Quentin's e-Portfolio
Cooking Essentials: Reflections on the core courses of the MET program
I opted to complete the core courses early on in the program in order to have the key essentials in place prior to venturing out into other areas. This is similar to having a good grasp of the essentials of cooking and baking before doing your own experimenting. You need to know how to follow a recipe, what appropriate measurements are for particular spices and sauces, how long certain things take to cook, and so on. Once you understand these core concepts, it is easier to construct your own recipes or modify existing recipes. Using the essential tools, you can leverage these for your own specific purposes.
Thus, the core courses provided me with a solid grounding in the essentials needed not only for the MET program but also for my own personal and professional usage of technology. As I look back, I can see that these courses were foundational to my own successful use of a variety of learning activities. These courses allowed me to create a number of noteworthy projects that I have highlighted within this portfolio.
It is important to have your essentials in place when you cook/bake. Sometimes you need reminders of the specific jargon needed when cooking. There are also a few essential tools when cooking (measuring spoons, spatulas, pans, etc.). In the same way, this course was foundational for the rest. Sometimes there were reminders of basics such as APA formatting or the specific terminology needed to describe particular research methods . Other times there were ways of pushing in how to look at a recipe (article critiques) and learning how to construct my own recipe (the research proposal).
This was the first course that I took in the MET program. In many ways, it was like cooking on my own for the first time beyond “survival” cooking. When you learn how to really cook, you need to know the hows, whys, and techniques, that is to say the foundations of cooking! It is also important to begin rationalizing ideas for doing things and learning new ways doing things.
Similarly, this course introduced me to the foundations for understanding and rationalizing my own thoughts and perspectives surrounding educational technology.
This was the final foundational course that I took. It was a time to solidify some essential aspects. It was also an opportunity to focus, as it were, on a favourite recipe, and to refine it and see what was possible. This I did by spending a lot of time working in a group to create a framework for the design of e-texts as well as to actually create an e-text. This was a big recipe! We found that our recipe (e-text) was not perfect, but we were able to set some very helpful parameters for the future of e-text research. Another project involved looking at the 510 wiki and making edits. In many ways, this is like taking one of my Mom’s or Grandma’s recipe (an established family tradition) and making some updates based on my own experience and research based on the current needs of my family. It was also an opportunity to put my own spices into the mix via updated videos and images.
Sometimes, we need to really spend time thinking about why things need to be cooked at certain temperatures and timing for certain recipes. We need to really understand the principles behind what we do. ETEC 512 really helped me reflect on educational theory and to solidify and challenge the way that I did things in my own classes. Moreover, it was an opportunity to share those reflections and insights with others.
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