START to FINISH...by Dionna Harvell
Technology is critical toward the social, emotional, mental, and physical development of every aspect of our lives. It serves as the bridge to connect us to parts of the world that we would otherwise not have access to. It is important for leaders of technology to provide opportunities and resources for novice users to become better acquainted with this exciting world. Leaders of technology also have the responsibility to educate students about the current and future trends in technology. Technology can be utilized in the classroom setting to create innovative and fun methods of learning for students. One of the greatest advantages of technology is that it can be utilized to assist students who have different learning strategies in traditional and alternative learning settings. Teachers should strive towards using technology to create a rigorous and exciting curriculum where students want to learn the material, rather than just regurgitating facts. Technology leaders also have the task of being abreast of how students are currently using technology in their daily lives, and capitalize on these methods during instruction. Many students are currently using MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, etc. and it is important for teachers to incorporate these social networks into the curriculum. My main roles as an educator are to figure out what the students needs are (i.e. student learning styles) and to tailor classroom instruction based on those identified needs. There is no one size fits all for students, and technology provides an alternative form of instruction delivery to meet all students’ needs. My vision of educational technology is very intriguing, thought provoking, and promising. Technology has and will continue to make every aspect of our lives easier in terms of access to resources, saving time and money, and our ability to expand our worldviews and envision multiple realities. Although I believe that the future looks good in terms of advancements in educational technology, there are still many issues that we must take into future consideration. Many people are utilizing technology for immoral and unethical purposes such as stalking, preying on children, identity theft and computer hacking. We have many sites that are providing students with incorrect information, as well as users who are using sites to promote negative influences (i.e. racial hate sites, sexist sites, and sites discriminating against religious freedom). As an educator, I will assist my students with understanding the privileges and responsibilities of this communication tool, while recognizing the positive and negative impacts these tools can have on our society. Technology has come a long way, but still has quite a ways to go and I am excited about the endless potential.
My current use of technology is at work, I utilize technology in a variety of ways in my current position as a Systems Design Engineer. My primary focus is to design everything from small individual parts and devices (i.e. micro scale sensors) to large systems (tanks, military vehicles). The role of a Systems Design Engineer is to take a product from an idea to a marketplace. In order to accomplish this goal you must have a strong repertoire of technological skills consisting of understanding the forces that a subsystem may encounter, the ability to control said forces, and the best way to manufacture them and make sure that they will operate successfully. These technology skills are required for everything that is made on my job which includes automobiles, military weapons/vehicles, computers, and automation. Every employee has a gate card issued to them which must be swiped prior to entering the building for security purposes. I often serve as project leader on a number of assignments and it is very important that group members communicate with each other through email or send texts via our work blackberry cellular phones to keep each other updated on progress. These technological tools are essential towards assisting our team with achieving SOPs (Standards of Promptness) due to often working in different areas throughout the building on the same project. We have weekly meetings where we utilize AT&T video and conference calls to connect with our partners to assist in ongoing development of our projects. Functional managers stress the necessity and importance of all group members having a fundamental understanding of the technology that is necessary to deliver a quality product. We also conduct weekly group PowerPoint presentations to our functional managers for feedback/recommendations on how to improve performance for our clients. Due to the sensitive and confidential nature of our work, any emails with threatening, suggestive, and abusive language are automatically blocked from our servers.
My educational technology plan seems to change on a daily basis as a result of the new material that is learned in our online coursework. I initially thought that I had a solid plan as to what I would like to do, but I recognize now that it is quite difficult to narrow my focus. My background is in engineering, so it is really important for me to enhance my knowledge of the various technology tools used in education. I’m curious to learn more about curriculum development, assisting students with varying learning styles, and making technology fun for my students. I have completed a timeline to illustrate my future plans in the world of educational technology.
9/20/2010-3/11/2011
I have completed the MAET Certificate Program at MichiganState University. My first course in this program has been a real eye opener for me coming from an engineering background. I already feel that I’ve gained many useful resources that will be beneficial towards my students, colleagues, and anyone else interested in educational technology. It had not occurred to me just how much I rely on technology in my work setting prior to the completion of this first course. I’m intrigued by the challenges of the coursework, the feedback from colleagues and faculty, as well as the opportunity to enhance my knowledge base in this arena. Educational technology is the wave of the future and will continue to be a vital component towards our daily functioning in society.
1/10/2011-5/6/2012
I have begun the Masters in Educational Technology Program at Michigan State University. I believe that the coursework in the certificate program allowed for a smooth transition into the master’s program. The topics that was covered greatly assisted me in building connections with other educational leaders, learning more about the different technological tools, and helping me to clearly define my career goals and objectives as a teacher. I’m curious to learn about more of the teaching theories and strategies which I can implement in my future classroom. It is my plan to utilize the coursework in this program along with an internship experience to create an online engineering class for my students. Successful completion of this program will allow me to become competitive in terms of employment in an educational technology setting.
Reflections (Time Capsule to my readers)
TimeCapsule to my future readers/educators:
Hello my name is Dionna Harvell; I am an engineer that will be transitioning into teaching. My goal is to teach college freshmen the fundamentals of engineering. I feel if they learn the fundamentals of what they need in the beginning, it will help you transition into becoming well prepared engineers in the future.
So what have I learned from my experience?
Roles and Responsibilities of Online Learners and Teachers
The first step to creating an online course is having a solid foundation of what you want to do, why you want do it, who are you doing it for, and what do you want your course to look like. When you have figured this out in your head or have written your thoughts out, you can begin to build your course. Some key things I learned in this chapter about building my course was to begin with an outline assignment:
- Grade Level:
- Subject:
- Particular Curricular Unit you are thinking of developing:
- What do you want your course to look like?
- What your ideas/thoughts/dreams for class interaction for both teacher and students?
- How do you think you will assess students?
- What are some of the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the participation in your online course?
Learning Management Systems
Step 2, you have all the information you need, now what do you do with it? What learning management system (LMS) works best for the scope of your class? Step 2 helped me discover all the LMS currently available. It can be very overwhelming especially if you have time constraints. So, to save time use EduTools, this site gives a good comparison of the LMS tool that would be best for you. Just in case you don’t know the LMS choices go to OpenSourceCMS to learn the available LMS tools.
Building a Virtual Classroom
You have a direction and a learning management system, now all you have to do is go for it!!! Create, be creative, and let your creativity run wild!!! A lesson learned in this chapter that can enhance your virtual classroom is the use of screen casting. My personal experience with screen casting on my course site has been a very positive one. I used Jing to capture and explain parts of my site that I wanted to elaborate on.
Communication and Collaboration
Now to that the outer shell of your course is together, it’s time for the meat and potatoes. What are your learning goals for your students? My learning goals for my students were to develop a course that would help them develop the engineer in them. I wanted them to have a real life work setting that would transition them from a 1st year college student to a mature minded entry level engineer, with knowledge to become a great leader. My learning goal is to help them open their minds to see objects in a different way. Engineers see things in 3D as well as 2D, what is the best engineer in them to learn what path they are most likely to go down in their engineering career, or to help them see is engineering really for me? This is my goal that I would like my students to learn by the end of this unit/module. Chapter 4 touched 3 main topics:
1. Asynchronous vs. Synchronous chat as a part of online course design
2. Using Google Docs for collaborative projects, with emphasis on asynchronous and synchronous features
3. Instructor Communications -- What are your options? What works best, when?
Accessibility, Universal Design for Learning and Course Assessment
My structure for learning to my future readers/educators has been an awesome experience. My best way of explaining the excitement I have for this class is like a full course meal. I started with an appetizer, went for the soup, then salad, on to the main course, now it’s time for dessert!!! Who doesn’t like dessert? My dessert for this course was to make sure once my students have learned what my intent was to teach them, I now had to evaluate and assess how they were learning my material. For me to form my thoughts on assessment and evaluation I first had to distinguish the difference between the two. I learned that when you assess something you focus on learning, teaching, and outcomes. Assessment is the process students and faculty form when interacting to inform faculty how well their students are learning what they are teaching. Most assessments are information that is learner-centered, course based, frequently anonymous, and not graded. Evaluations focus on grades and reflect classroom components rather than course content and mastery level. Evaluations include discussions, cooperation, attendance, and verbal ability. You may take a look at the Rubric Link I created to help students assess each other.
Classroom Management
I know that was a lot of food to digest but, wasn’t it all delicious!!! Let’s drink a little coffee while we reflect on everything we learned and put it to work. Some take away advice given in chapter 6 was “Be thoughtful. Develop a system that you have good reason to believe will work. Stick to it. Revise based on student feedback and on your own professional reflections. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.” Very good advice because your course site is never complete. You can always add, revise, or take away something.
Accessibility, Universal Design for Learning and Course Assessment
The main lesson before kicking up your feet would be to check out the following resources:
The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST):
The NationalCenter on Universal Design for Learning (UDL):
Ask yourself:
How could you apply these principles to the online module you've designed?
Moving forward, which of these elements can you implement immediately?
Which of them will require additional learning on your part?
Future readers/educators I would like to leave you with the thoughts of Create, be creative, and let your creativity run wild!!! . Creativity was the basis behind everything I did in this program. I formed my course site from a love of what I do everyday and that is going into the office (cube life) and doing what I do best and that is engineering all day, everyday. I live and breathe engineering and feel I have a lot future students can gain from my knowledge and real world experience.
In closing so that you understand my creativity in my course site I will leave you my online course so that you can review and hopefully get ideas to open your minds to new learning management systems to get your students inspired to learning your subject of interest Engineering Beginnings 101.
8/2012
After graduation, my plan is to develop an online engineering program which will be available for students at varying age levels. I am still contemplating on whether or not I will teach at the elementary, middle, high school, or collegiate level. Initially I planned to only teach the course at the collegiate level. The coursework in this certificate program as helped me to see the importance in exposing students early on to the benefits of educational technology. It would have been nice to have access to these resources as a child growing up in Flint Michigan. This certificate program has led me to wonder how my childhood peers would have fared in their adult life had they been privy to these exciting advancements in technology. My online engineering course will be a thorough and comprehensive framework which is best suited to meet the needs of learners at all levels. I could proudly see myself working in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Program here in the Lansing School District preparing the next generation of technology wizards, while getting my freshmen class ready for real life experiences.
Gateway
If I had to pick out a class that I feel helped me most on my path of educational technology it would be: CEP 820 - Teaching K12 Students Online, L. WOLF. I would say this class because it combined everything I learned in all the other classes and applied it to real life theory. For this class went hand in hand with what I needed to move forward with future goals and what I want to do with this degree. In the CEP 820 – Teaching K12 Students online we created a real working online course. My course name is Engineering Beginnings 101.
My current use of technology is at work, I utilize technology in a variety of ways in my current position as a Systems Design Engineer. My primary focus is to design everything from small individual parts and devices (i.e. micro scale sensors) to large systems (tanks, military vehicles). The role of a Systems Design Engineer is to take a product from an idea to a marketplace. In order to accomplish this goal you must have a strong repertoire of technological skills consisting of understanding the forces that a subsystem may encounter, the ability to control said forces, and the best way to manufacture them and make sure that they will operate successfully. These technology skills are required for everything that is made on my job which includes automobiles, military weapons/vehicles, computers, and automation. Every employee has a gate card issued to them which must be swiped prior to entering the building for security purposes. I often serve as project leader on a number of assignments and it is very important that group members communicate with each other through email or send texts via our work blackberry cellular phones to keep each other updated on progress. These technological tools are essential towards assisting our team with achieving SOPs (Standards of Promptness) due to often working in different areas throughout the building on the same project. We have weekly meetings where we utilize AT&T video and conference calls to connect with our partners to assist in ongoing development of our projects. Functional managers stress the necessity and importance of all group members having a fundamental understanding of the technology that is necessary to deliver a quality product. We also conduct weekly group PowerPoint presentations to our functional managers for feedback/recommendations on how to improve performance for our clients. Due to the sensitive and confidential nature of our work, any emails with threatening, suggestive, and abusive language are automatically blocked from our servers.
My educational technology plan seems to change on a daily basis as a result of the new material that is learned in our online coursework. I initially thought that I had a solid plan as to what I would like to do, but I recognize now that it is quite difficult to narrow my focus. My background is in engineering, so it is really important for me to enhance my knowledge of the various technology tools used in education. I’m curious to learn more about curriculum development, assisting students with varying learning styles, and making technology fun for my students. I have completed a timeline to illustrate my future plans in the world of educational technology.
9/20/2010-3/11/2011
I have completed the MAET Certificate Program at MichiganState University. My first course in this program has been a real eye opener for me coming from an engineering background. I already feel that I’ve gained many useful resources that will be beneficial towards my students, colleagues, and anyone else interested in educational technology. It had not occurred to me just how much I rely on technology in my work setting prior to the completion of this first course. I’m intrigued by the challenges of the coursework, the feedback from colleagues and faculty, as well as the opportunity to enhance my knowledge base in this arena. Educational technology is the wave of the future and will continue to be a vital component towards our daily functioning in society.
1/10/2011-5/6/2012
I have begun the Masters in Educational Technology Program at Michigan State University. I believe that the coursework in the certificate program allowed for a smooth transition into the master’s program. The topics that was covered greatly assisted me in building connections with other educational leaders, learning more about the different technological tools, and helping me to clearly define my career goals and objectives as a teacher. I’m curious to learn about more of the teaching theories and strategies which I can implement in my future classroom. It is my plan to utilize the coursework in this program along with an internship experience to create an online engineering class for my students. Successful completion of this program will allow me to become competitive in terms of employment in an educational technology setting.
Reflections (Time Capsule to my readers)
TimeCapsule to my future readers/educators:
Hello my name is Dionna Harvell; I am an engineer that will be transitioning into teaching. My goal is to teach college freshmen the fundamentals of engineering. I feel if they learn the fundamentals of what they need in the beginning, it will help you transition into becoming well prepared engineers in the future.
So what have I learned from my experience?
Roles and Responsibilities of Online Learners and Teachers
The first step to creating an online course is having a solid foundation of what you want to do, why you want do it, who are you doing it for, and what do you want your course to look like. When you have figured this out in your head or have written your thoughts out, you can begin to build your course. Some key things I learned in this chapter about building my course was to begin with an outline assignment:
- Grade Level:
- Subject:
- Particular Curricular Unit you are thinking of developing:
- What do you want your course to look like?
- What your ideas/thoughts/dreams for class interaction for both teacher and students?
- How do you think you will assess students?
- What are some of the social, ethical, legal, and human issues surrounding the participation in your online course?
Learning Management Systems
Step 2, you have all the information you need, now what do you do with it? What learning management system (LMS) works best for the scope of your class? Step 2 helped me discover all the LMS currently available. It can be very overwhelming especially if you have time constraints. So, to save time use EduTools, this site gives a good comparison of the LMS tool that would be best for you. Just in case you don’t know the LMS choices go to OpenSourceCMS to learn the available LMS tools.
Building a Virtual Classroom
You have a direction and a learning management system, now all you have to do is go for it!!! Create, be creative, and let your creativity run wild!!! A lesson learned in this chapter that can enhance your virtual classroom is the use of screen casting. My personal experience with screen casting on my course site has been a very positive one. I used Jing to capture and explain parts of my site that I wanted to elaborate on.
Communication and Collaboration
Now to that the outer shell of your course is together, it’s time for the meat and potatoes. What are your learning goals for your students? My learning goals for my students were to develop a course that would help them develop the engineer in them. I wanted them to have a real life work setting that would transition them from a 1st year college student to a mature minded entry level engineer, with knowledge to become a great leader. My learning goal is to help them open their minds to see objects in a different way. Engineers see things in 3D as well as 2D, what is the best engineer in them to learn what path they are most likely to go down in their engineering career, or to help them see is engineering really for me? This is my goal that I would like my students to learn by the end of this unit/module. Chapter 4 touched 3 main topics:
1. Asynchronous vs. Synchronous chat as a part of online course design
2. Using Google Docs for collaborative projects, with emphasis on asynchronous and synchronous features
3. Instructor Communications -- What are your options? What works best, when?
Accessibility, Universal Design for Learning and Course Assessment
My structure for learning to my future readers/educators has been an awesome experience. My best way of explaining the excitement I have for this class is like a full course meal. I started with an appetizer, went for the soup, then salad, on to the main course, now it’s time for dessert!!! Who doesn’t like dessert? My dessert for this course was to make sure once my students have learned what my intent was to teach them, I now had to evaluate and assess how they were learning my material. For me to form my thoughts on assessment and evaluation I first had to distinguish the difference between the two. I learned that when you assess something you focus on learning, teaching, and outcomes. Assessment is the process students and faculty form when interacting to inform faculty how well their students are learning what they are teaching. Most assessments are information that is learner-centered, course based, frequently anonymous, and not graded. Evaluations focus on grades and reflect classroom components rather than course content and mastery level. Evaluations include discussions, cooperation, attendance, and verbal ability. You may take a look at the Rubric Link I created to help students assess each other.
Classroom Management
I know that was a lot of food to digest but, wasn’t it all delicious!!! Let’s drink a little coffee while we reflect on everything we learned and put it to work. Some take away advice given in chapter 6 was “Be thoughtful. Develop a system that you have good reason to believe will work. Stick to it. Revise based on student feedback and on your own professional reflections. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.” Very good advice because your course site is never complete. You can always add, revise, or take away something.
Accessibility, Universal Design for Learning and Course Assessment
The main lesson before kicking up your feet would be to check out the following resources:
The Center for Applied Special Technology (CAST):
The NationalCenter on Universal Design for Learning (UDL):
Ask yourself:
How could you apply these principles to the online module you've designed?
Moving forward, which of these elements can you implement immediately?
Which of them will require additional learning on your part?
Future readers/educators I would like to leave you with the thoughts of Create, be creative, and let your creativity run wild!!! . Creativity was the basis behind everything I did in this program. I formed my course site from a love of what I do everyday and that is going into the office (cube life) and doing what I do best and that is engineering all day, everyday. I live and breathe engineering and feel I have a lot future students can gain from my knowledge and real world experience.
In closing so that you understand my creativity in my course site I will leave you my online course so that you can review and hopefully get ideas to open your minds to new learning management systems to get your students inspired to learning your subject of interest Engineering Beginnings 101.
8/2012
After graduation, my plan is to develop an online engineering program which will be available for students at varying age levels. I am still contemplating on whether or not I will teach at the elementary, middle, high school, or collegiate level. Initially I planned to only teach the course at the collegiate level. The coursework in this certificate program as helped me to see the importance in exposing students early on to the benefits of educational technology. It would have been nice to have access to these resources as a child growing up in Flint Michigan. This certificate program has led me to wonder how my childhood peers would have fared in their adult life had they been privy to these exciting advancements in technology. My online engineering course will be a thorough and comprehensive framework which is best suited to meet the needs of learners at all levels. I could proudly see myself working in a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) Program here in the Lansing School District preparing the next generation of technology wizards, while getting my freshmen class ready for real life experiences.
Gateway
If I had to pick out a class that I feel helped me most on my path of educational technology it would be: CEP 820 - Teaching K12 Students Online, L. WOLF. I would say this class because it combined everything I learned in all the other classes and applied it to real life theory. For this class went hand in hand with what I needed to move forward with future goals and what I want to do with this degree. In the CEP 820 – Teaching K12 Students online we created a real working online course. My course name is Engineering Beginnings 101.
