Thanks for the Memories (and Tech Tips)

With this blog being my last entry for my current Educational Technology course, I would like to reflect on how technology has affected my personal learning experience.  Every week it has been a pleasure to engage in conversation and debate with my colleagues about technology and how it has affected how people learn and engage in society.  Many of our topics or guiding questions have been theoretical or hypothetical in nature, but have prompted me to question or confirm my paradigms regarding teaching and learning using technology.  Such questions as “Is the Internet a privilege or requirement?”, “How does participation in a collective impact learning?”, and “How do we as adults respond to change?”, promoted active dialogue about how technology has changed the face of learning in our society and how we, as educators, need to respond to the changing needs and desires of those we teach.  Many of our discussions have centered around the work by Thomas and Brown (2011), who suggest that there needs to a major shift in education in order to meet the demands of a “New Culture of Learning”.  Although I found that their notions of ‘play’, the ‘collective’ and constructing knowledge were all worthy of thoughtful consideration, I did find that their perspective seemed somewhat outdated.  They suggested that classrooms today are led by the all-knowing teacher with a focus on the transfer of knowledge and that there needs to be a transformation to allow students to be active participants in the creation and demonstration of their knowledge.  I would strongly agree, however, I would argue that this educational-makeover has been in the works for several years and that the teachers with whom I work, have been learning and redeveloping their practices to strive toward this new learning environment.  Many have not yet achieved this ultimate goal (I know I haven’t), but there is a definite and purposeful movement in our schools to create a learner focused and personalized atmosphere to empower the learners of the 21^st century to embrace the unlimited boundaries that our technological society has to offer.

In addition to the philosophical component of my learning, this class has introduced me to many new technologies that I can use in my personal learning path and in the work that I do with kids.  Blogging played a major role in this course as we had to follow and participate in established blogs as well as create our own.  Prior to the course, I didn’t understand the attraction of blogging for followers nor the purpose for the creator of the blog.  In fact, when I read the course outline and saw that we would be creating a blog, I was somewhat skeptical at the educational value of this aspect of technology in teaching and learning.  This was my biggest revelation, however, as blogging and following blogs became one of the most enjoyable aspects of this course.  I chose to follow three different inspirational and motivational blogs; The Happiness Project, Joel Osteen Ministries, and a blog by Robin Sharma.  I learned a lot about how blogs participate in a culture of learning and promote a sense of community for the followers.  I was (and continue to be) personally inspired and motivated by these blogs (particularly The Happiness Project) and have started checking out other blogs in areas of interest to me.  As for writing a blog, I like the freedom to express my thoughts in a more casual voice and look forward to reading my followers’ comments.  Through this process I have come to realize how blogging contributes to learning as it offers facts and opinions on a variety of lifestyle, political and educational topics.  It also offers anyone the opportunity to express their thoughts, and participate in open discourse within a community of members who may share common interests.

Another value of this course to my personal learning journey has been the application of various Web 2.0 technologies.  As a novice in the world of blogging, I had not previously used an online blogging tool.  With the assistance from a classmate, I set up my own blog using Blogger, a tool offered through Google Docs.  It was very user-friendly and my blog was up in no time.  My personal profile is limited and I haven’t posted a picture of myself, but I have a start.  I am quite certain that this will not be the end of my blogging endeavor as I realize I have a lot to say about a lot of different things (for those who know me this is not a surprise).  The other tools that I have really enjoyed using are Dropbox, Prezi and Symbaloo.  Dropbox allows the user to ‘drop’ files onto the Dropbox icon, on the user’s desktop, which are then copied into the cloud.  The user can then access these files from anywhere even without his/her personal computer because they are housed in the cloud.  If working in a group, the users will see, and can access, all of the files that have been dropped into the Dropbox.  This was a very convenient tool for our group project as it was a good way to share information without the hassle of emailing it back and forth or having to go online and login to a housing site (such as Google Docs).  This is definitely a tool I will use in the future.  Our group also used Prezi, an interactive presentation tool.  We were all able to access and edit the project online and presentation itself offered a different look and feel for the audience than a standard PowerPoint-type format.  The third tool that I now use on a daily basis is Symbaloo.  This is an online bookmarking tool to enable the user to access his/her bookmarks from anywhere on any computer.  More than that, however, it is a personal learning environment where I can sort and organize my online tools by colour and category for easy access.  Prior to using this tool, my bookmarks were a mess and I could only access them from the proprietary computer on which they were marked. 

I have enjoyed this course immensely and it has been a definite asset to my personal development regarding teaching and learning in the world of technology.  Thank-you to those of you who have made it so worthwhile.

References

Thomas, D. & Brown, J. S.(2011). A new culture of learning: Cultivating the imagination for a world     of constant change. Seattle, WA: Create Space.