My first graduate course, CEP 810 – Teaching for Understanding with Technology, is complete! It has been a fast paced seven weeks!
I will be reflecting on aspects of the course that I enjoyed and struggled with, a recent proud moment concerning education technology, and the next steps of my education technology certificate and graduate coursework.
Struggles
In all honest, I was very apprehensive about taking the dive into “Master’s in Educational Technology (MAET) land” at the beginning of my graduate studies at Michigan State University this fall. I have been accepted into the Master’s in Teaching and Curriculum program, and am considering using this course for the graduate certificate in educational technology.
The reason why I was so timid about taking the MAET courses was because of the social media posts of Makey Makey circuits which mostly included bananas and objects completing a circuit and turning on a light. This is not the sort of challenge I am looking to work through when earning a Master’s degree.
A few years ago, I relayed my concerns to Mary Wever, a colleague turned friend turned instructor, and she encouraged me to “give it a try.”
Overall, I was bored with the initial requirements of CEP 810 – creating a blog, signing up for Twitter, tweeting, and sharing our works with the Twittersphere – because those spaces are ones that I am well versed in already. I understand everyone has different learning experiences and prior knowledge before beginning their degree, so there had to be general instruction to get everyone caught up.
I also struggle with the fact that once courses end, so does the tweeting and the blogging. I am not going to be able to continue the conversation or connect with colleagues because Twitter and blogging are interpreted as a hoop to jump through rather than a lifelong habit. How can these, in my opinion, essential tools be approached and introduced differently in order to show how/why dedication to them can propel our profession and careers?
What I Enjoyed about the Course
I found most of the lessons of CEP 810 to be engaging. Some of my favorites were depicting my Personal Learning Network (PLN) with Popplet and reviewing Evernote for better workflow. Both of these allowed me time to play and tinker with the lesson and evaluate how well it worked for me as a learner and educator.
Both of the projects, the Network Learning Project and Cooking with TPACK, were engaging and did a great job of bringing lesson concepts together.
The Network Learning Project was a great way to learn how to do a new skill and document it along the way. I found the progression video requirement to be interesting and intuitive because the whole project was based on learning from a video. Check out my final video!
The TPACK (Technological Pedagogical and Content Knowledge) project was when everything from the course came together and clicked. All of the prior lessons were helpful introducing and/or reacquainting myself with different forms of electronic technology, but I felt like TPACK helped me piece together how I can combine my ed tech courses with my teaching and curriculum courses.
Overall, I wish there was more emphasis, study, and application in this course. Hopefully, an in-depth study will continue with the other CEP courses I need for the education technology certification.
Real World Application
Today, of all days, I had a proud ed tech moment. I found this ironic based on my initial approach to taking a Master’s in Educational Technology course and today being my last day of the course.
After school, I was in a planning meeting for upcoming professional development with administrators and teachers in my building. We were piecing together needs and wants of both parties for an upcoming early release professional development day.
It was noted that teachers needed a refresher for one of the websites that the district uses for student information and data. It was realized that the two staff members who are well versed on the website were going to be absent on the day of the professional development. When trying to figure out who was going to train who when, I said, “Why don’t you make a Screencast (with Camtasia or ScreencastOMatic) for staff to watch at the PD and then have as a reference for later questions?” I offered to show them how to make it and sent everyone a Screencast I made for CEP 810.
I was met with blank stares.
Even though my colleagues had no clue what I was talking about, I chalked this up as a proud moment. The lessons and tools learned in CEP 810 were coming to mind in brainstorms and action plans. Ed tech is relevant and helpful in many aspects of education.
Next Steps
CEP 810 defied my expectations and I’m glad that I gave it a try.
I am looking forward to continuing to study how education technology is not the one stop shop solution to policies and issues in education. Rather it is a tool that is to be integrated with content and pedagogy.
References:
Mishra, P. (2012). Keynote speaker @ 21st century learning conference – hong kong 2012. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/9bwXYa91fvQ