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 understanding 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 EDCI 336 (our class) and the rationale behind this non-traditional course design
  • 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
  • Customize your blog
  • Complete the Learning Pathways survey

Pre-Class Activities:

Please review the Course Outline

  • Make note of any questions you have before our class time

Sign up for a Mattermost Chat account (link in BrightSpace). 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 introduce yourself to me by answering the questions in this Brightspace assignment. Please either :

  1. Record a video of yourself answering the questions below in the Brightspace assignment
    – OR –
  2. Type your answers to the questions below and include a picture of yourself
  • Where did you grow up?
  • What are one or two things that you like doing for fun?
  • 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?

Class Time

We will be covering this section and everything that follows during class time, so if you’d like to take a quick look at what we’re going to talk about and do, please go ahead. To be clear we will be working through everything below during class time, so no need to work through anything that follows before our Face-to-Face class time.

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.
  • I expect that a few of us will catch COVID-19 at some point this semester. With that in mind I’ve designed the course curriculum so that we can engage with it, face-to-face in the classroom, via Zoom, or self-paced when people are feeling better while 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 any sort of 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
  • Weekly updates on your WordPress portfolio curating topics from our course (Assignment 3)
  • Weekly updates on your WordPress portfolio documenting your free inquiry project (Assignment 1) this will start
  • Weekly meeting with your Learning Pod to share the progress of inquiry projects & discuss course topics. You will usually have time at the end of class to do this.
  • 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 using 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.

Hands-on Lab Time

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. 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 UVic email inbox. Once you’ve clicked on the link in the confirmation email you can move on next step to create your portfolio website.
  2. Review WordPress blog portfolios reading 
  3. Second review past 336 inquiry blogs, for inspiration: one, two, & three
  4. Third review the opened.ca Code of Conduct
  5. 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.
  6. If you haven’t already done so signup for a Mattermost account (signup link in the Brightspace post). Use your first name & last name when you create your Mattermost user name: 
  7. Only after your WordPress blog and Mattermost account are set up, please complete the Learning Pathways survey (link in the Brightspace post).

Learning Pod Time & Homework

Please note that this is the heaviest week for homework as we get everyone’s personal infrastructure set up for the course. If you have any questions, suggestions, or concerns, please let me know.

  1. Weekly Free Inquiry blog post to document your learning. Please don’t forget to upload the web address of your blog post to the Brightspace assignment after you’ve completed your blog post. Please address two or more of the blog prompts below: 
    • What was the process of setting up a WordPress blog like for you?
    • How could blogging be used in teaching and learning? 
    • Where might blogging not be an appropriate tool?
    • Can you envision any potential uses of blogs at the grade level & subject areas where you hope to teach?
  2. If you have any questions or want to share resources or ideas, please post to our private A02 with Rich – Spring 2023 Mattermost Channel
  3. Please remember to take time for yourself and your health.