Tag Archives: professional development

W4 – Assignment 1 Environmental Scan of Teaching Environment & Resources

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This environmental scan assignment is based upon my knowledge of teaching at Selkirk College, as a marketing manager, who proposes to be an Online Marketing Instructor for Fall 2014, teaching 100/200/300 level courses in an online capacity only.

1.    Environmental Scan

Selkirk College is a regional community college with over 550 employees and instructors, eight campuses and learning centres and approximately 2,000+ full-time students and over 10,000 continuing education students.

Modality of Learning & Nature of Interactions: The education is delivered through apprenticeships, some online courses (blended and distance), work terms, co-op education, practicums and hands-on face-to-face classroom training. Our programs are typically held in a synchronous manner as they will ladder in requirements.

My Role: My ‘proposed’ on-line marketing courses that I would instruct would be some 100, 200 and 300 level courses which would require the pre-requisites to advance. They would be delivered on-line both to distance students and on-campus students. I would have online support only for these courses.

Hardware:

  • Laptops / Ipads
  • Iphones
  • Scanners
  • Cameras/video cameras

Note: This hardware is college provided but would be required for the students to have access to through their own resources.

Software:

  • Presentation Tools: Skype, Teleconference phone line (teacher only), Prezi and Wordle.
  • Collaboration Tools: Zoho docs, Google Drive, Dropbox, Zoho Projects. Missing:
  • Communication Tools: Prezi, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram. Missing: Video editing tools and formal training on Social Media.

Technical Assistance: Selkirk has support from its ITS Department for both students and staff through a help ticketing system that are available M-F 8:30 – 4:00 pm. www.Helpdesk.selkirk.ca  This can be limiting when there are students that need access to their work through Moodle and it is down over a weekend etc so that would be a risk to consider.

Pedagogical/instructional Design Assistance: Some as we have an ecampus.selkirk.ca already in operation. We offer some of our courses within our programs online. I would look to expand my network in this regard, as we are not leaders in this area and other schools like TRU are more advanced. As a consumer of online education, I have seen a fairly high standard in design and would want to at least emulate that…high hopes.

Tutorial Assistance: I propose to provide at least 60 min per week of chat time and spending at least 60 – 90 minutes in Discussion Forum Support.

Technical Assistance For Students: During the first class and few days surrounding that, I propose to provide a few extra hours of assistance to ensure everyone is ‘on’, logged in, able to ‘hear’ if required etc.

Funding Available Annually: Should more video or photo editing be required, I could see Adobe Creative Suite licensing be a request for myself but students would be responsible for their own licenses. Obviously, they get an education discount but that is the extent of the support. For extra funding I would turn to the annual Learning Resource Fund, which is to provide funding for projects that align with our strategic directions and specifically enhance the student’s learning experience. Applications for funding are received from April 1 – May 15 of each year and the approval and funding allocation process follows shortly after. It helps cover Purchase or upgrading of technology equipment, short term staffing requirements to support initiatives undertaken by the fund (lab monitors, etc.), acquisition of learning and instructional materials which are deemed to be extraordinary and have not been included in the budget development process and activities and resources that support the removal of learning barriers.

Professional Development Resources: There is typically around $1,500 per staff member for PD available. This can go into online training or conference attendance.

 2. Technology-Enhanced Learning Opportunities

I have been very interested in understanding the online world more and last fiscal year, I attended a conference on web design, An Event Apart http://archive.aneventapart.com/2012/seattle/?/2012/seattle/.

It has been excellent for understanding the importance of organizing your content, how it is distributed/perceived, as well as the W3C Standards of Accessibility http://www.w3.org/WAI/.

Our department has purchased a www.Lynda.com membership that has many helpful starter tutorials on many areas relevant to online teaching from all skills around video, web, Microsoft Office to classes like Teaching with the iPad: Creating a Classroom Research Project.

Further, our Teaching & Learning Department puts on various workshops like http://selkirk.ca/news/selkirk-college-embraces-vodcasting-technology-teaching.

3.  Technology-Enhanced Goal

[youtube width=”640″ height=”360″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nn1l333nuvU[/youtube]

 

I have summarized my answer below, in a little video testimonial of sorts. I will definitely set as part of my training goals, to learn how to hold the camera at a better angle, and choose a more appealing thumbnail to save the video with as well.

As I intend to teach marketing, communications, online marketing and social media courses, I will constantly need to keep up to date on the latest changes in these fields. This will serve a dual purpose of keeping me on my ‘technology’ game as well. This includes being able to create videos, photo editing, presentations and run online meetings.

Social Media: I intend to take advantage of online tutorials Lynda.com membership mainly but will be considering social media updates as I feel it is a very engaging tool with students, even outside of a social media class.  The Lynda.com membership is provided by Selkirk College at this time and I will allot several hours weekly to upgrading my skills in various areas.

Privacy & Cloud Based Educational Technology: In BC, there are two main information privacy laws that set out the minimum standards that employers, employees and service providers must follow to prevent unreasonable, unnecessary or unsafe sharing of personal information belonging to staff, clients, customers and the general public.

  • FIPPA – Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA)
  • PIPA – Personal Information Protection Act.

For public sector employers, employees and service providers in BC, which includes staff of publicly-funded educational institutions, the governing law is FIPPA.

Since obtaining consent is a key part of protecting privacy and exercising due diligence, I would need to establish a privacy protocol for ensuring student notice, knowledge and consent whenever using social media or other cloud based tools as a teaching aid, as required to meet FIPPA standards. This would require collaborating with other faculty teaching in this area, across the province, on their protocols and adapting something to fit Selkirk’s standards, as at this time, Selkirk does not have a Social Media Policy.

Video Filming & Editing: In the next year I intend to upgrade my competence in video editing which will allow me to officially request the most appropriate tool for the job (e.g. IMovie may be enough or do I need to ask for something more complicated like Adobe Premiere (http://video-editing-software-review.toptenreviews.com/) which I have found too complicated in the past.

WordPress Design: I also intend to increase my design skills in WordPress with responsive templates as a tool for teaching that will allow students to access the lectures via IPhone.

 

 

W3 Activity 2 – My Personal Technology Plan

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My motto for teaching/learning online as I go forward is to learn something new everyday. Embracing new technologies takes dedicated time and an attitude that embraces change and improvement.

Technology Objectives

  • Macbook – Use Macbook to complete all EDDL work and assignments by utlizing each of the available tools such as IPhoto, IMovie, Facetalk, Skype, Google+, etc. The impact to learning is that I will be more fluent and adaptable with these tools and a stronger communicator/educator as a result.
  • KOBO E-reader – Use e-reader as a study guide for e-books to become more familiar with pros/cons, availability challenges etc.
  • Personal Learning Environment – Continue to use bookmark sites like Delicious or Diigo, as a new user, I am finding them helpful.
  • Productivity Apps – Learn to integrate various Apps (Cheddar, TagMyDoc, Dropbox) o take and share notes, create to-do lists, store files or organize academic schedules. I will investigate Trickster as it apparently helps you find all of your recently used apps and files. For creating lesson plans I will investigate iBooks Author to help formulate strategies for textbooks and reading assignments. This will all impact learning in a positive manner by increasing effectiveness and efficiency.
  • External Harddrive – As a professional / soon to be educator, I need to upgrade my archiving and security protocols to protecting my work. From this I will time machine my macbook weekly, or daily during high usage times, to a large external hard drive. The jmpact to learning of this is that I will be a more consistent educator with less technical set-backs that could potentially interrupt my coursework.
  • Flip Video Camera – Using a portable video camera to increase my comfort and expertise in filming different shorts. The impact to learning is that it’ll extend my reach to students who rely heavily on seeing and hearing, rather than reading.
  • Prezi – Create more presentations through Prezi to increase competency and clarity of presentations. The impact to my learning and the learning of others is that this tool is great for capturing attention in a way that Powerpoint is lacking. It requires a presenter to really know their topic, structure of presentation etc, in order to create an engaging presentation.

Proposed Learning Activities

My formal learning (courses) will include all of EDDL Courses this year, along with completing the TEFL Certificate which I am 50% complete.

My informal learning will be through various presentation tools like Prezi to help communicate various concepts, iMovie to develop my video creation/editing skills as well as some note-taking tools like Fetchnotes, which let you jot down your thoughts in free-form quickly. I will also be investigating Dunno which can take a note and let a service do the rest of the work for you completely in the background. Once you take the note, you’ll find a series of search results from sources including Bing, Wikipedia and YouTube.

My professional development will go on hold for a couple of years as I am resigning from my job at the end of July to take school full time while working part time to market a restaurant Por Que No and to some degree undetermined at this time, a hotel Costa Paraiso. I will fund my own marketing PD, which will help towards to online education field as this will be the subject I intend to teach online. My skillset will benefit from PD in SEO Optimization, Social Media upgrading as well as in becoming Google Adwords Certified.

Impact/Involvement of Wider Community

I will continue to build my teaching network through each course I take with EDDL courses as these relationships are key to increasing your impact and ongoing education.

Indicators of Evaluation on Plan’s Impact

At the end of my EDDL courses, I will review my level of competency with these tools and whether I need to focus on new tools. I will be evaluating tools on an ongoing basis in my learning over the next year as well.

 

W3 Activity 1 – Tell Us About Your Technology Plan

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Does your institution have a technology plan, and if so, how and where is it accessed?

  • Yes. Emailed out to management only. Developed by IT Director and stored on their Shared Drive.
  • No, it is not shared on the college intranet my.selkirk.ca as you would think.

When was the technology plan last updated?

Each fiscal year it is updated, so in draft in May 2013 most likely. Ideally it would be prepared for 2013/2014 for sign-off by end of April 2013.

How are decisions made around technology funding and purchases?

At Selkirk College we have a Learning Resource Fund, which is to provide funding for projects that align with our strategic directions and specifically enhance the student’s learning experience.

The year-over-year fixed commitments on the fund include computer lab replace and monitoring. One half of the annual fund is utilized for these fixed commitments and the balance is directed to approved projects. Applications for funding are received from April 1 – May 15 of each year and the approval and funding allocation process follows shortly after.

Areas eligible for funding from the Learning Resource Fund will include:

  • Purchase or upgrading of technology equipment;
  • Short term staffing requirements to support initiatives undertaken by the fund (lab monitors, etc.);
  • Acquisition of learning and instructional materials which are deemed to be extraordinary and have not been included in the budget development process;
  • Activities and resources that support the removal of learning barriers.

Is there a plan for professional development related to the pedagogy of using technology?

Not specifically but it is encouraged through all faculty PD to update technology skills. It is also driven through initiatives from our Teaching  & Learning Group.

How often is the impact of technology on learning reviewed?

The priority for funding will be established annually by the Deans and Directors, and included in this would be a review of the impact of last year’s projects and their impact on learning. This information is then provided to the Learning Resource Fee Advisory Committee to guide the approval process.