Theory-Practice-Application:
My Academic Journey and Artifacts.
Jason
Marconi
Business
Program Director: McCann School of Business
March
14, 2015
Boise
State University
Introduction: Rationale
My name is Jason Marconi; I have been
working in in the education field for 8 years. I am the business program
director for McCann School of Business. I teach associate degree granting
curriculum in economics, small business, marketing, management, and other
courses based on need. I also oversee nineteen adjunct instructors that teach
business and general education courses. Working day to day with students
of varying ages, learning styles, and goals has made integrating technology
into our classrooms an absolute must for driving student success. I am very
comfortable with technology and spend a lot time finding that hidden
application, website, or game gem. I enjoy that moment I find something I can
share with my co-workers. The MET program has provided me an incredible
opportunity to share ideas and resources with my staff.
This paper will detail my work through the Masters
of Education Technology program and the alignment work completed has with the
2012 Association for Educational Communications and Technology standards. The
paper will detail each standard starting with content knowledge and ending with
research and the associated projects and assignments that align with them. I
will feature the standards briefly followed by a detailed explanation as to why
the project or assignment chosen satisfies each. At the end of the paper will
be a conclusion that offers a brief reflection followed by a synopsis of the
growth this program as allowed for me in my professional career.
Standard 1: Content Knowledge
The AECT standard for content knowledge seeks to
provide evidence that the candidate demonstrated knowledge necessary to create,
use, assess, and manage theoretical and practical applications of educational
technologies and processes.
For this section, my projects focused on innovative
ways to create instructional material and new ways to engage students in
different learning environments using a variety of systems approaches. While
almost every class detailed new ways to use educational technology, I focused
on specific projects from the program for creating, using, evaluating,
managing, and ethics. Below are the indicators for standard 1: content
knowledge and the associated artifacts.
The list of projects and artifacts used to
demonstrate content knowledge are below:
Artifact
|
Brief
Description
|
For this assignment, we were tasked to create a lesson plan
and real world virtual field trip to use in our professional class. We were
to create this virtual field trip using our HTML and CSS coding skills being
developed in the course.
|
|
This
final project required students complete a lesson plan and develop a mobile
game using a program called Gamesalad. Students were game developers as well
as instructional designers for this project.
|
|
|
|
Using
a drag and drop game development website called Sploder we were tasked to
create an educational game for classroom purposes. I created a game based on economic principles.
|
This
project tasked students to create in HTML and CSS a mobile webpage dedicated
to using mobile devices to take students through a lesson plan using various
resources on the web. I choose to use
this assignment as a marketing project for students.
|
|
Students
were tasked to research and define which elements from “The meaning of
Educational Technology” are most important.
Students were to reflect which portions of the reading jumped out at
them and reflect on it further through research.
|
|
This
assignment asked students to take an academic journal article and write a
commentary through blogging about the article.
|
|
This
assignment asked students to prepare a real world, practical blogging
proposal to take to administrators detailing plans to incorporate blogging in
our classroom.
|
|
|
|
This
project was a case study and assignment surrounding evaluation practices and
assessments. Students were to read the case study based on Far West
Laboratory and write a consulting report on the changes and evaluation
procedures we would suggest and move forward with.
|
For
the Netiquette project, students were tasked with creating a website through
HTML and CSS coding to display the ethics surrounding online conduct and
professional online etiquette
|
|
Students
needed to research, create and assess what it takes to maintain and manage a
positive digital footprint. This was to be adopted as an assignment that can
be shared with our students to inform them of the importance our digital
presence of professional career growth.
|
Indicators
1.
Creating: Candidates demonstrate the ability to create
instructional materials and learning environments using a variety of systems
approaches.
Artifacts:
The evidence to demonstrate mastery I decided to use
consists of an HTML/CSS coding project, final project, and educational game
created for class. The reason to use the varying projects is that each
demonstrates a different systems approach to learning. The virtual field trip
project allowed me to create a field trip to war torn Syria for my students.
The virtual field trip made it possible for students to visit in the comfort of
our classroom. The flow of the website was something I created . Since I was
intimately involved in the website development I was able to conceptualize the
best approach in attaching a lesson plan. Instead of having a PowerPoint
explain the history and importance of Syria, students were able to access a
plethora of media and educational tools within the website itself. While
creating the website, I decided to
include the media for easy accessibility, which demonstrates my aptitude in
creating material for classroom use beyond typical educational tools.
The next project I included in this subset was
a final project in EDTECH 536 Mobile Game Design for Educational purposes. The
final project was an economics game that teaches students the concept of
shortages and surpluses. This project allowed me to create from concept to
application the idea of using a mobile game platform to teach an economics
lesson. Similar to creating a mobile
application and game, I decided to include a project from our Educational Games
and Simulation class. This project tasked students with using a program called
Sploder to create an educational game. Again, I focused on the real world
practicality of the game for the economics course I was teaching. This time I
used the game to teach my students about supply and demand. The core of these
two games housed the economic concepts I wished to teach the students, but my
professional growth came from learning how to create these new environments and
materials for the students as additional tools in the learning process.
2.
Using: Candidates
demonstrate the ability to select and use technological resources and processes
to support student learning and to enhance their pedagogy.
Artifacts: My two
projects, building a mobile learning lesson and jigsaw lesson plan are the two
projects used to demonstrate my growth in selecting and using technological
resources to support students’ knowledge. Both lessons were created using HTML
and CSS coding in EDTECH 502. Beyond learning how to code the websites
themselves, we were tasked with using HTML and web page construction to build
and support learning processes. The mobile learning lesson was based on a marketing
class I was teaching. The students were
to follow a set of guidelines and different internet locations through the website
to find marketing campaigns. Then, using only their phones they were to create
their own marketing campaign. This
enabled students to use the technology that they have brought with them. The
power of mobile learning for this project was the personalized use of the assignment.
I found during this project that personalization plays an important role in
mobile learning. As Prema Nedungadi and Raghu Raman(2012) writes, “mobile
devices allow students to seamlessly switch
between forms of learning. Mobile
learning was individualized and adds flexibility to the classroom” (Nedungadi
and Raman, 2012).
In my class
one student accessed the website and found a old nike campaign. Using the
support from the mobile website that student then created a short Iphone video
based on this historic nike campaign. The assignment demonstrated the students
ability to use their mobile device as well as the website I created to enhance
their understanding of marketing campaigns as well as what goes into developing
new mobile focused commercials and advertisements.
The second project was a jigsaw lesson on
economics of wealth and exchange. In this project, I created a lesson and a web
page that tasked students with answering core economic concepts though
research. From there students have to click on attached links and take their
new found theory and decide which links and information best represent the
answer to the economic concept they just learned. The jigsaw approach to
finding their answers and then having to fully understand that answer in a
broader stoke by attaching it to the information found on three different links
helped enhance their pedagogy. This is because it takes a full understanding of
the concept in order to be able to recognize it in the information associated
with the links.
3.
Assessing/Evaluating:
Candidates demonstrate the ability to assess and evaluate the effective
integration of appropriate technologies and instructional materials.
Artifacts: For this artifact, I associated two assessment
and evaluation projects. The first project from EDTECH 501 demonstrates my ability to
assess and define the meaning of educational technology. I was tasked to research
and create a definition of Education Technology. One such definition we studied
was “Educational technology is the study and ethical practice of
facilitating learning and improving performance by creating, using, and
managing appropriate technological processes and resources”. (Association for Educational Communications and Technology,
2004). This assignment gravitated naturally
to an evaluative form of research. From this evaluation, I was able to
distinguish three elements. Those elements “study”, “improving” and
“performance” helped assess whether or not a more complete picture of education
technology was needed. I then choose one of those elements to discuss further
for the assignment. I choose the element “study” and evaluated its importance
to the definition of educational technology. Upon evaluation of this concept comparing what
I have learned to numerous classroom management and activities I was currently
engaging in, I was able to connect the theory to my economics classroom. The great depression is a defining moment in not only our
history, but also in the economics field itself. Without this study and
research, post-classical economics and our modern-day economy would be
virtually nonexistent, or prone to more great depressions should similar
conditions and events happen again. Knowing the importance of an element
and its sub-elements like “study” for me makes it one of the most significant
aspects when defining educational technology, for not only its successes and
opportunities, but also potential weaknesses and threats. This thought
puts the perspective of defining Education Technology into a meaningful purpose
for me. Prior to this research I was using
technology in the classroom based on necessity and not structured around the
assessment and evaluation of the “why” in its use. For example I was using an
investment game in my finance class as a source of breaking up lectures. From
this assignment I determined the importance of sitting down and deciding why I
was using this in class, and why I should continue to use it. I then made an
effort to justify its use based on the assessment and evaluation of its
benefits for the students.
The second artifact was from my EDTECH
597 Blogging course. This assignment was to create a commentary blog. I chose
to review and evaluate the journal article “Using Technology to create a
Dynamic Classroom Experience” by Bari
Courts and Jan Tucker. The commentary tasked me to look at this article from a
neutral perspective and find elements I agreed and disagreed with. While writing the blog post was the key
element in this assignment, the assessment and evaluation came to a complete
circle when Dr. Barbour posed a question regarding my work. He asked me to dig deeper and on a larger
scale from what the writers were theorizing in their article. This challenged me to
evaluate on a deeper level for example at the end of this article I decided to
located and research more into the elements Courts and Tucker were describing.
I decided to pull more peer reviewed articles regarding this concepts and read
up on current trends that were detailed in the paper. From there I evaluated
this trending practices to my own classroom management and came up with
something troubling. My adjuncts and I were using technology just to use it and
without any form of student feedback to determine its effectiveness. I’m happy
that this was something I could bring to the attention of other instructors as
a professional growth moment for all of us. Dr. Barbours pushing to dig deeper
added to the true value to this assignment.
4.
Managing: Candidates
demonstrate the ability to effectively manage people, processes, physical
infrastructures, and financial resources to achieve predetermined goals.
Artifacts: To demonstrate
my mastery in the sub-standard “managing” I chose to include two artifacts. The
first project was in my EDTECH 597 Blogging course. We were tasked with
developing a blogging proposal for administrators. For this proposal to be successful,
we needed to address the people and processes involved in its success to our
administrators. I detailed the benefits of creating a blogging plan through
research and statements such as “The student who usually talks very loud in the
classroom and the student who is very timid have the same writing space to
voice their opinion. Teachers and students alike feel the benefits that make
blogging well worthwhile, if for no other reason than that blogs encourage
students to write”(Downes, 2004). I needed to demonstrate the ability to manage
the downfalls of blogging and so I created a campus liability and student
release form. This was a demonstration
of managing the blogging process successfully. I needed to detail the proposal in such a way
that made learning how to manage people, processes, and infrastructure a must
in order to be successful with this project as well as the real world
applications it had. From presenting to the administration my plan to detailing
its minimal budgetary constraints. The
true success was when administrators unanimously voted to adopt the blogging
policy for my economics class and opened the door to future plans involving
bloggings use.
The
second project I have listed was an evaluation project for EDTECH 505
Evaluation for Educators. This project
tasked me to master all the managing sub-standard skills. To be successful with
this project we needed to detail an evaluation process for Far West Laboratories.
In order for the project to be successful, we had to prove ourselves as a pretend
consulting company. The project itself did not come right out and say we have
to be effective at managing people, processes physical infrastructures, and
financial resources to achieve predetermined goals, but the success of the case
study problem hinged deeply on the mastery of all of those skills. From setting
up a budget where we could not exceed $50,000 dollars to establishing a strict timeline
for the evaluations success, our entire project was based on the mastery of our
managing skills from beginning to end.
5. Ethics:
Candidates demonstrate the contemporary professional ethics of the field as
defined and developed by the Association for educational communications and
Technology.
Artifacts: These two artifacts tackle the AECT standards of
ethics by detailing a Netiquette policy and positive digital footprint
developments. The first project about Netiquette was developed to pertain to
our student body. The netiquette rules
were written for all students who will one day become professionals in their
respective career choices. I developed
this web page to teach students the importance of understanding what netiquette
is and what it has to do with their career goals. This not only was a web page to explain how
our actions on-line should be no different from our professional actions in person,
but it also served as a great reminder to my how important professionalism in
all aspects of our life is. The mastery
of this project came when deciding what quick tips to provide the students as
well as demonstrating the contemporary professional ethics within our fiel. Through
this research, I found some of the most important tips for netiquette that I
could share with my students.
The second project dealt with creating
a positive digital citizenship and the ethics that surround our online
personalities. Much like the netiquette project the details in providing
students with an ethical outline for conducting their online presence was a
power reminder for both them and me. This project tasked us to research and create
a presentation that tackled all aspects of our digital footprint. One of the
way I found to portray the ethical professional on line was using web 2.0
tools.
"When you create links
of your posts or website or blog, you publicize yourself online, thereby
spreading your digital footprint. When you comment on any other post, you could
link you name to another forum or blog where your name appears. This spreads your
digital footprint like magic”(Nneka, 2012).
Sharing this research with my students along with the theory
behind creating a positive digital footprint helped future career professionals
understand its importance.
Standard 2: Content Pedagogy
The AECT standard for content pedagogy requires
candidates develop as reflective practitioners able to demonstrate effective
implementation of educational technologies and processes based on contemporary
content and pedagogy. Below are the indicators as well as the artifacts
associated with standard 2: content pedagogy.
Artifacts
|
Brief
Description
|
This
project piece required students to create a webquest that can be used in our
professional careers. A webquest is an
inquiry-oriented lesson format where students take to the web to find the
answers to your questions and move the lesson forward. This project tasked us
to create a multiple webpage lesson using HTML/CSS as well as a real world
example of the lesson we would use in the webquest. The webquest that I created was an
economics lesson that involved blogging current events.
|
|
This
project asked students to explore simulation games and their relevance (if
any) to education. It tasked us to think about education and simulation games
to come up with any similarities or differences. I reflected on simulation
games that can be used in the classroom such as Stock Market simulators or
small business simulators students can play to enhance learning of the
concepts through safe practice.
|
|
This
assignment tasked students with evaluating and researching different ways
schools are using social media in projects and lessons. We were then apply
the knowledge to the program Storify.
The idea was to find different schools using social media analyze and
adopt ways we could use social media in our own professions through this
research.
|
|
The
Communities of Play reflection assignment asked students to read and reflect
on what communities of play meant to our professional and personal
experiences. We were then to create an expression of our thoughts in a video
reflection or animation. The reading
correlated with a lot of classroom dynamic issues I was currently facing and
served as a good base to help solve these issues.
|
|
For
this assignment students needed to interpret and reflect on the thoughts
surrounding the theory of “blowing up the gradebook”. Students were to summarize and translate
the idea to whether or not it was a good pedagogical approach or whether or
not there was consensus enough for this to be a valid theory for educational
use.
|
|
This
assignment tasked students with evaluating narrative in games for educational
purposes. Students needed to construct ideas on how to associate narrative in
games for educational purposes. The
evaluation of narrative games was to find if we could associate educational purposing
through the idea narrative in games represent. You were tasked with
reflecting on your thoughts by providing research and supporting information.
|
|
This
lesson-tasked student with focusing on a social media platform and explaining
its educational purposes as well as how we use or would use it in our
classroom.
|
|
For
this project, students were to produce a two-month blogging plan that would
detail how we were going to use blogging in our professional lives. The plan was to be a detailed synopsis of
how we are going to use what we learned in EDTECH 597 blogging to benefit or
add value to our students learning experience in the real world.
|
|
This
project asked students to read and analyze the 2013 ICT report. The focus was
on the digital divide and digital inequality.
After reading and identifying what the information means and
represents to us, we were to create a voice thread presentation explaining
what we took away from the project. In this assignment, I was able to view my
current location and student demographics in a new light that allowed for a
clearer representation of the difficulties they face.
|
|
For
this assignment, students were asked to provide a blog post commentary
regarding an academic article. The
commentary I choose was Using technology to Create a Dynamic Classroom
Experience. In this article and assignment, we reflected on the research and
ethics surrounding technology use in the classroom. The article represented
the positives in creating a dynamic experience for students using technology.
|
Indicators:
1.
Creating:
Candidates apply content pedagogy to create appropriate applications of
processes and technologies to improve learning and performance outcomes.
Artifact:
The artifact used to demonstrates this indicator is the EDTECH 502 WebQuest
project. This project demonstrates not only my ability to create an HTML/CSS
webpage for educational purposes, but also demonstrates the creation of
appropriate applications of process and technologies through the use of web
page building for student lessons. The project tasked students with taking on a
quest with different stops and tasks to complete. The students were to visit
the webpage dedicated to blogging current events for an introduction to
economics class. They were then to work through the introduction, task,
process, evaluation, and conclusion tabs. These sections introduced and
challenged the students to finish the assignment by using the webpage
resources. There was also a section created and dedicated to teachers. This
page detailed the lesson plan regarding blogging and economics that follows the
web quest format. The project tasked me
with developing an outcome to our current events learning objective that is
standard for my schools ECON101 class in the syllabi.
2.
Using:
Candidates implement appropriate educational technologies and processes based
on appropriate content pedagogy.
Artifacts: One of the core
values I have learned in my time as an EDTECH student was not to use technology
for the sake of using technology in the classroom. The idea of appropriate educational
technologies came from research and theory to support why we are using what we
were learning in our own class experiences.
This is one of the reasons I choose to use the EDTECH 532 Simulation in
Education project. For this project it may have been easy to just say “yes,
education and simulation games go hand in hand”, but that wouldn’t be a good
enough reason to use simulation games in the classroom. Using the right simulation game for the right
class is a key component to understand the appropriateness of education
technologies for learning outcomes. One challenge I was faced with was choosing
the right simulation game for my business classes to compare as being
educationally appropriate. During the research portion of this assignment, I
found how Jeremy Hall(1996) describes business simulations:
These
simulations involve modelling all or most business functions (marketing,
finance,
operations and R
& D) and are often described under the blanket category of "total
enterprise"
simulations or management or business games. They date back to 1957
when a group at
the Rand Corporation (Bellman et al, 1957) created what is perhaps
the first
computerized business game (simulation).(Hall 1996)
This solidified that the idea of using simulation
games for educational purposes has been tested and approved for years or at
least since 1957. After doing the research and exploring the simulation genre,
I wrote into our small business class the www.thesmallbusinessgame.co.nz.
This is a small business simulation game that gives the students an incredible
perspective on some of the difficulties a small business owner faces in a
fast-paced environment. The reception and student achievement through using
this medium was a great success.
The second artifact I want to include was my project
titled: Learning, Ideas, and applications about using social media in my
teaching through project research. The central theme around this project was to
research and judge the effectiveness of using social media for classroom use.
The brilliant part about this assignment was not just to research the different
ways other educators are using social media, but also to build our own
assignments for the classes we teach around some of their ideas. The project I found and used as inspiration
was a digital portfolio project. I used this with my business students with
great success. It was the first time on our campus we started a positive
digital footprint process with the students. This was a great success because
the career services director saw a positive change in the way our students
began conducting their online profiles. This helped create the appropriate
content pedagogy.
3.
Assessing/evaluating: Candidates demonstrate an inquiry process
that assesses the adequacy of learning and evaluates the instruction and
implementation of educational technologies and processes grounded in reflective
practice.
Artifacts:
The
first artifact I chose was a reflection project on Communities of Play: Play
ecosystems. This reflection was made even more challenging by having to create
a video representation of our reflection. This reflection did lend itself to
some important insights to a classroom dynamic problem I was facing. Much like
play ecosystems I was able to distinguish personality types along with play
style that was happening in my class from a student perspective and not just a
“player” perspective. I was also able to distinguish what the author wrote
about in the assignment piece detailing the changes in cinema and movies to
mean similar theory and practice changes in the world of instructional design.
With this reflection, I was able to tie key components we find in Communities
of play to similar components in successful instructional design and classroom
management.
The
next artifact was a reflection on what it could mean to education and educators
if we were to “blow up the gradebook” as Dr. Haskell lectures on. While a moving and an inspiring idea, I
challenged the readiness of some educators to do such a thing and the repercussions
this could have on equity in education. The equity in education produces.
According to the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, equity
in education has two dimensions.
The first is fairness,
which basically means making sure that personal and social circumstances-for
example gender, socio-economic status or ethnic origin-should not be an
obstacle to achieving educational potential. The second is inclusion, in other
words ensuring a basic minimum standard of education for all- for example that
everyone should be able to read, write and do simple arithmetic (Field, 2007,
P.2).
Upon reflection of the difficulties facing
educational equity, ideas like blowing up the gradebook make sense on a larger
scale. With a system that already has it share of breakdowns ideas like blowing
up the grade book may at first seem radical. Through the research and
evaluation of these ideas, backed by some of the more frustrating breakdowns in
education, I was able to draw meaning parallels to fixing some of those
problems by incorporating some of the ideals brought up in blowing up the grade
book. “We’ve
grown up in a system that urges us to believe that some kids are smarter than
others and that somehow we can accurately sort this out” (Fisher, 2004, P.1).
Through reflecting on Dr. Haskell’s theory, I was able to establish meaningful
takeaways in a new way of educating and course management.
The third reflective project that I feel shows my
mastery in assessing adequacy of learning and implementation in reflective
practices is a reflection project on narrative in games. This project tasked us
with exploring a game and its narrative. The overarching theme was if these
narratives have any bearing in the education world much like movies or books
are used. The idea to draw this connection started with focusing on the research,
which lead to the ongoing debate between Ludologists and Narratologists. This
was to accurately be able to create where I fell and the connections I could
make in my own education as well as teaching based on both parties beliefs. As
I began to unravel narrative in games for education purposes, one quote really
stuck with me through the use of games for educational purposes. The idea was
the power of the narrative and storytelling. As Henry Jenkins says “If some
games tell stories, they are unlikely to tell them in the same ways that other
media tell stories”. (Jenkins, 2004) One takeaway I found from that statement
was in an ethics and leadership class. I used this research and the idea of
games telling story differently than movies and books and allowed my class to
play through a section of the walking dead game. This was a section where
players were given a difficult choice. The class had to explain why they
choose the way they did. The discussion surrounding this was an excellent
teachable moment that students felt engaged in because that had to actually
play through.
4. Managing: Candidates manage appropriate technological
processes and resources to provide supportive learning communities, create
flexible and diverse learning environments, and develop and demonstrate
appropriate content pedagogy.
Artifacts: The first artifact that demonstrates using
resources to provide supportive learning communities and flexibility is a
project dedicated to detailing using YouTube as a growing educational tool.
This assignment tasked me to write a brief lesson plan explaining to students
the beginning steps to creating and searching through YouTube. YouTube within
the right educational contexts creates a diverse learning environment. In order to make the most of this environment
I then created a lesson plan to use with students to help them explore YouTube
and find economics videos to help in their own lessons. The students were then to embed the YouTube
videos they found into their blog. By leaving comments within the video or blog,
students were engaging in new types of supportive learning communities. Finally, to demonstrate this as appropriate
pedagogy the students themselves were to reflect by making a YouTube video
about using YouTube in the class. The reflections were positive and students
explained it was a nice change of pace from a traditional economics class.
The second artifact details a two-month personal
blogging plan to use within our own professional career. This project allowed
me to continue to manage and understand the technology and educational
resources blogging can provide. By
creating this plan, I was able to work blogging into all my classes as an
appropriate source of information that creates a flexible and diverse learning
environment. Instead of bringing in newspaper, articles or links to marketing
videos my class was able to have a blog to share and discuss these same
elements.
5. Ethics:
Candidates design and select media, technology, and processes that emphasize
the diversity of our society as a multicultural community.
Artifacts: One of the foundations
of using technology is having access to what is required in order to use it for
educational or personal purposes. When discussing student success and achieving
a more varied instructional design approach that includes the options for
technological tools we cannot forget that a digital divide exists that
prohibits some students in socio-economic classes from gaining access to some
educational technology tools. A project that shed light on this problem that
emphasizes the diversity of our society as a multicultural community was the
EDTECH 501 Digital Divide and Digital Inequality project. This topic has been in debate at my school
because some feel that mandating a introduction to computers class for all
students their first semester seems to make sense while others fear it will
segregate some students who cannot afford Microsoft office on top of their
other first semester books and programs.
For this assignment, I focused on my non-traditional student population
as a focal point for inequality. I explained in voice thread the sense of
unpreparedness students feel their first semester because of computer and
technology integration. To demonstrate
the ethics that emphasize diversity and processes that promote that diversity I
detailed a two-part solution to combating this inequality for new students. The
first part was to add tutoring and workshop resources for computer and
technology basics free of charge. The
second part would be class scheduling so that their classes were not all technology
or computer based right from the start.
The second artifact I used was again the project
from EDTECH 597 titled using technology to create a dynamic classroom
experience. This project as I spoke about before focused on creating dynamic
environments through the design and selection of media and technology that
could reach students from all populations.
The article and reflection focused on using technology in class as an
alternative learning tool instead of expecting the students to have access to
technology at home. The ideals in this
paper spoke about how students who are hands-on learners can benefit from the
selection of appropriate media and technology.
Standard 3: Learning Environments
The AECT standard for learning environments looks
for candidates to demonstrate the facilitation of learning by creating, using,
evaluating and managing effective learning environments. The projects used are all examples of
standard 3 with a focus on the indicators for learning environments. Below are
the indicators as well as the artifacts associated with standard 3: learning
environments.
Artifacts
|
Brief
Description
|
This
project was a comprehensive final project that took all aspects of our
instructional design course and merged them with a real world practical
instructional design project. I choose to design a Retention course. The
project included a variety of ID models, assessments and structure. After
completing this project I had a more complete view of the approach designers
must take in order to ensure success.
|
|
For
this project we were challenged to research and find pre-existing learning
theories and mash them together to create our own new theory based on what
mattered to us from the theories we’ve found. This project required students
to take an analytical and subjective approach to the different learning
theories that exist while trying to create a new theory that meant something
to our professional lives.
|
|
This
assignment discussed gamifiying education and asked students to defend,
discuss, challenge, or criticize what
gaming in education can or cannot do. The idea was to then reflect and write
upon our thoughts and illustrations by talking about what is important to
remember when gamifiying education.
|
|
For
this assignment, students watched a Ted Talk lecture about 7 ways video games
engage the brain. Students were to share the psychological effects they
learned about in a reflection and make meaning out of it in their own
personal professional lives for education purposes. Students wrote a
reflection on the points of emphasis that can be used in the education
industry or mattered to us in our personal lives.
|
|
As
part of the overall Instructional Design project students were takes with
learning and researching John Keller’s Motivational Categories of the ARCS
model. After learning about the categories and subcategories, students then
wrote out their own instructional design process for their project idea and
class or workshop in the process questions table in the ARCS model. The
information had to be directly related to your project with real world
application as well as satisfy both the sub and regular categories such as
perceptual arousal, variability all the way to natural consequences and
equity. The justification for why you choose to include certain aspects of
information and instruction within your project had to help satisfy the ARCS
model process.
|
|
This
assignment was associated with the larger overall final project for EDTECH
505 Evaluation for Educators. We were tasked to create realistically
applicable evaluation sheets to be used in our final project. The evaluation
had to make sense in the overall scheme of your project and add value to your
evaluation. This demonstrates the use
of evaluation for the final project as well as using google docs to create
evaluative forms such as learning observations, interview questionnaires, and
Range evaluations.
|
|
This
project tasked students to define technology use planning and read the
National Educational Technology plan 2010. From there we were tasked with
sharing our thoughts on the research by answering whether or not we agree
with certain sections of the plan. We also were tasked with interpreting the
plans comments such as “effective technology plans focus on applications not
technology”.Finally the assignment asked students to reflect on their
personal and professional endeavors to
share their experiences with technology use planning and the outcome.
|
|
The
school evaluation summary asked us to conduct a Maturity Benchmark survey and
evaluation summary for our current employers. After conducting the research
to how we felt technology was being implemented in our companies or schools
we were then to reflect on the findings. This project took the theory we were
working with technology and immediately but a real world application spin on
it that mattered in my professional life. It was a very rewarding project
that shed light not only for me but the administrators I shared it with.
|
|
This
project was to apply our HTML and CSS coding skills to a website that focused
on informing an audience about Web Accessibility.We needed to research what
web accessibility was along with what assisted technology was. From there we
were to come up with a set of links to include in our website. On top of
demonstrating the research and knowledge, we were asked to create the HTML
and CSS coding in a web accessible form.
|
|
The
copyright project tasked students with informing an audience about what
copyrighting is. In order to do this we were to create a webpage that acted
as a scavenger hunt hub for a student activity. We were to create a location
that was important to learning about copywriting and then create questions
associated with that webpage. By the end of creating this activity as well as
the webpage, we came away with a better understanding of copyrighting.
|
|
The
gaming info graphic reflection was an assignment that had us read a well
created data graphic and reflect on it.We were to leave a blog posting about
where our personal life story intersects with the infographics history and
what, if any, ideas it triggered concerning the game concept we were
developing as a project for the class.
|
Indicators:
1. Creating: Candidates create
instructional design products based on learning principles and research-based
best practices.
Artifacts:
One of the best artifacts that demonstrate
mastery in the standard 3-creating indicator would be my EDTECH 503
Instructional design final project. This
project blended research, learning principles, and processes in order for us to
create an instructional design product that could be used in a real world
application. The project I undertook was a staff development program called
“retention for student success.” In this project as you can see I detailed
process, analysis, planning, learning principles, evaluation, research, and
outcomes modeled after real world data.
The second artifact I used for this sub-indicator
was a project where the students were asked to create a mash-up learning
theory. While the first artifact tasked us to create an instructional design product
that was a realistic representation of something we would use in our
professional career, this project was a little more conceptual. The mastery for
this project came from the amount of research we needed to dive into in order
to create a mash-up learning theory.
Once we found the corresponding research, we were then tasked to create
our own mash up learning principle. This mash up was an instructional design
product that satisfied both the creation of a artifact based on learning
principle and research-based practices.
2. Using: Candidates make
professionally sound decisions in selecting appropriate processes and resources
to provide optimal conditions for learning based on principles, theories, and
effective practices.
Artifacts: The research portion of
our classes made sure we were selecting what we felt was appropriate resources
and processes in order to make sound decisions. Before tackling gaming in
education one project that challenged me to understand theory and principle
behind gamifiying education was a project in EDTECH 532. That project title was
“What is important to remember when gamifiying education”. Before this research and reflection into the
world of gamification for educational purposes, I am sure I would have
misunderstood the learning purpose that supports this learning model. After this project and associated video clip,
I felt more confident in understanding the effectiveness in gamification.
Through this research and my own learning I came away with a new philosophy
that detailed one of the most important aspects to remember when gamifiying
education. For me that is to remember
the outcomes should always be the persistent reasoning for gamification. Those
passionate about gamification as a learning model all seem to share this
feeling of importance. This signals to me I will have made gamification in my
class not out of novelty but out of sound decision making in the positive
outcome for my students through its use.
The mastery for me came upon my own a-ha moment when the final takeaway
from this assignment was that no matter what I do in the classroom with
gamification or any learning theory it should have purpose, outcome and draw
meaning.
My second artifact continues this self-realization
on purpose, outcome and meaning through a reflection on educational
gaming. Both of these projects allowed
me to reflect and build my own personal education philosophy through theory and
principles surrounding gaming in education. This assignment or quest asked me
to watch Tom Chatfield’s 7 ways video games engage the brain. This was the first assignment I started to
draw correlations between game design success and instructional design
success. I also began to adopt the power
of a reward-based environment for the classroom. The mastery came from
connecting these principals to social constructivism where I started connecting
optimal conditions for learning and the power of game design principals in
instructional design and the classroom.
3. Assessing/Evaluating:
Candidates use multiple assessment strategies to collect data for informing
decisions to improve instructional practice, learner outcomes, and the learning
environment.
Artifacts:
The first project that demonstrates my mastery
in using multiple assessment strategies is from EDTECH 503. It is the ARCS
table assignment that has assessment and data collection at its core. While almost every project in the program had
an assessment and data driven component, the ARCS table tasked me with taking
assessment and data and finding meaning in that information. Once we found the meaning,
we were to detail why we would include this information into our final
Instructional Design project. The final
Instructional Design project could not have been completed or successful without
the proper use of multiple assessment strategies and data collection in order
to improve the practice, outcome and learning of both the learner and
environment.
The second artifact I would like to include comes
from EDTECH 505’s final project. This
final project had a significant data collection portion. The importance in
forming a full circle evaluation cannot be properly implemented if it does not
include accurate and appropriate data collections. In order to create and track this data. we
needed to create various assessment and collection material both formative and
summative. As you can see from the
artifact, I needed to create various interview questions, observation sheets,
and other data collection tools in order to ensure my project was grounded in
the real world.
4. Managing:
Candidates establish mechanisms for maintaining the technology infrastructure
to improve learning and performance.
Artifacts: For this indicator I chose the projects from
EDTECH 501 that helped establish whether or not my campus had an appropriate
infrastructure and whether or not that was helping or hurting my student
population. It was important to
establish what benchmarks existed in the education industry when talking about
technology use and it is planning. The technology use planning overview
assignment and school evaluation summary gave me incredible insight into this
by having us read the national educational technology plan. This plan and program helped paint the
picture of where my campus was falling behind and where it was meeting or
exceeding expectations. Before the
summary, we familiarized ourselves with the government’s plan for technology
integration. After reading the plan we
were asked how this might be an effective and powerful resources for technology
use planning. I found during this project I agreed with the
statement, "For every, what should I do? a
teacher must ask, "Why Should I do it?" technology use in the
classroom is no exception, (Shoffner, 2007). This question established the need for mechanisms and
for maintain technology infrastructure, which the school evaluation summary
helped put into action. By reaching out to my campus stakeholders involved in
our day-to-day operations I was able to gain a clear understanding of what goes
into our technology department and the IT infrastructure that leads to our
operations. I was able to establish this both from a budgetary and user stand
point, both of which helped in my overall understanding of what it takes to run
a campus. Completing the maturity
benchmark survey and school evaluation summary demonstrates my competence in
creating and maintaining technology infrastructure to improve learning and
performance at my campus.
5.
Ethics:
Candidates foster a learning environment in which ethics guide practice that
promotes health, safety, best practice, and respect for copyright, fair use,
and appropriate open access to resources.
Artifacts:
The artifacts I will use to demonstrate my
mastery of the Ethics sub indicator for Standard 3 are two projects from EDTECH
502. The first is the web accessibility project. This project focused on
creating an assisted technology overview that focused on the ADA and equal
protection and access to public accommodations for people with a variety of
disabilities. This website demonstrated
my ethical approach to being a proactive contributor to helping those students
who would need this type of technology and assistive technology in order for
them to achieve success. The open access assisted technology resources allow
those with varying disabilities to use tools that can help in their success.
The second project was designed for student us in
learning about copyrighting and raising awareness around fair use and
copyright. The video embedded is a Fair(y) use tale that shows students the
importance of fair use. The project not only was informative about copyright
and fair use but also included a treasure hunt surrounding different
information sources on the web about copyrighting. This treasure hunt was an
interactive approach to answering important questions about international
copyright law, the 1976 copyright act and other issues surrounding fair
use. The entire website and project
through its creation to real world application was to ensure my mastery in the
ethics surrounding best practices in copyright and fair use.
6. Diversity
of Learners: Candidates foster a learning community that empowers learners with
diverse backgrounds, characteristics and abilities.
Artifacts: The artifact I choose is
a project that focuses on the potential using video games in the classroom
could have on reaching students with different characteristics, backgrounds and
abilities in order to empower them as learners.
This was a project where I wrote a reflection on a gaming infographic.
The idea of using games in education reaches all learning styles through
narrative, hand-on, and visual applications.
These alone foster a learning community that promotes the diversity of
learners sub indicator. The reflection on this assignment led me to research
and understand the power of gaming to create collaboration, achievement, and
epic meaning for students. If not every
student were to benefit from gaming I found myself asking what if that “one” student who wouldn’t “get” the subject any other way managed
to have an A-HA moment while playing a game. I thought to myself after
reflecting on this infographic for assignment that can be a powerful way to
empower learners with diverse backgrounds, characteristics and abilities.
Standard 4: Professional Knowledge and Skills
The AECT standard for professional knowledge and
skills requires candidates to collaborate with their peers and subject matter
experts to analyze learners, develop and design instruction, and evaluate its
impact on learners. Below you will find the indicators along with the projects
associated with standard 4: professional knowledge and skills.
Artifacts
|
Brief
Description
|
The
Real Time and Live Virtual Professional Development project was assigned to
give students a chance to experience the power of social media and technology
as professional development tools used to network with subject matter experts
in our field using social media platforms. We were to attend live twitter
sessions and webinars and reflect on our experiences and the justification
for using these mediums as professional development.
|
|
The
Jamestown versus Roanoke assignment was based on a live virtual class meeting
we had attended the Tuesday before this assignment was due. In this class, the students were broken
into two sections Jamestown and Roanoke. After an introduction and history
about both Jamestown and Roanoke we were then tasked with playing the role of
settler in Minecraft to experience the lives of those we have just read about
in history. The reflection tasked us to make sense of virtual worlds being
used in this way to teach history lesson plans and what we took away from the
experiences. To me it was one of the many great memories and assignments we
had.
|
|
This
project was a comprehensive project that tasked the students with building a
lesson plan around a game activity and theory we learned in class. From there
we were to reflect on this experience and create blog post as well as a 20-minute
lesson plan to be shared via google hangout with our class or in second life.
The project I choose was to create an open source website funded through
kickstarter that housed a mass database of board, commercial, indie, console,
handled, and PC games with attached lesson plans for teachers to use.
|
|
The
blog list assignment was to create a list within the blogging platform. It
was our choice as what to include in our lists. I choose to create a list of
applications that could benefit instructors and teachers for classroom to
productivity purposes.
|
|
The
media review assignment was a comprehensive overview of all reading and
course work in a reflective 33-slide power point. We were tasked with
tackling questions posed throughout the course and provide a visual
representation of that theory. A difficult but powerful assignment that took
theory and practicality in our real lives and challenged us the students to
provide a visual representation.
|
|
This
reflection assignment was part of a larger class project where students were
tasked with creating a game for educational purposes using a program called
sploder. We were to become comfortable with the game design aspects and then
create the game with educational purpose in mind. I then reflected on the instructional
design and application that went into creating a game for educational
purposes. I choose to use this game as an actual economics class lesson. It
had real world practicality and taught us a lot about not just game
development but how we can tackle classroom engagement and design.
|
|
This
final assignment in EDTECH 543 was create an assessment and evaluation
through reflection of the entire course.
The project was to cover our professional and personal growth through
the semester with using social media as a tool to enhance our professional
careers and growth in the classroom and with students.
|
|
A
comprehensive final project for EDTECH 505 students demonstrated the
planning, detail, theory, and application being a successful evaluator
requires. The project covered an extensive scope of evaluation theory and
practical use within our industry. Students were tasked with forming and
executing an evaluation on a real world project or professional situation that
needed to be evaluated. From beginning to end, the entire project covered an
entire semesters worth of work and real world use for the evaluation.
|
|
The
Real Time and Live Virtual Professional Development project was assigned to
give students a chance to experience the power of social media and technology
as professional development tools used to network with subject matter experts
in our field using social media platforms.
We were to attend live twitter sessions and webinars and reflect on
our experiences and the justification for using these mediums as professional
development.
|
|
This
project was to apply our HTML and CSS coding skills to a website that focused
on informing an audience about Web Accessibility. We needed to research what web
accessibility was along with what assisted technology was. From there we were to come up with a set of
links to include in our website. On top of demonstrating the research and
knowledge, we were asked to create the HTML and CSS coding in a web
accessible form.
|
|
EDTECH
501: Digital Divide and Digital Inequality
|
This
project asked students to read and analyze the 2013 ICT report. The focus was
on the digital divide and digital inequality.
After reading and identifying what the information means and
represents to us, we were to create a voice thread presentation explaining
what we took away from the project. In this assignment, I was able to view my
current location and student demographics in a new light that allowed for a
clearer representation of the difficulties they face.
|
For
this assignment, students were asked to provide a blog post commentary regarding
an academic article. The commentary I
choose was Using technology to Create a Dynamic Classroom Experience. In this
article and assignment, we reflected on the research and ethics surrounding
technology use in the classroom. The article represented the positives in
creating a dynamic experience for students using technology.
|
|
For
the Netiquette project students were tasked with creating a website through
HTML and CSS coding to display the ethics surrounding online conduct and
professional online etiquette
|
|
Students
needed to research, create and assess what it takes to maintain and manage a
positive digital footprint. This was to be adopted as an assignment that can
be shared with our students to inform them of the importance our digital presence
for professional career growth.
|
Indicators:
1. Collaborative
Practice: Candidates collaborate with their peers and subject matter experts to
analyze learners, develop and design instruction, and evaluate its impact on
learners.
Artifact: One project that forced me out of my comfort
zone and into the world of social collaboration was my EDTECH 543 Real Time and
Live Virtual Professional Development.
This was my first experience with the vast world of social media
collaboration amongst educators. The first collaborative environment was a
scheduled twitter hangout and chat. The #connectED twitter chat brought
together teachers, administrators, and subject matter experts for two hours to
discuss current trends in learning, instructional design and evaluation. From there I found the #edctechchat which is
a chat I still frequent. Here subject matter experts from around the world
participate in a theme based discussion every week. In the #edtechchat I was surrounded by
knowledgeable experts that brought to light trends in education
technology. From autonomous professional
growth, BYOD, growing PLN’s, curation, collaboration, and using social media to
connect, I entered a world where the power of social media brought some truly
inspiring experts together to share their thoughts. After reflecting on the power of twitter as a
collaborative tool, I was then asked for the assignment to participate in
webinars to enhance our professional growth.
The webinars I participated in and reflected about in this assignment
were Bring your own Device, Anchor standards and common cores, and Strategies
for mobile selection. The webinars
themselves were not didactic they actually involved a heavy engagement from
viewers in the chat window. This collaboration left me with weekly professional
growth opportunities that have helped enhance my own personal career goals.
The second project I choose for collaborative
practice was a hands-on assignment where
collaboration was a focal point for us
as the students. The end goal for this project was to experience the power of
collaboration in a virtual world so that we can better evaluate its impact on
learners. The project took place in Minecraft.
The virtual space of Minecraft was made to resemble colonial Jamestown and
Roanoke. The central theme was for us the students to be dropped in one of the
location and survive together. Victory
came to those who collaborated and worked together. After this class we
reflected about what it meant to collaborate and what was different from real
and virtual space on the impact of learning.
We were exposed to a different type of instructional design during this
lesson that opened my eyes to the power of a alternative learning environment
such as Minecraft. Since this incredible project, I have since adjusted our
design approach in management class to reflect the collaborative projects Minecraft
can offer.
2.
Leadership:
Candidates lead their peers in designing and implementing technology-supported
learning.
Artifacts:
The project I choose for leadership was my
final project in EDTECH 532. For this project, I created a website that is
dedicated to open source lesson plans surrounding PC, mobile, console, and
board games. The website has tabs where instructors can submit their lesson
plan idea as well as an area to view all games with attached lesson plans for
open source use. I created this website with the idea to help spread the power
of game play in education to my peers to help in implementing technology
supported learning. For the reflection
of this assignment, I focused on explaining why 21st century
educators need to work together in order to make technology a valuable tool in
education.
The second project I wanted to use was a simple list
project we needed to do in my EDTECH 597 blogging class. This assignment was to get us use to the
blogging platform and using web supported material to reach our reading
audience. The list I decided to make was for my peers to help in designing and
implementing technology supported learning. I did this by making a
comprehensive list of applications and programs that make design and
implementation easier to do. From Evernote to Dropbox, the list featured ideas
for creating lesson plans and managing classroom.
3.
Reflection
on Practice: Candidates analyze and interpret data and artifacts and reflect on
the effectiveness of the design, development and implementation of
technology-supported instruction and learning to enhance their professional
growth
Artifacts: The first project I choose for sub indicator 3
in standard for was my EDTECH 505 media review quiz. This was a thirty-three
slide reflection on the course and corresponding textbook chapters. In order to fully grasp the concepts and
reflect on an analytical level, we were to choose a corresponding visual and
then answer the question as well as explain why we chose the visual. This type
of reflection and assignment challenged me to understand the concepts from a
deeper level. Rather than reflecting simply in words, the challenge of finding
the appropriate visual put a lot of emphasis on full understanding. The reflection slide in the assignment summed
up what we covered so far. I took the most away from this assignment from having
to interpret data and artifact from an evaluation standpoint.
My next project I chose a reflection on a game we
created for EDTECH 532. This reflection
was different from my evaluation reflection because I was taking away how game
design and instructional design support similar goals and outcomes. In this reflection, I reflected on my first
experience developing effective design and implementation of technology
supported instruction. This was done throughout the power of creating a game to
play for educational purposes. Having to
think of the player and student outcome for the best possible scenario in the
classroom was a pivotal moment that enhanced my professional growth.
The last artifact I will use is my final course
reflection for EDTECH 543 Social Networking for educators. I think it is important to note, I was not an
avid social media contributor at the beginning of this course. I had to create
a Facebook account specifically for this class, and I was pretty much using
twitter the wrong way. I was an observer of social media instead of a
contributor. So what happened that made me a contributor? It was the ease of
having someone like our Professor and a course that showed you the professional
side of social media, and how it is relevant. This alone enhanced my own
professional growth where I now weekly contribute to professional social media.
4.
Assessing/Evaluating:
Candidates design and implement assessment and evaluation plans that align with
learning goals and instructional activities
Artifacts: One of the best examples of my master in
substandard 4 would be the entire EDTECH 505 final project. I was tasked with not only implementing
assessment and evaluation to align with learning goals, but I had to do it in a
real world scenario with my economics class. The fact that this final project
had to be rooted in an actual professional evaluation made it a perfect
artifact for this standard. The
evaluation planning process was a semesters worth of build up that led to a
comprehensive evaluation of gamifiying my economics class. The budget
assessment, student satisfaction assessments and evaluation led to a great
dialogue with my administrators over the possibility of adding new elements to
our syllabus and giving more instructors academic freedom.
The second artifact I used was my assessment and
evaluation of real time and virtual professional development. During this
assignment I evaluated the effectiveness of online professional growth and how
I could align seminars and twitter chats to classroom learning goals and
instructional activities. This
assessment was unquie because I have never before used social media in such a
context.
5.
Ethics:
Candidates demonstrate ethical behavior within the applicable cultural context
during all aspects of their work and with respect for the diversity of learners
in each setting.
Artifacts:
The
artifacts I’ve decided to use for this category all have ethical behavior
within the cultural context of learners using technology. The projects and
assignments I’ve decided to use cover web accessibility, the digital divide,
netiquette, and creating a positive digital footprint. The web accessibility
project allowed for the mastery to show the value in creating a web accessible
format for respect of the diversity of the learners especially those that fall
under ADA guidelines. The digital divide
assignment demonstrated my understanding of the importance for students to be
connected as well as the understanding for those students who are not connected
and what it means as an educator.
The next assignment details the appropriate use for
technology to create dynamic experience.
This assignment was a reflection on the power technology has to create a
diverse classroom. In this diverse classroom,
the respect for the diversity of learners is even more apparent. Using technology to reach students in a
variety of ways instead of didactic lectures was a meaningful takeaway. The netiquette project focused on ethical
behavior within cultural context. This project details what is appropriate and
inappropriate forms of online professionalism.
The positive digital footprint assignment covered similar issues of
appropriateness via students’ online profiles and social media. These assignments I feel are good indicators
of exploring and understanding our leadership and ethical role in the
classroom. “Educators are responsible
for serving as positive role models for students, not only in the physical
classroom but also in the digital world. This can be especially tough for
educators who use social media for both personal and professional
reasons”(Hewson, 2013)
Standard 5: Research
The AECT standard for research looks to make sure
candidates explore, evaluate, synthesize, and apply methods of inquiry to
enhance learning and improve performance. The assignments and projects
associated with this standard all have strong core components that focus on
research methodology and evaluation to improve learning and performance. Below you will find the indicators and
artifacts associated with standard 5: research.
Artifacts
|
Brief
Description
|
The
EdTech 504 learning theory paper tasked students with researching and
providing an overview for a major school of thought in learning. From there,
we were tasked with researching the theory, major tenants, contributors,
application and references.
|
|
For
this project we were challenged to research and find pre-existing learning
theories and mash them together to create our own new theory based on what
mattered to us from the theories we’ve found. This project required students
to take an analytical and subjective approach to the different learning
theories that exist while trying to create a new theory that meant something
to our professional lives.
|
|
This
EDTECH 503 assignment tasked students with researching instructional design
‘s history, models, and learning theories associated with the process. We
were to produce visual metaphors as well as explanations to major components
within instructional design.
|
|
| EDTECH 504: Research Paper |
The
final project for EDTECH 504 challenged students to research and write an
academic paper to be peer reviewed by fellow students. The paper should focus
on a major school of thought and supporting academic peer reviewed articles
to be used in your writing about the subject matter.
|
For
this EDTECh 532 assignment students were tasked with reflecting on a article
written about video game design psychology and technology in the guardian and
provide feedback about how this can
relate to video games in education. Through our reflection we were asked to
provide references to other articles we would use to provide support to our
opinion.
|
|
The
EDTECH 597 assignment “Blogging as Pedagogic Practice Thoughts” students were
to read Marcus O’Donnell’s article Blogging as a Pedagogic Practice: Artefact
and Ecology, and then share a reflective blog post regarding our takeaways
from the article. We were to provide reference to any outside material that
aided us in completion of the project as well as produce an in-depth
reflection about the reading and our thoughts for blogging as a pedagogic
practice.
|
|
The
goal of this assignment was to define play. The idea was to research and
theorize how we can define play and why it would benefit academia to have a
definition of play. We were to provide reference and research to support our
definition both modern and historic approaches.
|
|
The
EDTECH 543 social media policy project was to create a policy for our day
time profession if none exists. We were to research, plan, and evaluate
social media policies and then create a proposal for our school to follow.
|
|
The
EDTECH 504 annotated bibliography was to take a topic that interested us
individually along with major schools of learning theory and create an
annotated bibliography of peer reviewed journal articles that can be used to
challenge or support our original thesis on the topic.
|
|
Students
were tasked to research and define which elements from “The meaning of
Educational technology” are most important.
Students were to reflect which portions of the reading jumped out at
them and reflect on it further through research
|
|
Students
needed to research, create and assess what it takes to maintain and manage a
positive digital footprint. This was to be adopted as an assignment that can
be shared with our students to inform them of the importance our digital presence
for professional career growth.
|
Indicators:
1.
Theoretical
Foundations: Candidates demonstrate foundational knowledge of the contribution
of research to the past and current theory of educational communications and
technology.
Artifacts:
The first artifact I feel demonstrates my
foundational knowledge of the contribution of research to the past and current
theory of educational technology is a project in EDTECH 504. The learning
theory paper instructed us to provide an overview for a major school of thought
in learning. From there we were tasked with researching the theory, major
tenants, contributors, application, and references. I decided to overview social constructivism
theory under the constructivism school of thought. Another EDTECH 504 project that required an in-depth
look into the past and current research theory of education technology was our
final project. For this project, I choose to research the foundations of
connectivism, constructivism and social constructivism. I choose to research
any common links found to those theories and video games. During this project, the research portion was
the most critical part to a successful paper.
We needed to support and include all forms of relevant research that was
pertinent to our central theme and topic.
I feel that both EDTECH projects are key indicators
to this category but also included an assignment I used for another subcategory. The mash-up learning theory required an
extensive look into historical learning theories so that we could mash them up
and make our own. This led to research
spanning all timelines and disciplines in order to find a theory that was best
suited for our own educational theories.
2.
Method:
Candidates apply research methodologies to solve problems and enhance practice.
Artifacts: The first project I
choose for this category required the use of research to form an educated
opinion and enhance the practice of using video games for educational purposes.
Instead of being a weak sense, critical thinking after reading the article
about the seduction of video games we were research and apply our finding to a
critical reflection of why we felt the article was accurate or inaccurate. In the article, Keith Stuart supports that
games are effective because failure is okay. During my research I found a
similar notion in an article titled It’s
a Good Score! Just a Bad Grade (1989), where authors Canady and Hotchkiss
list twelve common problems with how student success is typically evaluated
including.
“Varying
grading scales, worshipping grade averages, failing to match testing and
teaching, ambushing students with pop quizzes, penalizing students for taking
risks, and inconsistent grading criteria. The writers suggest that if schools
are going to help the ever increasing number of at risk students there must be
greater emphasis on providing opportunities for students to succeed”(Canady
& Hotchkiss 1989).
Having to
find the research to support our opinion
taught me a valuable lesson in research methodologies to solve problems and
enhance my professional practice. Similarly,
to the seduction of video games assignment I chose to include my EDTECH 597
blogging as a pedagogic practice assignment, which challenged me to do the same
except instead of video games it was blogging for educational purposes. Again,
research played a pivotal role in forming accurate information that was both critical
in thought and research-backed judgment.
3.
Assessing/Evaluating:
Candidates apply formal inquiry strategies in assessing and evaluating
processes and resource for learning and performance.
Artifacts: The artifact I wanted
to use was from a reflection we were asked to write revolving around a class
session in a virtual world. This
reflection was all about defining play. I became a little obsessed with my
inability to pinpoint what about play was so intoxicating for those who participate
in it and how we could use this in the educational medium. In order to get to the bottom of defining
play I applied formal inquiry strategies in assessing and evaluating processes
and resources for learning and performance center around the theme of play.
This took me to some of the earliest theories of play and later what some have
still struggled to define. An example of
such inquiry I found was from John Huizinga who discussed a new understand of
play as an activity that exists only for its own sake.
“According to Huizinga, an activity is play if it is fully absorbing, includes elements of uncertainty, involves a sense of illusion or exaggeration, but most importantly, true play has to exist outside of ordinary life. I like this definition. Furthermore, I enjoyed the modern definition of play as being “characterized as a spontaneous, self-initiated, and self-regulated activity of young children, which is relatively risk free and not necessarily goal-oriented. Play is intrinsically motivated” (Verenikina, Harris,& Lysaght, 2003)
I used all my formal inquiry strategies to assess
and eventually define what play means to me in the educational world. This
definition adaptation was acceptable because I felt I gave the evaluation
process a significant amount of research and applied appropriate strategies such
as historical perspectives, two-sided research-based information, classical and
post classical theory for a successful definition.
4. Ethics:
Candidates conduct research and practice using accepted professional and
institutional guidelines and procedures
Artifacts: The first project that
demonstrated my mastery in the section 5 sub category Ethics is my project in
EDTECH 543 Social Media Policy. This
assignment was a social media policies proposal for the school I am employed
with. By writing this proposal, I needed
to research and execute guidelines that would be acceptable for policy and
procedures in a real world situation.
This policy was written through research and established my institutions
accepted professional and institutions guidelines and procedures regarding
social media.
The next project I choose demonstrates the use of
research to back acceptable guidelines in determining the appropriate tools to
be used in education. The tool I discuss for this project is video games.
Through this annotated bibliography, I attempt to validate games use as an
educational tool through research. By
creating this research-backed bibliography I am using accepted professional and
institutional guidelines to support opinion with applicable research and peer
reviewed journals that help support video games as ethical educational tools.
The final project for this category is a project
from EDTECH 543. This project focused on the creation of a positive digital
footprint. Through research and practice, I created a strategic benchmark for
students and professionals to follow. “By encouraging and supporting beginning
teachers in developing their own PLNs, schools, and districts can help them
forge their positive digital footprints as an educator, provide extensive
collaborative support and establish a rich source of ideas and professional
development during their first years in the classroom." ( Hewson
,2013) By following the research and
guidelines of positive online profiles, I was able to create an accepted ethical
institutional guideline for my own school.
Conclusion:
There was a point in time during my academic career
with Boise State that I would finish a project or assignment and immediately go
into my director of education and pitch an idea or introduce a new way to use
technology or apps. From the start of my
program to the end I have introduced the business department, IT department,
and early childhood education department to new ideas, learning environments and
resources. I have successfully implemented
Minecraft, blogging, gamification in economics class, condensed versions of
project based learning, quest based learning, and general provisions with
dealing with the digital divide. The
most amazing part of all of this was how showing research and projects we used
in class helped sell these ideas. I can say with confidence I received little
to no push back from these new invites as long as I was able to demonstrate
effectiveness and meaning in their use.
This was a strong reoccurring theme with all the discussions about
implementing technology and I was fortunate enough to be at the front-lines of
these in my professional career. Those
were changes I helped establish to enhance the learning environment for my students
and the other programs students. That is something I am very proud of and will
forever be indebted to Boise State’s Education Technology department for. Outside of these changes I was also able to
establish myself on campus as the subject matter expert on digital citizenship
and personal learning networks. I was
able to establish a better approach to our professional development resources
by incorporating social media and web seminars. These changes may not seem
significant but to our campus and day to day operations they were the biggest
changes that have occurred in quite some time. These changes and my general
ambition to see them get implemented was a rewarding experience when
students and adjuncts responded with as much appreciation and excitement as I
had when I first learned about the theories and application in class.
I have no idea what is next for me and my use of
education technology.
References:
Association for Educational
Communications and Technology, A. (2004). The definition of educational
technology. Informally published manuscript.
Canaday,
R., & Hotchkiss, P. (1989.). It's a good score! Just a bad grade.. It's
a good score! Just
a bad grade.. Retrieved February 18, 2014, from
http://openagricola.nal.usda.gov/Record/IND90007498
Downes, S. (2004). Educational blogging. Educause
Review, 39, 14-27.
Dimartino, J., & Miles, S. (2004,
December 1). Equity in the Classroom. National Association of Secondary
Principals. Retrieved September 10, 2014, from
Field, S., Kuczera, M., & Pont, B.
(2007). No more failures: ten steps to equity in education. Paris: OECD.
Hall, Jeremy. (1996). Types of
simulation. Retrieved from www.simulations.co.uk
Hewson, K. (2013, April 1). What Size Is Your
Digital Footprint? A Powerful Professional Learning
Network Can Give a
Boost to a New Teaching Career. Phi Delta Kappan, 94, 14.
Jenkins, H. (2004). Game design as
narrative architecture. Computer, 44, s3.
Nekea, H. (2012). Creating a digital
footprint as a means of optimizing the personal branding of librarians in the
digital society . Webology, 9(2), 1-14. Retrieved September 18,
2013, from http://www.webology.org/2012/v9n2/a100.html
Shoffner, M. (2007). Preservice
english teachers and technology: a consideration of weblogs for the english classroom. Contemporary
Issues in Technology and Teacher Education, 7(4), 245-255.
Verenikina, I., Harris, P., &
Lysaght, P. (2003). Child's play: computer games, theories of
play and children's development. ACM International Conference
Proceeding Series.
No comments:
Post a Comment