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 about the case and the aspects that we are asking them to discuss. Especially for those of us that are introverts in the class! I felt put on the spot several times during other the other case study presentations in this class and I wished that I had more time to digest the information presented so that I could contribute in a more meaningful way.

That being said, our group presentation went very well and we received some great feedback and ideas that we will be incorporating into our case study paper.

Comments

Week 1: Getting Started

This week marks the beginning of this course. I have to admit that I was pretty excited about taking this class; it relates so much to my role as Head of Science and Information Technology at the school I teach at in the Halton District School Board (HDSB). I also just took “Foundations of Leadership” last semester with Bill Muirhead and I am looking forward to continuing my learning about leadership. I am still fairly new to my role as a department head; this is my second year and I’m finally feeling like I have a better grasp on what my job entails. One of my goals this year is to further build staff capacity around technology in the classroom so I’m hoping to gain a lot of great ideas and learn about various theories that I can implement in my practice. I am also continuing my work on motivating my staff to shift their practices towards more problem-based or project-based learning and I’m eager to learn more about leadership theories and active learning in general. In sett...

Week 2: The Innovation-Policy Gap

This week's readings were focused on digital privacy. It is clear from from both Davis (2014) and Leatham & Robertson (2017 ) that there exists some major discrepancies between innovation, the use of technology in education, and policy. In particular, as I was reading the Leatham & Robertson (2017) article, I began to question my own practices and choices of digital tools in the classroom... do they protect student digital privacy or am I unknowingly putting my students at risk here? I will certainly be examining the digital tools that I choose much more closely to ensure that this is not the case. I found the following quote from Leatham & Robertson (2017) particularly interesting: "Teachers, and in particular, early adopters appear to be caught in the cross-currents of multiple and contradictory technology imperatives" (p. 3). This quote really caught my eye because it is linked to the leadership theory that I am working on with my group for Assi...

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...

EDUC5205G Learning Log

Search This Blog