The final section of this course is devoted to assignments: your final ePortfolio post, team presentations, and completing and submitting your Final Project.
Assignment 2: Team Presentation (20%)
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Team presentations will take place as stated in the schedule.
The presentations will be recorded for those who aren’t able to attend the live sessions. Other class members will be required to complete anonymous feedback to the presenting team using an online confidential survey. The online presentations will be based on the earlier forum discussions led by teams and include selected peer feedback received. The presentation must include the relationship between the topic and teaching and learning, as well as summary and recommendations based on the discussion led by the team.
The delivery of presentations must be between 10 and 12 minutes, and at least 50% of the team members must deliver the presentation. The overall time is approximately 30 minutes, with the remainder of time used for live questions and discussions about the presentation.
The presentation may take different forms, such as a pre-recorded video, podcast, cartoon, live panel or other form of presentation that can be either pre-recorded or delivered live. To reiterate the themes from earlier on, the presentation must include the relationship between the topic and teaching and learning, as well as summary and recommendations based on the earlier discussion led by the team and the peer feedback received.
Assignment 1: ePortfolio and Blog Posts (20%)
Blog Post 5
This is your final blog post. You are asked to use this opportunity to describe the following:
- Three things that you may be able to put into practice in your teaching and how they could impact your learners
- Two things that you need to be increasingly aware of in your current use of technology that you would like to change or improve
- One recommendation you would like to make to your institution about the use of technology that would have a potentially wider impact across the institution
- One thing that could help improve teaching with technology in your area
Be sure to provide thoughtful comments on the posts of at least two others.
Congratulations, you have now completed your ePortfolio.
Final Project: Major Project Paper (50%)
The Final Project is due on the last day of the course. This final submission contributes 35% toward your final course grade, which combined with the draft (15%) make the Final Project worth 50%.
To reiterate the task, the purpose is to critically examine implications of contemporary issues in relation to specific aspects of technology-enhanced learning and digital learning environments, interpret research literature to situate issues in the context of current and historical discourses, while analyzing issues in technology-enhanced and digital learning environments in relation to a specific selected problem setting. The paper should include the following minimum elements:
- Abstract
- Introduction
- Background
- Literature review
- Discussion
- Conclusions
- References
You should be able to repurpose elements of the ePortfolio blogging you have completed, and you may incorporate and adapt them into your final paper.
Conclusion
The purpose of this course has been to introduce a broader understanding of issues in technology-enhanced learning. While many technologies, especially new ones, are promoted on the basis of their claimed effects on learning and/or efficiency, they also introduce new questions, problems, and challenges that need to be explored by educators and administrators. The questions, problems, and challenges invite a critical approach to, and awareness of, the wider implications of teaching and learning with technology.
The arrays of themes and issues introduced in the course, and situated in the associated literature, have been designed to provide an introduction and overview of some key areas impacted by, or influential upon, choices around technology in education. However, there are many others. With the ever-expanding role of technology in education and options available, educators and administrators need to maintain a similarly ongoing critical awareness of the emerging issues and discourses beyond the hype and confusion that is seen all-too-often in the popular press and social media.
As part of this process, you were encouraged to make connections in a way intended to broaden awareness of the multiple levels of issues that may be associated with technology in education, ranging from social and ethical themes to open educational practices and learning design with technology. Captured in these themes were such specific areas as mobile learning, the digital divide, privacy and safety, Indigenous issues, coding and programing, and many others. The use of social media, and blogging in particular, was intended to encourage responsible and informed discourses in an open and appropriate way that invites critical and respectful dialogues. It is hoped that this experience will pave the way for more open and critical practice and scholarship in the future. Our learners and other beneficiaries of education depend on it.
