Really? Where did this all come from? What was I thinking? What did I not know and what do I know now? Under who's influence did this all come to fruition? Parents, writers of letters of recommendations, employer, or a self-directed approach or just an eagerness to be a life-long learner? MAET has changed my perspectives on learning, teaching, and the realities of the real world as it relates to face-face, online, hands-on and theory. It is my time to put it all together “SYNTHESIS".
Returning to school was one of the hardest decision I had to make. In as much as the life changing stages that I was enduring at the time, I knew that I had to make that move. I almost gave up my hope of continuing my education. Nevertheless, my interest in the MAET program was deeply rooted from personal experiences and the way of life of my mother whose entire life have been spent in the classroom. I thought she knew everything in this world about nursing as a profession so I felt like stepping right behind her in similar path but different profession. As mentioned in my goal statement that as a high school student in Ontario, I often waited for many hours in the classroom for my mother watching her teach her nursing courses at Centennial College. As I grow along in that environment, I found teaching to be a rewarding experience. As a result, I joined the Academic Support team and became a peer tutor at the L’Amoreaux Collegiate Institute. This experience further instilled in me the desire to teach. I now understand that teaching, especially in the technology field, is more complex because of the ongoing development in the technological field and the complex use of media technology in classrooms. I knew that this complexity requires more education, and with that in mind, after a few years in the workforce, I began to consider returning to school and contemplating what to pursue. I knew that my greatest job satisfaction always came from my role as a tutor or instructor. In addition to that, my job at that time requires problems solving and troubleshooting on the phone as well as teaching faculty, staff, and students about the use of the technologies on campus. This rejuvenation of my passion for teaching led me to begin to explore what options are out there for teaching in the technological field while simultaneously placing importance on the dissemination of knowledge. This search has led me to the Master's of Educational Technology program offered at MSU where I realized that the program was very viable and interesting field that held my complete attention.
While going through this program and learning different technologies, I came to the point where I had to develop a personal philosophy for my teaching. Some of what I learned and developed was that teaching is student-centered activities that must be directed toward helping the students acquire knowledge through the process of inquiry and intellectual empowerment. I believe that the best way to make students learn anything especially Information Technology is to make him/her a part of the inquiry process through direct engagement/ hands-on. Although a teacher may be considered the leader in the classroom, I believe that making students involved in the construction of knowledge makes teaching and learning a two-way street. Students will not only be at the receiving end of information in the classroom, but they will also experience the production of such information and knowledge. I also believe that teachers should show enthusiasm in their teaching as a way of inspiring and stimulating the desire of students in the teaching and learning process. I am of the opinion that students would find it inspiring and motivating when they realize that they are an integral part of transformative learning process in the classroom. I believe strongly that teachers should recognize that students are goal-oriented and they often tend to focus on doing what is required only in order to complete course requirements in class. Therefore, as a teacher, I should do whatever is necessary in order to lay the foundation for successful career. I should consider it as my responsibility to inspire the desire of students to learn and to guide them in acquiring information and knowledge to secure rewarding career. My experiences as a teacher during this limited times have taught me to recognize that promoting and respecting intellectual diversity is healthy in personal intellectual growth. In conclusion, my philosophy is one that encourages motivations for students in classroom learning and recognizes intellectual diversity as an idea that deserves respect in the academy environment. With this personal goal and philosophy set-forth, I am more engaging in the course that I teach and the way it was taught prior to coming to this program.
Throughout the MAET program,
there were many administrators, professors, and assistants that were very
helpful alone the way. I owed my all to them for making me to reach this end.
For instance, CEP 822 “Approached to Educational Research" taught by
professor Edward Roeber was a challenge but rewarding. I came into this program with
very limited knowledge on research but came out with a wealth of knowledge from
the instructors.
Learning Schools and other settings with Instructors: Zachary Mural, and C. Roseth was the very first course I took on my journey through the Master's of Educational Technology program at MSU. This course focused on understanding for the students and how we as users of technologies tools understand their perspective. Also during this course, we looked at creating a learning environment that will showcase the students’ creative ability and the technology that can enhance it. This course teaches how to understand students' understanding using different methods of learning. Some of the projects I enjoy in this course were learning how to create audio and digital files to help students learn in different fashions and creating blogs for the first time. The blog page created specifically for this course can be found at (http://swonplo.edublogs.org/). In this course, we also learned how to develop lesson plan that included many different pieces. My lesson plan was designed as an add-on to existing curriculum. The plan was to teach older and first year college students on the use of Google Docs as a supplemental tool to their courses. I had to make a little tweak to the plan because of time by focusing just on few applications of Google Docs. Students were allowed to focus mainly on word, PowerPoint, and Forms for creating surveys and share with other students. However, the aim and objective of this lesson plan was to use Google Docs as a collaborative tool to enhance students’ learning.
The implementation of the lesson plan was done with students enrolled in the PC Basics class over the last couple of weeks. It was amazing that many of my students were mainly concern about data security and the question of who was actually helping them on the other end. My take on their curiosity was that we needed to embrace the technology, learn new things and improve our writing skills. I divided my class into four groups and I created a Gmail account using the class name as “PC Basics” so each student could share their work with group members. In addition, each member of a group could serve as peer editor for group members. Through these sessions, I was able to examine Google Docs collaboration mode to best determine the exchanges, participation, and editing of each group members’ work. This also helped to encourage and enhance literacy, encourage immediate and meaningful dialogue between each student.
Students were excited to learn new things and in a fun environment that many of them felt
comfortable. They had the opportunity to learn new things that were outside the traditional classroom settings. Google Docs is now simple and easier to use by many of the students and they like its ease of use and functionalities. The learning goal was for students to be able to collaborate in an online setting and I am sure this goal was met. The assumptions that Google Docs was more like blogging or online chatting but Google Docs is totally different from how many presumed it to be. It is an explicit learning tool especially in this technologically challenged era. The use of Google Docs itself was an affordance because it is free of charge and it collaborative features made it even better when compared to other applications. The only pitfall I saw was that students will need a computer and be connected to the internet to share document. The constructivism I observed from the students was that they were learning and doing things differently yet coming up with same results.
Students have different styles of learning and Google Docs allows students to choose their individual style through sharing and getting ideas from peers. Some students are not technologically savvy so during group sessions, students were paired with others who had more in-depth knowledge of Google Docs. The success of this learning is based on the willingness of
teachers to fully engage in the collaboration of the online activities where teachers will be able to assist students at all times. Teachers will have to know the workings of the technology to make this plan a success. To assess students’ participation, they had to respond to survey questions created using Google Forms. They were also mandated to share every course related assignment with the teacher. Google Docs major contribution to learning is its free price tag that makes its facilitation more rewarding to the users. I expect students to continue using this technology because there are tremendous changes being made to improve its functionalities. I saw the excitement from students using Docs because being online at the same time and doing course work was a fun thing for them. Many of their concerns were how could they participate online outside of the school environment when they do not have computers or internet access. Overall, this was a great experience for students and I hope they will continue to use this technology to enhance their learning.
Learning Schools and other settings with Instructors: Zachary Mural, and C. Roseth was the very first course I took on my journey through the Master's of Educational Technology program at MSU. This course focused on understanding for the students and how we as users of technologies tools understand their perspective. Also during this course, we looked at creating a learning environment that will showcase the students’ creative ability and the technology that can enhance it. This course teaches how to understand students' understanding using different methods of learning. Some of the projects I enjoy in this course were learning how to create audio and digital files to help students learn in different fashions and creating blogs for the first time. The blog page created specifically for this course can be found at (http://swonplo.edublogs.org/). In this course, we also learned how to develop lesson plan that included many different pieces. My lesson plan was designed as an add-on to existing curriculum. The plan was to teach older and first year college students on the use of Google Docs as a supplemental tool to their courses. I had to make a little tweak to the plan because of time by focusing just on few applications of Google Docs. Students were allowed to focus mainly on word, PowerPoint, and Forms for creating surveys and share with other students. However, the aim and objective of this lesson plan was to use Google Docs as a collaborative tool to enhance students’ learning.
The implementation of the lesson plan was done with students enrolled in the PC Basics class over the last couple of weeks. It was amazing that many of my students were mainly concern about data security and the question of who was actually helping them on the other end. My take on their curiosity was that we needed to embrace the technology, learn new things and improve our writing skills. I divided my class into four groups and I created a Gmail account using the class name as “PC Basics” so each student could share their work with group members. In addition, each member of a group could serve as peer editor for group members. Through these sessions, I was able to examine Google Docs collaboration mode to best determine the exchanges, participation, and editing of each group members’ work. This also helped to encourage and enhance literacy, encourage immediate and meaningful dialogue between each student.
Students were excited to learn new things and in a fun environment that many of them felt
comfortable. They had the opportunity to learn new things that were outside the traditional classroom settings. Google Docs is now simple and easier to use by many of the students and they like its ease of use and functionalities. The learning goal was for students to be able to collaborate in an online setting and I am sure this goal was met. The assumptions that Google Docs was more like blogging or online chatting but Google Docs is totally different from how many presumed it to be. It is an explicit learning tool especially in this technologically challenged era. The use of Google Docs itself was an affordance because it is free of charge and it collaborative features made it even better when compared to other applications. The only pitfall I saw was that students will need a computer and be connected to the internet to share document. The constructivism I observed from the students was that they were learning and doing things differently yet coming up with same results.
Students have different styles of learning and Google Docs allows students to choose their individual style through sharing and getting ideas from peers. Some students are not technologically savvy so during group sessions, students were paired with others who had more in-depth knowledge of Google Docs. The success of this learning is based on the willingness of
teachers to fully engage in the collaboration of the online activities where teachers will be able to assist students at all times. Teachers will have to know the workings of the technology to make this plan a success. To assess students’ participation, they had to respond to survey questions created using Google Forms. They were also mandated to share every course related assignment with the teacher. Google Docs major contribution to learning is its free price tag that makes its facilitation more rewarding to the users. I expect students to continue using this technology because there are tremendous changes being made to improve its functionalities. I saw the excitement from students using Docs because being online at the same time and doing course work was a fun thing for them. Many of their concerns were how could they participate online outside of the school environment when they do not have computers or internet access. Overall, this was a great experience for students and I hope they will continue to use this technology to enhance their learning.
LearningTechnology Through Design" by with Instructors Punya Mishra, Laura Terry, and Catalina Park on the other hand was one of the many courses I took that made me to think about web design differently. The learning by Design course as the name entails is a semester long learning of different design tools for use in
teaching and learning. This course investigates McCloud’s six design steps that involves but not limited to the following: idea, purpose, idiom, structure, craft, and surfaces as well as good design guidelines as it relates to education and learning outcomes. This course comprises eight modules with each having different topics that run through a two weeks span. It was interesting to note here that no matter what your specialty/background in the field of technology, this course is thoughtful and designed to help you experience different technological tools and web design methodologies. It is a complete learning experience where the opportunity is given to try out different Contents Management Systems. I must admit, it made me to think about teaching tools differently. I decided to take this course because of my technical background especially in the information technology field and more especially because I wanted to learn new things or revisit the ones I already knew. I have had some learning experience using many learning tools with other classes taken but I am sure this one will give me the opportunity to learn different course management tools for teaching and learning. The Big Kahuna was a strange one but I was willing and hoping to get a grab of new things and perhaps learn something different. This course assignment was divided into Modules that ran from 1- 8. The beginning of Module one assignment is a 55 Fiction story, which was designed to get my classmates and me thinking differently and more expressively by telling a fictional story of interest to us using exactly 55 words. This was a challenge for me because I have never written a fiction story.
The "Big Kahuna" was where you think about a big idea and create a Website for student learning. I first thought about my idea for the great Kahuna to be a web page designed as a point of reference where students, coworkers or the public could easily find answers to ideas and terminologies used in the information technology field. I thought this could be helpful to share my knowledge this way. However, the idea was not supported because in this technologically driven age, anyone can use Google anything to access any information. In this light, I decided to settle on a history lesson that is deeply rooted in my past. I wanted to share why Liberia is considered America’s Stepchild. I needed to choose a topic that is not difficult for anyone to learn, but broad and something that will create some interest for readers.
teaching and learning. This course investigates McCloud’s six design steps that involves but not limited to the following: idea, purpose, idiom, structure, craft, and surfaces as well as good design guidelines as it relates to education and learning outcomes. This course comprises eight modules with each having different topics that run through a two weeks span. It was interesting to note here that no matter what your specialty/background in the field of technology, this course is thoughtful and designed to help you experience different technological tools and web design methodologies. It is a complete learning experience where the opportunity is given to try out different Contents Management Systems. I must admit, it made me to think about teaching tools differently. I decided to take this course because of my technical background especially in the information technology field and more especially because I wanted to learn new things or revisit the ones I already knew. I have had some learning experience using many learning tools with other classes taken but I am sure this one will give me the opportunity to learn different course management tools for teaching and learning. The Big Kahuna was a strange one but I was willing and hoping to get a grab of new things and perhaps learn something different. This course assignment was divided into Modules that ran from 1- 8. The beginning of Module one assignment is a 55 Fiction story, which was designed to get my classmates and me thinking differently and more expressively by telling a fictional story of interest to us using exactly 55 words. This was a challenge for me because I have never written a fiction story.
The "Big Kahuna" was where you think about a big idea and create a Website for student learning. I first thought about my idea for the great Kahuna to be a web page designed as a point of reference where students, coworkers or the public could easily find answers to ideas and terminologies used in the information technology field. I thought this could be helpful to share my knowledge this way. However, the idea was not supported because in this technologically driven age, anyone can use Google anything to access any information. In this light, I decided to settle on a history lesson that is deeply rooted in my past. I wanted to share why Liberia is considered America’s Stepchild. I needed to choose a topic that is not difficult for anyone to learn, but broad and something that will create some interest for readers.
Electronic Portfolios by Instructors Patrick Dickson, Catalina (Ji Young)
Park is about creating online resume, teaching philosophy, and presenting
classroom in an online environment. This course is great because it allows you
to get ready for the Capstone course. It was about showcasing what we have
learned and displaying it through the web. Considering that I am not a teacher but work in the Tech World, my vision for showcasing was focus on student employees working in our IT Department. Technically, it was a simple and realistic vision that helped our students to get the “Real World” experience while they are still in school. Knowing that there exist many different learning styles, whether as a professional in a specialized field or simply trying to enhance the way you do work to serve people. I know we learn best by doing, sharing ideas, experiencing
the way we do work to improve our skills. In addition to this essential duties and responsibilities of each position, every team member is held accountable to demonstrate outstanding communication skills, effective collaboration, personal initiative to overcome obstacles and the ability to work effectively to meet deadlines. The Website for this course can be viewed at (http://saibo-cep813-msu.weebly.com/).
Finally, the Capstone Portfolio class worth mentioning. It is the culmination of the Ed Tech Master's program. It is a time of reflection over the previous courses as well as a compilation of work done over various terms in the Master's of Educational Technology (MAET) Program. The portfolio is a great way to market or showcase ourselves as professional to potential employers. As I get close to yet another chapter in my life, I can conclude once again that the start was a
critical decision making process but the risk was worth taken. The effect that this MAET has brought to me as an individual especially for one who is not a full-time teacher is worth conceding to. From CEP 800 at the very start of this journey to CEP 807, the Capstone course, my department, friends, and family can notice a great change and the wealth of knowledge I have gained. From blogging, CourseSites, Wix, Angel, EverNote, Wordpress etc.
Park is about creating online resume, teaching philosophy, and presenting
classroom in an online environment. This course is great because it allows you
to get ready for the Capstone course. It was about showcasing what we have
learned and displaying it through the web. Considering that I am not a teacher but work in the Tech World, my vision for showcasing was focus on student employees working in our IT Department. Technically, it was a simple and realistic vision that helped our students to get the “Real World” experience while they are still in school. Knowing that there exist many different learning styles, whether as a professional in a specialized field or simply trying to enhance the way you do work to serve people. I know we learn best by doing, sharing ideas, experiencing
the way we do work to improve our skills. In addition to this essential duties and responsibilities of each position, every team member is held accountable to demonstrate outstanding communication skills, effective collaboration, personal initiative to overcome obstacles and the ability to work effectively to meet deadlines. The Website for this course can be viewed at (http://saibo-cep813-msu.weebly.com/).
Finally, the Capstone Portfolio class worth mentioning. It is the culmination of the Ed Tech Master's program. It is a time of reflection over the previous courses as well as a compilation of work done over various terms in the Master's of Educational Technology (MAET) Program. The portfolio is a great way to market or showcase ourselves as professional to potential employers. As I get close to yet another chapter in my life, I can conclude once again that the start was a
critical decision making process but the risk was worth taken. The effect that this MAET has brought to me as an individual especially for one who is not a full-time teacher is worth conceding to. From CEP 800 at the very start of this journey to CEP 807, the Capstone course, my department, friends, and family can notice a great change and the wealth of knowledge I have gained. From blogging, CourseSites, Wix, Angel, EverNote, Wordpress etc.