"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress; working together is success."
~Henry Ford
"My car will be cool! My car will be keen!
My car will be one big fantastic machine!
The toast of the town! The cream of the crop!
The belle of the ball and the tip of the top!
My car will be famous from here to Peru..." p. 26
My car will be one big fantastic machine!
The toast of the town! The cream of the crop!
The belle of the ball and the tip of the top!
My car will be famous from here to Peru..." p. 26
Final Product - tangible online activities
Link to Metaphor:
This is the section where all the hard work of online meetings, applying learning theories, playing with web 2.0 tools and creatively coming up with new ways to present to potential students comes to fruition. The three artifacts demonstrate the possibilities that students could have in their learning, no matter what level they're at in their educational lives. It is an exciting time in 21st Century education and it's examples below that I think students will find going to school more motivating, inspiring and relevant to the way any post educational work will be headed (like the MET program).
Students should be given the opportunity to practice what the 'real' world will be like when their formal education is complete and are ready to contribute to society by entering the workforce. A book that I found to be extremely beneficial in helping me formulate my thoughts on what I wanted my students at my schools to be able to learn in the future is "21st Century Skills - Learning for Life in Our Times" by Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel (2009). Two questions that arose from the book that I found to be the most influential were, what skills will children need in the future and what are future employers looking for in terms of skills and attributes that can be brought to their company. These are the questions that I felt should be the guides in developing our classrooms and the how knowledge is gained, understood and then applied.
According to Trilling & Fadel (2009), they discovered:
that the future skills needed are:
employers are looking for these attributes and skills:
This is the section where all the hard work of online meetings, applying learning theories, playing with web 2.0 tools and creatively coming up with new ways to present to potential students comes to fruition. The three artifacts demonstrate the possibilities that students could have in their learning, no matter what level they're at in their educational lives. It is an exciting time in 21st Century education and it's examples below that I think students will find going to school more motivating, inspiring and relevant to the way any post educational work will be headed (like the MET program).
Students should be given the opportunity to practice what the 'real' world will be like when their formal education is complete and are ready to contribute to society by entering the workforce. A book that I found to be extremely beneficial in helping me formulate my thoughts on what I wanted my students at my schools to be able to learn in the future is "21st Century Skills - Learning for Life in Our Times" by Bernie Trilling and Charles Fadel (2009). Two questions that arose from the book that I found to be the most influential were, what skills will children need in the future and what are future employers looking for in terms of skills and attributes that can be brought to their company. These are the questions that I felt should be the guides in developing our classrooms and the how knowledge is gained, understood and then applied.
According to Trilling & Fadel (2009), they discovered:
that the future skills needed are:
- critical thinking and problem solving
- information and medie literacy
employers are looking for these attributes and skills:
- flexibility and adaptability
- creativity and innovation
- communications and collaboration
Artifact #1link to wiki
ETEC 511 - Foundations of Educational Technology
This was my first real attempt at playing with and trying a wiki for the purposes of putting together a lesson for others. Thankfully it was a group project and we all had important parts that needed to be connected. This project was based on the work of Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto (1985) and how her metaphor could be extended to educational technology - female role is the traditional classroom teacher and male role as a the technophile. Haraway's cyborg could break that boundary between education and technology, but with both being so complex it may still be a challenge. |
Artifact #2
ETEC 565A - Special Course in Subject Matter Field
There are a lot of moments I remember about this course as it was the first attempt at using a Learning Management System (LMS) and building a Moodle course. This was by far the most challenging and most constructivists in nature. I will never forget a post by the instructor to the group and which said, "I'm not here to to do your homework for you." This was after all of us had so many questions about aspects of the Moodle program. The need to communicate with each other in the forums an absolute must in order for all of us to figure out the complexities of building a our own course.
One of the references that influenced my beliefs on using technology was Arthur Chickering and Stephen Ehrmann's article on Implementing The Seven Principle's - Technology as Lever (1996). The seven principle's include:
Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.
This look at using an LMS really open my eyes to the potential of what students could be and should be doing when they come into an elementary school library for specific units of study. Being able to embed quizzes and forums really makes a unit such as this Ancient Egypt, a true online experience.
There are a lot of moments I remember about this course as it was the first attempt at using a Learning Management System (LMS) and building a Moodle course. This was by far the most challenging and most constructivists in nature. I will never forget a post by the instructor to the group and which said, "I'm not here to to do your homework for you." This was after all of us had so many questions about aspects of the Moodle program. The need to communicate with each other in the forums an absolute must in order for all of us to figure out the complexities of building a our own course.
One of the references that influenced my beliefs on using technology was Arthur Chickering and Stephen Ehrmann's article on Implementing The Seven Principle's - Technology as Lever (1996). The seven principle's include:
- Good Practice Encourages Contacts Between Students and Faculty
- Good Practice Develops Reciprocity and Cooperation Among Students
- Good Practice Uses Active Learning Techniques
- Good Practice Gives Prompt Feedback
- Good Practice Emphasizes Time on Task
- Good Practice Communicates High Expectations
- Good Practice Respects Diverse Talents and Ways of Learning
Learning is not a spectator sport. Students do not learn much just sitting in classes listening to teachers, memorizing prepackaged assignments, and spitting out answers. They must talk about what they are learning, write reflectively about it, relate to past experiences, and apply it to their daily lives. They must make what they learn part of themselves.
This look at using an LMS really open my eyes to the potential of what students could be and should be doing when they come into an elementary school library for specific units of study. Being able to embed quizzes and forums really makes a unit such as this Ancient Egypt, a true online experience.
Artifact #3
ETEC 531 - Curriculum Issues in Cultural and Media Studies
My final artifact that I am presenting was a combination of using the Learning Management System, Moodle and Google Docs to produce a full four component online course on Art & Technology. Unlike the previous Moodle course, this was done with a group and all of the main modules were completed using Google Docs, then imported into the Moodle as links. There were no expectations to utilize the quiz or forum features as in 565A, but we did place some in to make this course complete and make this course not just another assignment.
I fully enjoyed building this course in a group environment. Like many of the courses in the MET program, this assignment allowed me to explore new technologies that would motivate potential students to learn how art and technology can be combined and relate to each other.
My inspiration for my particular module came from Andrew Murphie & John Potts (2003), Culture & Technology's chapter on Digital Aesthetics, in particular intellectual property and technology. The authors suggest that originality is no longer possible and that art now consists of "inventive arrangements of diverse styles". I don't think anyone can be as creative or original as Michelangelo or Picasso, but with the advancement of technology it allows for new styles of creativity to emerge. Such as the case with the 1980's group De La Soul, which were the first group to be sued for property infringement. This was the catalyst for my main activity in which students had to listen to the mixed version of The Turtles song by De La Soul. It was an example of how today's artists can be creative with an original piece of music.
My final artifact that I am presenting was a combination of using the Learning Management System, Moodle and Google Docs to produce a full four component online course on Art & Technology. Unlike the previous Moodle course, this was done with a group and all of the main modules were completed using Google Docs, then imported into the Moodle as links. There were no expectations to utilize the quiz or forum features as in 565A, but we did place some in to make this course complete and make this course not just another assignment.
I fully enjoyed building this course in a group environment. Like many of the courses in the MET program, this assignment allowed me to explore new technologies that would motivate potential students to learn how art and technology can be combined and relate to each other.
My inspiration for my particular module came from Andrew Murphie & John Potts (2003), Culture & Technology's chapter on Digital Aesthetics, in particular intellectual property and technology. The authors suggest that originality is no longer possible and that art now consists of "inventive arrangements of diverse styles". I don't think anyone can be as creative or original as Michelangelo or Picasso, but with the advancement of technology it allows for new styles of creativity to emerge. Such as the case with the 1980's group De La Soul, which were the first group to be sued for property infringement. This was the catalyst for my main activity in which students had to listen to the mixed version of The Turtles song by De La Soul. It was an example of how today's artists can be creative with an original piece of music.
This brings us to the end.
"If I built a car, that's just what I'd do!" p. 27