Course Description
Students will explore educationally significant emerging technologies and will examine aspects of change in education (including topics such as: inspiration and implementation of technology integration, systems and psychological considerations in change and sustainable initiatives, and disruptive innovation). Students will develop frameworks for technology selection, and will investigate applications, benefits and challenges inherent in specific emerging technology deployment
Course Learning Outcomes
- Be familiar with common terms, definitions and elements related to emerging technologies.
- Research and identify emerging technologies with educational applications not yet adopted by mainstream education or in early adoption phases.
- Examine current research around technology adoption, best practices for change management and technology integration.
- Adapt or develop a framework for assessing emerging technologies.
- Consider potential design/implementation opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies.
- Discuss potential digital citizenship and appropriate use issues.
Evidence of Learning #1: Cohort Led seminar facilitation
Click here to accessing the online seminar: Personalized Learning Environments~Seminar 5
Seminar experience
Learning Outcomes Addressed:
This project was an incredible learning experience. I was to create and implement a seminar for a small cohort on the topic of emergent technologies in the education field. My particular area of research was to explore (a finite number) resources available on Personal Learning Environments (PLE), and translate this understanding into tangible activities for my peers to explore and learn about the subject. I developed a seminar platform that followed the standard online course design model ("Get Started, Work On It, and Show It"), in which my peers (Andrew and Margot) worked their way through the material and eventually demonstrate their understanding of the concept through either a blog post, or by designing a model PLE of their own. At the start of the week, I thought I knew what there was to know about PLEs, but I was wrong.
Over the week I began to question my own understanding of PLEs as the concept is so nebulous in nature, and my cohort planted questions and brought forth ideas that I really left me wondering about the true nature of the PLE and the actual pedagogy and philosophy behind it.. This left me in my own “vulnerable” state—on one hand I was attempting to direct [my peers] sense of coherence towards an understanding of PLE, and other the other hand, I was beginning to lose my own sense of coherence about this topic. There seemed to be a lack of clarity in the research about PLEs, some theorist believe the “the term should be rather understood as a ‘concept’ or ‘approach’ and not as a technology” (Fiedler, 2010). Others want to categorize it as a piece of technology (Fiedler, 2010). I was beginning to feel like I just wanted someone to ‘tell’ me what to do, and provide me with the exact tool to use.
It is a great learning experience to feel this tension, as I now realize that we tend to learn best when there is some anxiety associated with the learning process. In my attempt to find an exact definition or model for PLEs, I realized that there is nothing precise or exact about PLEs. My initial goal was to use the PLE as a device to allow students to develop their meta-cognitive skills by way of planning, organizing, monitoring, communicating and evaluating their own personal learning environment. By mid-week, and through a lot of reading and communicating, my goal had crumbled, as I realized what a truly lofty goal this was. This seminar illuminated to me that the process of learning is not necessarily linear and even when we plan, and over-plan, there is unexpected learning that occurs. The theory of Connectivism was made ever-more present as we discussed, connected, shared, adapted our thinking and negotiated our way through the PLE landscape.
- Be familiar with common terms, definitions and elements related to emerging technologies
- Research and identify emerging technologies with educational applications not yet adopted by mainstream education or in early adoption phases.
- Examine current research around technology adoption, best practices for change management and technology integration.
- Consider potential design/implementation opportunities and challenges of emerging technologies.
This project was an incredible learning experience. I was to create and implement a seminar for a small cohort on the topic of emergent technologies in the education field. My particular area of research was to explore (a finite number) resources available on Personal Learning Environments (PLE), and translate this understanding into tangible activities for my peers to explore and learn about the subject. I developed a seminar platform that followed the standard online course design model ("Get Started, Work On It, and Show It"), in which my peers (Andrew and Margot) worked their way through the material and eventually demonstrate their understanding of the concept through either a blog post, or by designing a model PLE of their own. At the start of the week, I thought I knew what there was to know about PLEs, but I was wrong.
Over the week I began to question my own understanding of PLEs as the concept is so nebulous in nature, and my cohort planted questions and brought forth ideas that I really left me wondering about the true nature of the PLE and the actual pedagogy and philosophy behind it.. This left me in my own “vulnerable” state—on one hand I was attempting to direct [my peers] sense of coherence towards an understanding of PLE, and other the other hand, I was beginning to lose my own sense of coherence about this topic. There seemed to be a lack of clarity in the research about PLEs, some theorist believe the “the term should be rather understood as a ‘concept’ or ‘approach’ and not as a technology” (Fiedler, 2010). Others want to categorize it as a piece of technology (Fiedler, 2010). I was beginning to feel like I just wanted someone to ‘tell’ me what to do, and provide me with the exact tool to use.
It is a great learning experience to feel this tension, as I now realize that we tend to learn best when there is some anxiety associated with the learning process. In my attempt to find an exact definition or model for PLEs, I realized that there is nothing precise or exact about PLEs. My initial goal was to use the PLE as a device to allow students to develop their meta-cognitive skills by way of planning, organizing, monitoring, communicating and evaluating their own personal learning environment. By mid-week, and through a lot of reading and communicating, my goal had crumbled, as I realized what a truly lofty goal this was. This seminar illuminated to me that the process of learning is not necessarily linear and even when we plan, and over-plan, there is unexpected learning that occurs. The theory of Connectivism was made ever-more present as we discussed, connected, shared, adapted our thinking and negotiated our way through the PLE landscape.
Evidence of Learning #2: Summary of Learning
Learning Outcomes Addressed:
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Summary: Emerging Technologies
The essential question asked of the Summary of Learning was: How can you inspire, initiate and implement sustainable integration of emerging technologies in your own practice, and in the practice of others? I utilized a e-magazine format in order to further explore this question through a series of more narrow topics/questions. My focused questions were as follows: (1) What are emergent technologies? (2) What filters might you use in selecting emerging technologies? (3) Can the technology be used to enhance student learning? (4) What are the systems and/or pedagogical considerations you will need to think of when implementing emerging technology projects? (5) What barriers do you see to implementation of the emerging technologies? (6) What are your thoughts regarding how to inspire, initiate, and implement emerging tech projects?
This was a great experience to not only play with a technology, which was fitting considering the topic, but also the process allowed me to synthesize my learning about emerging technologies. In my analysis, I considered the benefits and drawbacks to emergent technology, and also began to refine my thoughts on how systems, values and knowledge are changing, and how these changes are evident in education, as there is a noticeable shift away from traditional models of educating our students to online learning, hybrid learning, flipped learning, blended learning, etc.
This was a great experience to not only play with a technology, which was fitting considering the topic, but also the process allowed me to synthesize my learning about emerging technologies. In my analysis, I considered the benefits and drawbacks to emergent technology, and also began to refine my thoughts on how systems, values and knowledge are changing, and how these changes are evident in education, as there is a noticeable shift away from traditional models of educating our students to online learning, hybrid learning, flipped learning, blended learning, etc.
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