Rich McCue

Week 1 – Introduction & Welcome to EDCI 336

Welcome to EDCI 336 – Technology Innovation in Education! I’m looking forward to getting to know each of you as we develop new skills and deepen our understandings of technology in your teaching and learning practice, and help you develop a personal learning network to support your ongoing professional development together over the next three weeks. If you would like to get to know a bit more about me and my background before starting the course, please watch the short video below (4 min).

Week 1 Learning Objectives:

  • Be able to describe both sides of the debate about the effectiveness of educational technology
  • Be prepared to start completing weekly class activities and other course assignments when appropriate
  • Be able to describe the course design for 336 and the rationale behind the non-traditional course design choices
  • Be prepared to learn to use each of the software tools in the course toolset, and understand how each tool can help you successfully complete the course
  • Identify major positives and negative experiences learners sometimes have when using educational technologies
  • Set up a WordPress blog for your personal blog portfolio
  • Complete a technology Self Assessment survey
  • Customize your blog and explore Twitter
  • Complete the Learning Pathways survey

Pre-Class Tasks:

  • Please review the Course Outline (link in the password-protected Social Spaces)
    • Make note of any questions you have before our synchronous Zoom class time
  • Sign up for a Mattermost Chat account (link in the password-protected Social Spaces). Please use your first name & last name when you create your Mattermost user name.
  • To help me get to know you a bit better, please email me (or send a short video if you prefer) letting me know a bit about you:
    • Where did you grow up?
    • What is your undergraduate degree?
    • What grade levels you would like to teach (if you know at this point)?
    • What do you hope to get out of this class?
    • Is there anything else you’d like me to know about you?

For Class Time on Friday at 10:00 AM:

  • The Great Educational Technology Debate (5 min):
  • HyFlex Instruction InfographicMy Course Design for the Pandemic – Hyflex:
    • Here is an infographic I created for a conference presentation on HyFlex if you’re not familiar with the term.
    • Given what I’ve been reading I expect that there will be a number of us who will catch Omicron this semester. With that in mind I’ve designed the curriculum so that we can engage with it, face-to-face in the classroom, face-to-face via Zoom, or self-paced when people are feeling better by quarantining.
    • I’m triple vaxxed, so fingers crossed I don’t get sick, but if I’m not able to lead a session, we will shift into an asynchronous mode for a week until I’m back on my feet.
    • If you come down with the virus, please let me know so that I can work with you to make sure you successfully complete the course. 
  • Course Activities in a Nutshell:
    • Weekly class, Friday 10:00 AM (changing to 10:30 AM – discussion?)
    • Weekly updates on your WordPress portfolio documenting your free inquiry project (Assignment 1)
    • Weekly meeting with your Learning Pod to share the progress of inquiry projects & discuss course topics
    • Weekly updates on your WordPress portfolio curating topics from our course (Assignment 3)
    • Development of an education technology resource & presentation to Learning Pod (Assignment 2)
    • Exploration of social media tools for learning & developing your personal learning network
  • Review Course Outline expectations, especially the inquiry assignments requirements
  • EDCI 336 has been consciously designed to model open learning, inquiry-based learning, and Personal Learning Networks the following tools:
    • Open course website – No LMS, persistent access and evolving only licensed content
    • Inquiry driven learning project – flexible outcomes driven by student interest
    • Learner owned portfolios – to develop open and network literacy, celebrate student work, ensure portability, and maintain ownership
    • Networked portfolios – to aggregate new posts across the network of student portfolios and encourage community and peer review
    • Promote community through discussion – Zoom and Mattermost
    • Invitations to join social media networks and communities
  • Personal Learning Networks 
  • Teaching and learning with social media 
  • Exploring Professional Blogs/Handles/Tags
  • EdTech Reflection Activity:
    • Think of a time when you had a positive or negative learning experience using technology. This could be in school or independently. It could be fully online, mobile, or using technology in the classroom.
    • Think about how the technology impacted your experience either positively or negatively.
    • Decide on a single most important benefit and single most important negative consideration when learning with technology and consider putting this in your blog post for this week.
  • Get your WordPress blog setup (If you already have a blog that you would like to use for EDCI 336, please talk to Rich first before you use it) (30 min):
    1. First review WordPress blog portfolios reading 
    2. Second review past 336 inquiry blogs, for inspiration: one, two, & three
    3. Third review the opened.ca Code of Conduct
    4. Create your portfolio website for the class:
      • Set up an OpenEd.ca account for your portfolio website. NOTE: Signing up takes about 5 minutes, but it can take up to 30 minutes for the confirmation email to arrive in your email inbox. Once you’ve clicked on the link in the confirmation email you can move on next step to create your portfolio website.
      • Create your OpenEd.ca website using the provided EDCI 336 template. NOTE: Requesting the creation of your website with the EDCI 336 Template takes about 5 minutes, but it can take up to 30 minutes for the server to finish creating the website for you.
  • Complete the Self Assessment survey (link in the password-protected Social Spaces).
  • If you haven’t already done so signup for a Mattermost account (link in the password-protected Social Spaces). Use your first name & last name when you create your Mattermost user name: 
  • Only after your WordPress blog and Mattermost account is set up, complete the Learning Pathways survey (link in the password-protected Social Spaces).

Homework:

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