Reflection:
The video above on the right provides a reflective commentary on the experience of paricipating in the class blog and keeping a personal reflections blog. Both assignments provided meaningful experiential learning concerning constructivist learning. I did not realize it at the time, but all of the courses in this program are designed using constructivist learning principles that allow each learner to build their knowledge as they ponder the content and interact with peers to negotiate a shared understanding of the course concepts. The assignments allow for individual inquiry to further extend one's learning in an area of interest. At this point, I was very excited to take ETEC 530 Constructivist Strategies for E-Learning because I realized my teaching practice was gradually being transformed as I came to a better understanding of constructivism; however, I also knew that I could not yet effectively articulate what it means to teach using constructivist principles, and why we should learn how to do it effectively.
inquire
Artifact: reflective blog
In ETEC 540 Text Technologies: The Changing Spaces of Reading and Writing, participants were required to post their assignments to the class blog (ETEC540: Text Technologies) as polished, formal work. Our participation in the web platform gave us the experience of blogging in a shared, socially negotiated space online. As well, in ETEC 533 Technology in the Math and Science Classroom, we had the option of keeping a personal blog during the course to reflect on the course material and interactivies that we were experiencing called our Legacy of Learning. At the end of the course, we were to complete a major final reflection piece to reflect on our total learning journey in this course. The process of journaling reflections is also meaningful for documenting one's learning journey.
blogs
The changes in text from the scroll to the codex book were not so dramatic, but the advent of hypertext has been much more significant. There is a lack of a beginning, middle and an end, and it is possible to navigate endlessly by clicking one hyperlink after the other (Keep, McLaughlin & Parmar, 1995). With the rise of the internet came the democratization of publishing which has been quite liberating for society despite the fact that there are also a plethora of poor quality materials online as well (O'Donnell & Engell, 1999). Anyone can be a publisher. Although this new situation has created questions regarding intellectual authority and copyright, teachers can leverage this new media to not only give students the experience of publishing their own work but to teach them to judge sources and how to not violate copyright. As well, the new spaces of reading and writing are laden with image and video which are arguably equal in importance to textual literacy (Chu & Graves, 2013). Literacy has become more complicated being recognized as more than textual literacy since we now have several modes of representation that are significant and interrelated (New London Group, 1996). Digital writing forms have multiplied and become more social in nature, so people are writing frequently and using image and video with text to represent ideas, but without concern for formal grammar and spelling. Blogging in the classroom holds promise for students to use mutliple modes of representation in this space to present polished, formal work.
How does the theory of constructivism translate into classroom practice?