Finishing Touches

Finishing things is always hard for me, some of it is the "ADD"ness that runs in my family, but I think the primary reason is a combination of being an artist, a perfectionist, and a sentimentalist.  As an artist there is always more that can be done to improve things.  In a painting I can always add a paint stroke or splash of color, in a poem there is always an adjustment to the punctuation or changing a word, in finishing a project it is a point of letting go, stepping back and knowing that the project is far from done, but only really just a beginning.

I guess that is why I love creating on the Web.  It is both fluid and alive; while at the same time, it is snapshots in time, and fixed forever.  It is sharing things with the world, and yet feeling that I talking to an individual in a personal and private room.  Finishing the hypothetical class syllabus for me is many of these things.  I've tried to stay within the realistic parameters of teaching a first semester Composition class at Lansing Community College.  Given what I have in the portfolio, if they called me this week and offered me a position teaching that class, I could be ready to teach by next week.  I have kept all of my documents as separate files so I can update and modify them as needed.  The spreadsheets to generate the work management flow are all live so these could actually be used.  The only thing that would be scaled back is the discussion circles back to discussion boards until I could get that design off the ground. 

Now for the sentimental part, it is really hard to say goodbye to classmates...and fortunately for many of you it won't be goodbye because I still will be working with you. And I am always delighted to hear from old friends and classmates.  This class has really made me think deeply about the possibility of going for a PhD, and choice of department.

The field of using technology in education, online education, Massively Open Online Classes (MOOC), accessibility for the marginalized, global educational competition, non-traditional educational opportunities, growing student debt, and a possible looming educational bubble (much like the housing bubble that we are still reeling from) are areas of extreme importance and the need for advanced research is imperative.  Millions of dollars are being invested in new initiatives that are often without theoretical foundation (and often even without a business plan)...things are changing at a breakneck speed and I would love to be a part of the dialog to hopefully help make things better. Hence, the deep consideration of the "next step" and what department or direction can best help me get there.

The link to the new "modified" site with improved visibility, more gender neutral photos is up.  Not all the pages have the modified pictures and the videos are not posted since this is just a prototype.

  Click here to visit my test site-

My final portfolio is 80+ pages long  (half of it is title pages so it really isn't that much) and I don't want to overwhelm the blog to post the entire thing, nor do I want to fill your entire inbox, so I would be delighted to send it via email to you-- you can discard it if you want or glance through it... that way no trees get killed, only a few irritated electrons. Please email me to get your free copy of the syllabus---if you are brave enough- it is a huge file.

(so I can avoid bot spammers)- send your email request to "shillai7" with the "@msu.edu" ending.

One last thing- I found a great book at the MSU library in the new acquisitions.  "Enhancing the Quality of Learning: Dispositions, Instruction, and Learning Processes" edited by John Kirby and Michael Lawson. It was extremely good as I was finishing my teaching philosophy statement and my lesson goals.  It examines foundational learning issues, but it has several articles that are closely tied to the principles of this course. I highly recommend it.

 

 I will miss all of you, but just like my syllabus I hope that the connections we have built are not something we just set aside, but the foundation for great things to come.

Changes in my Learning Goals- Designing Technology Instead of Just Using It

There are two basic uses for technology in education- as tools in the face-to-face environment or as the basis for a totally online class. In each of these situations, as a result of this class, I have learned there is a need to really step back and make thoughtful evaluation about the use, or even non-use of technology. 

Many times students take online classes as a last resort, only if other sections are full or because the class that they need is only offered online.  At the same time, instructors often dread online sections because of the poor results, extra workload, and lost connection with the students.  With the current advances in technology, online classes shouldn’t be dreaded, by either the instructor or the student.  Ideally, professors could design a class that will become a preferred choice by students, a place where they could learn even more than in the F2F environment, utilizing tools that provide multiple ways to learn and benefit all learning styles. A key to this transformation is fundamental changes in design, developing technological tools that have built into their design pedagogical content knowledge (TPCK).  I think as more of these tools proliferate, the better the student experience will be for both the student and the teacher.

Even in traditional settings, technology should be purposely, and thoughtfully used.  Just using the latest and most impressive technology might impress fellow instructors, but it often only frustrates the students…or in best-case scenarios, the focus becomes just learning the tool and not actually meeting the learning objectives.  Unless, the learning objective is to learn that specific technological tool, the technology becomes a distraction.  The key is to use whatever we use thoughtfully and purposefully. 

I think one of the main “tools” that I would want to have, or design, is a single place to have as a launching place for any and all technological tools that I use.  That way the student could log into one page, one spot, and go into all the various tools and platforms that are needed for successful completion of the assignment/project/class.   Even though I “live” with my computers, tablet, and mobile devices, I find it irritating to try to remember where various places are that we are supposed to use for a class, what my username was for that particular class and what the password was.  To students, these “minor” irritations become barriers that hinder them from successfully completing the task of being participating learners. 

Overall, this class has been revolutionary in my thinking.  I came into it after having many classes online (over 10) and having experiences that ranged from better than face-to-face (my statistics class- she used multiple videos for lectures and showing how to solve homework and enter data into the calculators to run statistical analysis) to horrible (a class about networking- the professor got married in the second week of a summer class, had a death in the family, just disappeared for most of the semester and then they lost all of the documents submitted for the entire semester in a CMS glitch).  Overall, my experience has been that most instructors didn’t really use the medium very well and there seemed to be no apparent pedagogical reason for how they approached the class.  It always felt like it was a face-to-face class that got thrown into the online environment.  In knowing the potential for developing better tools for online instruction from my background in programming and computer work, I was constantly frustrated by the programs being developed by the IT side, they were good for keeping track of students, but horrible for the teacher and student interactions.  My revolutionary revelation was to see a product like Eli that is being developed BY and FOR educators.  It was like hearing Handel’s Hallelujah Chorus in the distance.  There is hope.

As more products are developed using TPCK, choosing to teach in an online environment will someday be the first choice instead of the last resort. Also, the boundary between online and face-to-face with become less defined as traditional classes use more Web based tools (such as Eli).