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Week 12: Blue Sky Thinking

I have seen a general theme running through both this course and my practice in my leadership role. Technology leadership, or really any leadership, always comes back to RELATIONSHIPS. Fostering good relationships with staff and students creates a positive environment which is key to gaining trust and buy-in. This, in turn, allows for risk-taking and innovation. As I look back on the course, relationships were seen interwoven throughout the course content. For example, relationships were central to many of the leadership theories that I examined early on in the course. As a leader, using and modelling the use of technology can influence attitudes, as seen in social learning behaviour, which can then influence behaviours. This is linked to the theory of reasoned action, which describes how attitudes as well as norms can influence behaviour. Both attitudes and beliefs about the usefulness of introducing and adopting a new technology will influence the adoption. Communities o
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Week 11: Looking Back

This week in class, we took a look back at the learning goals that was provided at the beginning of the course.  I think that I have met most, if not all, of these goals but I think that it is an important exercise for me to critically analyze and measure how I am doing for each one individually: Goal 1: Theory to practice. Apply new understandings of tech leadership theory to practice and in the course. This is perhaps one of the goals that I dedicated the most time and effort towards.  The course was really designed around not only learning about tech leadership theories, but also applying these theories in practice.  In the course, this was evident during the theory presentation assignment, the case study assignment, and the blue sky metaphor assignment (at least that's the plan since it's not until next week!).  It's pretty interesting how much the theory from this course has also crossed over to my professional practice as well.  I find that I'm even quoting s
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Week 10: More Case Study Presentations

This week, we continued with the case study presentations in class.  My group presented our case study on moving towards online final assessments in high school eLearning courses.  It was an interesting and positive experience; however, there were some negative aspects to how this was set up in the course that I'd like to explore here. First, our group found that it was a challenge to get the rest of the class up to the same level of knowledge as we had about our case study.  It felt like we spent the majority of the breakout time just getting everyone up to speed that it really took away from the rich discussions that began to occur during the last portion of the breakouts.  We provided our case study presentation via blackboard email a few days prior to class; however, no one likely reviewed it before our presentation.  I'm not even sure how this could be improved upon but I found that this was a reoccurring theme. Also, people need wait time to process the information
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Week 9: Case Study Presentations

All of the case studies that were presented in class this week were fantastic.  The one that really stood out for me though was the case study regarding the integration of blended learning in a college.  I am teaching grade 12 college chemistry next semester, and this case study has made me critically look at how I plan to teach this course.  If my students need to be prepared for a blended learning model, then I want to ensure that I'm preparing them as much as possible while they are still in high school.  I know that most colleges use an LMS (Learning Management System) so I'm wondering if I should use an LMS (Brightspace by D2L is  used by most Ontario school boards) instead of Google classroom? The Bigger Picture I have noticed that all of the case studies so far are focused around one major topic: change and resistance to that change.  Leadership is really all about relationships and cultivating those relationships to break down the barriers and fears around change.
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Week 8: Peer Review and Case Study

As this was an asynchronous class this week, my time was spent working on the group case study and the peer review of learning logs. Case Study My role in our group is to provide the case and the context for this assignment.  I chose to make a PowToon video to explain our case study, which is a challenge for me since I've never used PowToon before.  I like to challenge myself like this and try new things as I really learn a lot from these experiences.  As I was getting ready to make the video, I quickly realized that I needed to prepare a script.  As I was writing the script, I realized that I had begun to write the paper!  I spent quite a bit of time working on the script but this effort that I'm putting forth now will mean less work for me in the coming weeks.  Here is the video that I made: Peer Review For the peer review of the learning logs, I reviewed Jen Artan's blog.  This process was beneficial as it provided an opportunity to gain valuable feedback abo
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Week 7: Is an M.Ed. project right for me?

I really appreciated the guest speaker, Lisa Tsumura, that Lorayne had arranged to have in class this week.  Her talk echoed every thought that I have had about whether I want to pursue a project in my Masters program or if I only want to do the course only option.  I've already done the thesis route as I have my Ph.D. in Biochemistry so I really don't want to go through that again (it was a fantastic experience but I know the amount of time and effort that needs to go into it).  I am quite intrigued about the project idea though and Lisa (and this course) has given me a lot to think about.  Exploring Ideas As I've been changing my approach to my teaching practices this year, I'm beginning to identify various issues within my subject area.  Chemistry, or any science for that matter, is traditionally taught in a very teacher-directed manner, likely because there is a lot of content to learn in such a short period of time.  As I've been moving away from this mo
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Week 6: An Introvert's Perspective on Class

This week, Lorayne has asked us to focus our learning log on what we are doing during class time.  Specifically, what am I doing in class time?  How much is passive learning? And how much is active learning? What I'm Doing During Class Let's start with what I am doing during class time.  I have to admit that most of the time I am listening to the conversation and discussion that is happening in class, especially when we are in a larger group.  As an introvert, I really find class overwhelming in terms of stimulus because I'm trying to take everything in, including the discussion, chat window etc.  I need time to process information... it's just the way that my brain works!  I do participate much more frequently during breakout discussions.  I appreciate it when we do breakouts as it gives me a break from feeling overwhelmed and allows me a bit more time to process and contribute to the discussion. Passive vs. Active Learning In regards to passive versus act
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