Addresses ISTE Outcomes: 1, 2, 3, 4 and all UVic TEP Outcomes.

This is an individual project to learn about something you are passionate or curious about. That said, if you have overlapping interests, you may work in pairs. You will design a learning plan for yourself and carry out weekly task analysis and curating and reporting of progress. Please consult inquiry tools found on the PSII website to assist you. The purpose of this assignment is to learn how to use technology throughout the learning process, from finding resources and people, to documenting, curating, and reflecting on your learning.

A WordPress blog, using a template hosted on opened.ca, is recommended to document your progress, identifying and evaluating any resources you found, and documenting, curating, and reflecting on your progress. If you have a pre-existing WordPress blog, it may be used with specific categories to mimic the template. You are also expected to share your weekly posts with your learning pod. Each post should provide sufficient details on learning progress (through success or failure), links to resources, and relevant creative commons-licensed or copyright-free images. You should provide enough detail so that another learner aspiring to pursue the same learning goal could follow your journey. Although you may be creating multimedia throughout your posts, your final post of the term should utilize a multimedia artifact (voice, video, screen capture, etc.) to summarize your learning on your topic and also reflect on the process of learning through free inquiry, and reflect on the role of technologies that supported your learning. This summary should provide a clear and complete narrative of the progression of learning, showing evidence of deep engagement and understanding.

Identify any applicable mentors and include them in your journey (e.g., a friend who knows guitar if your passion project is to learn to play the guitar). NOTE: get consent before naming anyone you know personally on your blog (school visits, mentor teacher, etc.) or speak anonymously about the visit without identifiers in an ethical way (and speak with me to proofread your draft if you have any questions). You will use the category “free inquiry” on your blog for this assignment. You should use a category as per the naming convention provided on the website to add more detail to each post as it relates to a competency or competencies (e.g., “audio editing”) and then tags for additional detail (e.g., “notes,” “melody,” “chords,” etc.). Public blog posts with categories matching the naming conventions provided will be copied/aggregated into our EDCI 336 Blog Hub.

You must also have your learning planning visible for your instructor. A Trello board template (US cloud-hosted) will be set up for you for open inquiry learning plan documentation with input restricted to the instructor and other collaborators/mentors for input. Alternatives to Trello can be supported based on privacy preferences. Your learning plan will be co-constructed with your instructor. Criteria for completion requires incorporation of all of the required educational and technology competencies in either this assignment or Assignment 2 or 3. Please refer to the educational and technology competency lists that will be posted on the course website.

Examples of Student Open Inquiry blogs:

Selected Open Inquiry Topics from Previous EDCI 336 Terms for Inspiration:

  • ASL project
  • Balance and coordination
  • Ceramics
  • Critiquing movies of different genres
  • Developing cooking skills
  • Disc Golf
  • Exploring different types of meditation
  • Film Photography
  • Health and fitness
  • How many free throws I can make in a row?
  • I want to learn to Vlog
  • iPhone Photography
  • Learning how to play the guitar or ukulele
  • Learning Mandarin
  • Learning origami
  • Learning to play the recorder
  • Life Drawing
  • Makeup
  • Photography and/or photo editing
  • Self-expression through art
  • Sky Photography (stars, sunrises. etc…)
  • Social Media and Education
  • The Power of Habits
  • Video filming and editing
  • Writing a children’s book
  • Writing a Travel Journal
  • Yoga

Rich’s Section Only – Allowed Uses of Generative AI:

Topics 1-3: You are NOT ALLOWED to use any Generative AI tools for these free inquiry posts (see the course Generative AI policy for more details)

Topics 4-12: You ARE ALLOWED to use Generative AI tools for Idea Generation, and blog post structuring (see the course Generative AI policy for more details)