Educational Technology
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The Importance of Technology Integration Across a Program
[social-bio] At the recent EdMedia conference in Victoria, BC, I noted a recurring theme around the integration of learning technologies. Many people were talking about the ongoing issue of these technologies being used in a course here and there as opposed to being integrated across programs. There are a number of problems with this approach to learning technologies. Blogs and ePortfolios can both be useful tools for students to assemble evidence of their learning, reflect and show their growth. When these are only used in a course or two throughout a students program, the blogs and ePortfolios are often incomplete, interrupted (if used in two courses at different points in…
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What Do Automobile Engines and Educational Innovation Have in Common?
[social-bio] Recently, someone recommended that I read “Design Research for Sustained Innovation” by Carl Bereiter. Although, the article was published in 2002, I found it to be very relevant today. The premise of the article is that, “innovative practices seldom win out against those with a long evolutionary history” (p. 321). This is not only true in education, but in all aspects of human life. He makes a thought-provoking comparison between innovation in education and innovation in the automobile engine. The automobile engine has drawbacks related to the reciprocating piston that were recognized early. Bereiter explains that the a “better engine” called the Wankel engine was invented in the 1920s,…
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Formative Feedback For Improving the Teaching and Learning Experience
[social-bio] In January of 2012 I taught my first university level course in the College of Education. It went “OK”, but not great. I had a good rapport with many of the 24 students, but no overall sense of connections with the class as a whole. Some of the comments on the SEEQ at the end of the term really surprised me and made me question myself as an educator. Teaching students is not a required part of my job, but rather an opportunity, and I was left wondering whether I wanted to let the opportunity slip away. Instead, I looked over the SEEQ results for recurring themes and looked back on…
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TLt 2013 Brings Ideas Together
[social-bio] The University of Saskatchewan and the Gwenna Moss Centre hosted this year’s Teaching and Learning with Technology conference on May 1 and 2. The theme was “Making IT Mainstream: Everybody’s doing IT,” focusing on “the mainstream integration of learning technologies at both the level of the institution and individual instructor; what is working and what is not, and how all of this will continue to effect higher education.” Two pre-conference events were held on the first day; Evaluating the Integration of Technology: Understanding the Purpose and Process of Evaluation Research with Valerie Irvine, Brad Wuetherick and Stan Yu, and IDing our Future: A Meeting of the Minds of Instructional Designers, for instructional…
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So You’re Thinking of Flipping your Class: We Can Help
[social-bio] Perhaps you’ve been hearing rumblings about flipped teaching. Maybe you even read my post about it in December (What is Flipped Teaching?). If you haven’t heard of it, flipped teaching is, “the process of moving lecture content from face-to-face class time to before class by assigning it as homework. This allows for more interactive and student-centred types of learning to take place during the scheduled class time. Flipped teaching often involves, but is not limited to, students viewing lecture videos as homework.” So, now that we’re all on the same page, I am pleased to announce a new support from the Gwenna Moss Centre that we’re referring to as…
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Backchannels In Education
[social-bio] If you have attended a conference in the past year, then you probably at least heard about the conference’s “backchannel”. Essentially, a backchannel is a conversation that is taking place during an event, alongside the main activity or presentation. At conferences, this often takes place on Twitter by attendees using a hashtag for the event. For example, we have created a hashtag for our upcoming Teaching and Learning to the Power of Technology conference (TLt 2013) and will encourage those in attendance to discuss the presentations on Twitter by including “#tlt13” in their tweets. By using the hashtag, those in attendance can follow the discussion by searching #tlt13 on…
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The Use of WordPress for a Course Website
[social-bio] One of my favourite parts of my job is having the opportunity to teach pre-service teachers in an undergraduate course in the College of Education. I teach ETAD 470 – Design and Use of Online Resources. This course covers the pedagogical and technological aspects of using things like blogs, wikis, podcasts and other types of tools in teaching and learning. I taught this class for the first time in Term 2 of the 2011-2012 academic year. As part of the course I created a course blog using Google’s Blogger service where I shared weekly resources with the students and a Google Site where I listed all of the required…
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Digital Citizenship for the U of S Community
[social-bio] In my recent post on the basics of educational technology I mentioned a bit about what not to put online. “Never post anything online that you wouldn’t want your boss, mother or grandchildren to see. Facebook is not private. Twitter definitely is not private. Even email can end up in the hands of the wrong person (have you accidentally had autocomplete come up with the wrong name and then you sent the email without noticing or had someone forward a message they shouldn’t have?). I also point out the grandchildren part because the Internet is the new permanent record.” In the undergraduate course that I teach for the College of Education I cover…
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Getting Started With Educational Technology
[social-bio] For a number of years I’ve given workshops to faculty (both at the U of S and my previous institution) and I teach an undergraduate course in educational technology. Regardless of the group that I’m speaking with, I always give the same few points of advice and thought it appropriate to share them here. Start small. Pick one or two tools to try out instead of trying to do everything at once. Don’t start a blog, join Twitter, introduce clickers into your class, take a crack at blended learning, and try to redo all of your presentations in Prezi. You’ll only get frustrated and likely won’t stick to using…
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What is Flipped Teaching?
[social-bio] Flipped teaching is a new instructional method that has risen with the proliferation of high-speed Internet connections. Flipped teaching is the process of moving lecture content from face-to-face class time to before class by assigning it as homework. Often this involves students watching lecture videos prior to coming to class. Why would you want to do this? The reason to use flipped teaching is to be able to use interactive learning methods within face-to-face class time. Rather than spending an hour lecturing, you can spend the hour having students working on problems independently or in groups, working on or discussing cases, group discussion, receiving assistance from you…anything you want!…