to my multimedia experience I was very impressed with the options presented by the resource cogdogroo.  The amount of applications available there were more than one could possibly immerse themselves in during one module.  In the end I decided to take on a new application in Animoto.  I found it to be free; however, I was unsure of its reliability or user friendliness.  After spending some time using the application I found it to be quite user friendly and simple to use and to some degree reliable but there was a need to purchase the professional version to create a production longer than 30 seconds.  It was quite simple to embed in my course blog and looks like a fairly professional option for creating multimedia integration to an online course.

Finally the use of the blog was one that was not new to me.  I have found it to be a very cost effective, reliable and easy to use application for both the viewer and the creator.  I have created blogs in many other MET courses and I am happy to have been exposed to the opportunities of being able to decimate information so easily to large amounts of audiences.  The use of blogging as social software allows students to share their ideas and collaborate with ease.

As I look forward to my future in education there is certainly an unknown path that I will take from here.  I am nearing the end of the MET program with only one more course to complete the degree and I am already looking to decide where I will go afterwards.  After taking this course and spending time with the Moodle and Vista platform my hope is to continue my studies with technology from a media perspective, perhaps engaging in studies in web page production and design.  I feel this would benefit me both from an instructional design perspective and perhaps a web page developer perspective.  My work at the high school level will continue and perhaps may also lead to more positions of responsibility should I so desire to take on those roles.  I think that the work I have done in this course and the MET program as a whole will allow me to bring a fresh perspective and new options to create more engaging curriculum and communication tools for our students both at a departmental level and an administrative level.

Into the Light

I chose to create a course site in the Moodle platform to offer high school photography from a completely online environment.  I have been teaching introductory digital photography for a few years now and based on the assignments and skills that are presented in the course I felt that it could be an ideal course to offer students via virtual learning space.

Previous to this course I have had little experience with Moodle.  I had collaborated on a couple of projects with colleagues in other courses within the MET program but I had little involvement in the actually design of the course.  Having little html and web page production experience I was somewhat apprehensive of how I was going to create the course.  I chose to focus on the first three lessons of the course as I was more concerned with actually creating a course that was navigational and visually pleasing rather than focusing on content.

I found the Moodle platform to be quite clunky, and was not overly impressed with its interface.  I found it simple to add resources to the Moodle in order to create lessons that were populated with content but I found myself spending an immense amount of time deciding how to create the GUI.  Once I had finally realized how simple it was I was fairly disappointed in how frustrated I was.

I created buttons for a course outline, introductory discussion forum, general due date and submission requirements, a chat function for online office hours, and announcement forum, a general discussion forum titled the coffeehouse and a button leading to lessons.  I populated an html page with links for the first two lessons including readings and assignments.  The third lesson is meant for selective release and should not be viewable by students but it does include links for 2 group discussions, an assignment and a quiz.  I found it very challenging to discover how I was going to create the GUI without other traditional Moodle links available in each open week.  By placing all the content under a week that is not open I was able to achieve that however I am hoping there is an easier way as it takes away from the Moodle keeping record of the dates for the weekly lessons and schedule.

I found it frustrating that I at times had difficulty having images appear on my html pages, I am not sure whether I was committing uploading errors or if there was another issue.  I enjoyed getting through the difficulty of creating the GUI interface and realizing how the course could become more visually pleasing.  I have seen other Moodle sites (including ones I have taken part in creating) and felt that they were not visually stimulating tools for the learner but with some leveraging of its navigational tools Moodle can come to look very professional.

I created a discussion for two groups involving describing technical aspects of photography under certain environmental conditions, by creating two scenarios I envisioned that students could take part in one discussion while observing the discussion of their classmates in the other group.  I am not sure if I have correctly utilized the group feature in the Moodle as I have no students to populate and check that there are indeed groups set up.

I hope to be able to continue to develop my Moodle course by adding more content to complete the course and be able to offer it to students in the future.  Things are looking a little brighter with my Moodle experience!

Social Media Reflection

Creating a social media story can be an engaging way to provide students with an opportunity to learn a topic using various stimuli including video, pictures, music and text.  It can be a rewarding experience for the learner and the creator but there are hurdles involved in the making of the final product.  For this assignment I chose to use the application Animoto.  I wanted to experiment with the program as I have heard many good reviews from my peers regarding its interesting platform.  I have created some productions in the past using non web 2.0 applications including PowerPoint presentations and Windows Media Productions but this time I was interested having Animoto create the production as it claimed to produce “beautifully orchestrated completely unique video pieces” all in tune with music and text.  I was sold on it after watching a couple of the examples but I quickly realized the free version only allowed for a 30 second clip and I didn’t think I could create the story I was interested in making in that short a time.  So I had to purchase the professional version in order to lengthen the time available for the piece.

I wanted to create a story that would be useful and interesting for students to get a quick glimpse of some of the icons of Quebec City.  After living there for some time I have come to appreciate the unique architecture, culture and way of life there.  I believed that Animoto could deliver something for me using my pictures and video to create a product that would engage students differently to learn about some icons of the city and particularly its winter festival.  I was slightly disappointed in the small amount of text I could use to tell me story.  I was constantly re organizing my original idea in order to make the text meaningful to the visuals.  I enjoyed the amount of audio options that Animoto provided under license to be used for productions however I found I was constantly editing the story as it needed to be synchronized with the song and the application would leave out specific parts when the song came to an end.  Without a timeline for me to judge the length of each slide it was difficult to design the production in a synchronized fashion to perfection.

I chose to outline certain landmarks and cultural icons of life in Quebec City that I found interesting.  I believed the production could be useful as a tool to provide visual stimulation for students in a short amount of time that could be discussed in a class whether it be language, historically or culturally based curriculum.  I hoped having students see some real visuals would be a motivational tool for them to create meaning in their learning.  Discussion would follow the video to share ideas about what was shown.  Also I felt it might be a useful tool to introduce to students to create presentations as Animoto is free for creating 30 second clips and provides much of the content needed to create engaging media productions using their bank of video, photos and audio.

Creating a story for the students was slightly difficult with the lack of options for text use.  I didn’t want to use voice audio as I felt using music was a key component of the Animoto production and was important for student engagement and creating mood or feeling for the production.  Having a story being told creates something meaningful for students to follow, rather than just presenting facts in wrote learning fashion.  By using Animoto I was emphasizing the visual components of the icons which I felt were important to the culture of the story.  I also appreciated the fact that Animoto provided me directly with the audio I could use under license so I didn’t have to search off site to find materials under creative commons.  The slide transitions and effects was another point of interest for me as I believed I had not seen other productions quite as animated although I would have preferred to be able to control them more to have a create a more individualised style.  The storytelling approach in this case was only limited by my inability to include text as exactly as I had hoped however I think I did emphasize the cultural components I was hoping for.