Quentin's e-Portfolio
ETEC 510: DESIGN OF TECHNOLOGICALLY SUPPORTED LEARNING ENVIRONMENTS
ETEC 510 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! Another key project was refining a wiki entry on Twitter.
Artifact 1: E-Text for Science 5
I took this course one year after I did ETEC 511 where I had first spent extensive time looking at e-texts.
After a year to let the ideas around e-texts mull in my mind, I was excited to take a different approach to this issue of e-text design. An added bonus was the ability to work on this project with a group. We sought to create a multimedia, relevant, user-friendly e-text with an accompanying wikispace (see site below) to support learning. Our goal for the project was to enhance student learning and to engage them in understanding science (this e-etext was designed for a Grade 5 class). As we considered all of the pedagogical and instructional design issues needed for an effective e-text, we found that we needed to create a framework to guide our design (as well as any future design). I’ve included this framework as it showcases this keystone piece of this course for the group.
As we noted at the time, “Our proposed science e-textbook will be a more efficient and relevant design in contrast to the e-text models currently being used today. ‘Readers’ will have access to interactive learning functions that will go beyond just plain text. Thus, the ability to view content in a variety of presentations, gain evaluative feedback on what they are learning, organize thoughts with provided scaffolds, and interact with other ‘readers’ in a collaborative manner, will allow the user to enjoy a richer learning experience” (Flokstra, Harbor, Hardy, Ng, & Tinaburri, 2013, p.12-13).
In order for us to accomplish this task, we needed to find the right tools to make our recipe work. After looking at a few tools, we settled on using Adobe InDesign to aid us in the actual design of our e-text.
As the saying goes, "too many cooks in the kitchen spoil the broth." So, we opted to have one person take the lead on putting together the acutal e-text which Lane Hardy volunteered to do as he had previous experience using InDesign. The rest of us functioned as advisors and helped with creating the content and gave extensive ongoing feedback on the process. However, we were not just advisors, we were busy working on some side dishes to supplement our main course. We worked on ensuring our links between the e-text and our wiki site were at an optimal level. I took the lead on designing the wiki site.
As I reflected on at the time: We have taken on an ambitious project and I think that although we were unable to design the final project in accordance with our entire framework, I believe that our prototype is an important step in the field of e-text design. At the very least, I think our framework provides a necessary and helpful contribution to the field of e-texts (Q. Flokstra, personal communication, March 29, 2014). As I look back on this process, I concur with those sentiments. It was an ambitious project, and given that e-texts have not made much progress in the last few years, I feel that our project may yet function as a key piece in the necessary changes to the e-text landscape. This is like a brand new recipe that will change the way we eat forever and our kitchens just are not quite ready for it yet!
Video Tour of the e-textbook
e-Textbook Accompanying Wiki Site
This is the wiki site we created to supplement our e-text.
Artifact 2: Wiki Entry on Twitter
While I do not use Pinterest, I often see many of my friends on Facebook linking or liking a particular recipe they found on Pinterest. Social media is a great place to find and share recipes and dinner inspirations! In the same way, educators can (and should) be using Twitter to find teaching inspiration and connect with other educators.
Within this course, we had the opportunity to create or refine an existing page within the course’s wiki system. Because of my interest in Twitter, I opted to refine the page dealing with Twitter. I thought this page needed some updates and clearer connections made for the relevance for teachers. Moreover, some of the links to the 3rd-party applications were outdated. As such, I did some major editing and revising to make the relevance of Twitter to educators obvious. Essentially, the benefit of Twitter is that you can have a readily accessible PLN 24/7, without needing to be there 24/7. By following pertinent hashtags or prominent education leaders, you can peruse the best of current trends in education, educational technology, etc. Weekly EdChats also enhance your Twitter experience and help you focus on a particular area. Essentially, Twitter is ongoing professional development. This is a recipe that I am passionate about and I wanted to ensure that it reflected the best trends at the time.
As I noted earlier, this is a similar process to revising someone’s already excellent recipe (like Grandma’s Mac N’ Cheese). In some ways, I felt like I was intruding in a space where maybe I did not have a right to. Moreover, I felt that if I changed things too much, the essence would be lost. However, as I ventured into this project, I realized that with changing times and audiences, modifications are necessary. In the same way that I needed to change Grandma’s recipe to account for my boys’ lactose intolerance, changing the Twitter page to better reflect the current state of affairs is also necessary. Updating websites is a necessary activity as the web increasingly evolves. Moreover, I was able to incorporate more videos and images into the page as the course instructor was able to obtain a widget for us to easily embed You Tube videos into the wiki pages. This made the page more user-friendly and gave it a cleaner and more appealing look. This is similar to adding a few new spices to an old recipe to give it a new powerful flavour. Overall, I was pleased with what I was able to refine and change and I believe that the current rendition of the page is pertinent for educators today.
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