EDU 653
Higher Order Web-Mediated Learning - Week 6
Embedded Files
Week 6 - Synthesis of Learning Thus Far
Week 6 - Synthesis of Learning Thus Far
Note Taking Contextualisation
My experience with note taking thus far has involved a few strategies and has evolved a bit over the progression of this course. I initially began by trying to take notes on every key point in an article, then I synthesized and resynthesized into new categories. I found this to be an interesting experience and a valuable way to manage information gathered and could see this being a big takeaway in the future. However, as the weeks went on, I narrowed in more on my notetaking and began to take less notes, and began to write brief summaries of relevant information for the research topic along with some point form notes, which I had only done previously. I also began to get more critical of the notes and information I was notating, not only to save time, but to prevent myself from being distracted.
In terms of the notetaking method I have used thus far, I typically prefer handwritten notes, since I find I learn and retain more from this method, however, for this course I found digital notes to make more sense, specifically for the sake of ease when synthesizing these notes for our activities, as well as an easier way to share my notes for being assessed. I chose not to use any form of app, but instead to build them directly into my ISTE portfolio website pages for each week as I continued through the course.
I found the “Fact Checking” note taking method to be interesting and beneficial, as it led to me confirming the accuracy of some of my work, and in some cases, it forced me to revise some of my work before submission, simply because I couldn’t verify claims I was making in the activity. This will also be an interesting takeaway from this course.
Note Taking Evidence
I have collected all my notes from the first 5 weeks of this course in this page.
However, if you choose, you may also see how I embedded my notes within the work from each week by viewing the original pages at the following links:
Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5
Web Searching Contextualisation
My web search experience initially started very broad, then became more and more narrow. In week 2, I added some boolean search terms like AND & OR to try to assist in my searching, however found little success with these. Possibly because I am new to connecting search terms with these and need more experience to learn best practice, or I wonder if boolean searching is better in some topics than others. I had found more success using the minus symbol within my search string, to try to eliminate things that I didn't want to see, rather than adding more with AND.
Though overall, I did not adopt these into my normal practice as I did not find them that beneficial. This may be something I may want to "practice" in the future and investigate further for it to be something I do regularly.
Web Searching Evidence
To view my week 1 web search history, please click here for image 1 and click here for image 2.
To view my week 2 browsing history, click here.
To view my week 3 browsing history, click here.
To view my week 4 browsing history, click here for image 1, click here for image 2, click here for image 3, click here for image 4, click here for image 5.
To view my week 5 browsing history, click here.
Weekly CRAAP Tests
Week 1 - Week 2 - Week 3 - Week 4 - Week 5
Topics & Trends Contextualisation
Over the past 5 weeks I have advocated, modelled, and innovated when it comes to technology integration in my school system. In week 1 I wrote a memo to share with administrators that I could use to share how to integrate more technology in the Visual Arts department in my school. This was based in research and cited the research in the sources section at the end.
In week 2, I developed a presentation for my whole school where I discuss an action plan to integrate Zoom into our daily lives.
In week 3, I developed and presented a professional development plan that integrated face-to-face, online, and video, and hybrid scenarios to accommodate my entire district of 800 faculty and staff members.
In week 4, I produced a journal article based on research on why students cheat, including some prevention strategies for solving this issue in education.
And in week 5, I created a detailed lesson plan, using ISTE Standards for Students, that taught students proper online ethical behaviours and copyright laws, as well as allowed them to put their learning into practice by creating a digital artefact for a social media campaign in a social justice topic of their choice.
Please view all content, linked below.
Topics & Trends Evidence
Week 1 Task - Memo: Integrating Digital Tools Into the Visual Arts
Week 2 Task - To Zoom or Not To Zoom (Presentation)
Week 3 Task - PD Facilitation Plan Memo
Week 4 Task - Journal Article on Student Cheating
Accountable Talk Contextualisation
I greatly value connecting with fellow educators and communicating ideas to move the education industry forward and the experience of posting and sharing feedback and ideas with other educators, I feel, is as important as sharing effective feedback with students.
It's occasionally difficult to give feedback directly through text in a way where it doesn't sound negative, so that's something that's always on my mind when writing and sharing these kinds of ideas. As a result, I always try to keep it light, and I always try to highlight some positives, while asking a question that continues the discussion and makes them think.
Please browse the attached pictures of feedback / comments I have shared with my colleagues below.
Accountable Talk Evidence
Instructional Practice Contextualisation
One thing that stood out to me, which will be one of my biggest takeaways from the research I've done in this course, will be from the content I discovered during the topic from week 4, "why students cheat".
If you look at my original driving questions (screenshot below), you'll see that my original thoughts were fairly superficial, and in some cases incomplete. I wasn't sure about the reasons, nor did I have any clear strategies of how to successfully prevent cheating from occurring. However, as I continued my research, I was assuming I would find for data that supported the argument that online learning increases cheating. Though, the research I found did not support this, and in fact, somewhat supported that this was the opposite in reality.
After continuing with my research, a glaring similarity in a large majority of the information began to surface: students cheat when they don't feel engaged in what they are learning. Whether it's because they don't have enough time to learn it, they don't like their teacher, or they don't think their teacher is good at their job, much of this data pointed to lack of student engagement as the primary cause.
As I continued with my research I came across an article titled "Best way to stop cheating in online courses? 'Teach Better' " which validated the gut instinct I was feeling in response to the research I was finding. In education we are often looking for the newest tech tool to "lock" a student out of something, or one that will stop them from doing something they shouldn't, but the answer is staring us in the face. Be a better teacher. Be more engaging. Connect more with your students. To me, this was incredibly clear, moreover, it's supported by the research.
Instructional Practice Evidence
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