In ISLT 9471, I worked together with four classmates to create a course design for a blended-learning employment search course for university upperclassmen. My group members were employed in various positions: two university professors, a middle school teacher, a university IT system training manager, and an educational materials developer. Each of these education stakeholders in our group was not only trying to complete the design project, but to complete it in a way that each of us could actually use parts of the design in our respective professional environments. Together, we had to create a shared vision for the design that would meet the present course requirements and enable us to empower students with technology in our respective learning environments.
Achieving equitable access to educational technology for all students is an ongoing challenge. Accessibility problems will vary with different learning environments and individual situations. In ISLT 9484, I worked on a group project to create a wiki page about “Technology Issues,” the bulk of which was dedicated to anticipating, recognizing, and resolving different types of accessibility issues. I wrote a large portion of the accessibility section because it is important to me. For example, in my own teaching environment, my department’s curriculum is becoming very technology heavy and somewhat dependent on personal mobile devices. For lower-income students, this can be a problem in terms of both having a device and having a data plan. Accessing the university’s wifi is somewhat complicated because of strict access control. I always point freshmen and foreign students to the instructions on the university website, and I hold informal run-throughs in my own time to ensure all students are online in class.
I have modeled and promoted technology options for educators in several different ways. In three different courses of my M Ed program, I developed and shared concept maps (example here) that illustrated different technologies and how they support meaningful learning. In addition, in ISLT 9467, I used VoiceThread to demonstrate to my classmates how and why I would be using Google+ Communities for student discussions. Another example is my digital media portfolio for ISLT 7361, which details how I used each technology to create my products. Finally, a colleague and I gave a presentation at Yeungnam University on the use of Google apps in EFL education, and I have since lead workshops with a shortened version of that presentation that focuses on using Google Docs for EFL writing.