Quentin's e-Portfolio
Cooking With Flair: Reflections on the elective courses of the MET program
Once you have a solid sense of how to cook, it is time to put your own spin on some recipes. With a foundational knowledge in place, you can then add some of your own flair to some recipes and, maybe, even go venture on your own and create your own recipes.
This was similar to the process of taking the elective courses in the MET program. Having the foundations in place helped me see bigger ideas and I was able to tweak some existing projects and in some cases I was able to begin building from the ground-up in other projects. Either way, I was able to utilize my growing technological competencies not only in the MET program but also within my own school.
This course was a natural follow up to ETEC 512 as I was able provide further rationale behind making particular cooking choices. When I cook, I often appear to add spices at random and sometimes I feel that way too. However, there are reasons and I need to articulate those reasons to others. So, as I thought through constructivism, I applied and articulated the ideas in how I could see this work more effectively in my own classes. Again, as with my own recipes, there is always room to tweak and improve in order to enhance it for myself, and more importantly, for my tasters.
What fun is there in cooking, or in life for that matter, if you cannot discuss your passions and ideas? ETEC 532 was a course that was a lot like the humanities courses that I teach; that is to say, it was a course of many discussions. As such, this course forced me to articulate (and visualize) my rationale for learning and integrating technology in my classroom. Moreover, it was also an opportunity to think through how I could best support other aspiring chefs (teachers) as the key project illustrates.
Sometimes it is fun to spend time dabbling in a particular area of interest or perceived expertise. For me, this is my stir-fries. I think I have a pretty solid recipe and a rationale to go with it, but it is good to evaluate that and to experiment with it. This was ETEC 531 for me.
I enjoy assessing and evaluating cultural and media issues with my students. Thus, this course was helpful in pushing my own understandings of these issues in order to enhance my own set of skills in not only evaluating but also creating new media.
This course pushed me to go “off book” more, much like cooking without the aid of recipe forces one to apply understanding and principles to create new and exciting dishes. The first step to this was re-imagining a course that I teach regularly, namely Socials 11. Launching this course onto Moodle was challenging and frustrating at times. This was like trying a new way of doing things. Another important thing was using new tools and techniques as I did with my digital story. I have told the story of how I got into teaching, but I wanted to present this in a way that would challenge me. I have used many digital tools so I wanted to use a new one, so I did to challenge myself.
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