ETAD 802 - History and Foundations of Educational Technology
I fondly remember Dirk Morrison mentioning to the class, in the first Masters class that I took, that this course is a journey. This comment really resonated with me given my background in outdoor pursuits and how while we may all be seeking the final destination it is important to stop and enjoy the journey.
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ETAD 802 marked, in a way, the halfway point of my Masters journey. I was pleased to once again have Dr. Dirk Morrison teaching this course. This course was a year long course. Given the theme of a journey, I was looking forward to examining the history of educational technology and design and what foundations underlie this field.
Given this was one of two courses I was taking while teaching full time, I was at first very nervous about what the course would require me to accomplish. I was relieved to find out that the first half of the course will focus on the history and foundations through reading and discussions while the second half would be strictly for developing your major e-chapter, e-portfolio or other approved media. This luckily allowed me to focus hard on ERES 800 assignment in the fall term and turn my full focus to ETAD 802 in the winter term.
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I found this course a great refresher in what educational technology is and where abouts did we start. Video lectures by Richard Schrier helped to examine the question "What is educational technology?" Could a book be considered this, a pencil? When did modern educational technology arrive? In this course I was fascinated by the military's contribution to designing educational technology for the Second World War and then its subsequent use of video instruction to facilitate learning.
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The book for this course was Driscoll M.P. The Physchology of Learning for Instruction (2005). I found this book very easy to read and the narrative voice lent well to my late night study sessions. I enjoyed examining different learning theories like behaviourism, constructivism, connectivism, Gagne and the conditions on learning and communications theory.
The major project for this course was to develop a 5000 to 7000 word e-chapter, academic paper, e-portfolio or other form of media on an educational technology topic of your choosing. Once again I really enjoyed the freedom that this course provided... to follow ideas that you are really passionate about.
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After a few weeks of brainstorming ideas I decided to settle on a topic that was very close to my heart. The topic I choose was hearing and how technology can be utilize to help improve successes within the classroom. I am hard-of-hearing and have been wearing hearing aids since I was 4 years old. I have been through the education system and I have encountered a number of challenges and opportunities within the system. I had also recently taught my first hard of hearing student and at the end of the year I was left with reflecting on what I could have done better to help them. I decided to develop an e-chapter resource that could help teachers, administrators and school divisions better understand the challenges that deaf and hard of hearing students face in the school system and provide them with resources and ideas to help their students succeed.
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This e-chapter became my most valued piece of work in my ETAD journey. This project took on a life of its own. It was exhausting... physically, mentally and emotionally to work on this e-chapter and produce a document that I felt was worthy of being shared. I felt there was so much information to share and trying to capture it all well was a challenge. I finally began to understand what a novelist or author feels like!
I have to take an opportunity to thank both Dr. Dirk Morrison and Nairn Gillies for their contributions. Dr. Morrison went above and beyond in this project and connected me with Nairn Gillies of the Saskatchewan Deaf and Hard of Hearing Services through a office colleague. Nairn was a vast wealth of information and had intimate knowledge of the current state of supports within Saskatchewan. He never hesitated to provide me with as much resources as he had and after one meeting with him I went home with a large supply of research to help with this assignment. He then provide feedback on my paper and helped me to better represent the deaf issues within the chapter.
The document to the left was my final submission. I feel that while it is a comprehensive look at the issue, more work and research needs to be done. If I ever decided to pursue a thesis, this is one area that I would take on. Please feel free to utilize this resource. I hope it helps anyone who ever encounters a hard-of-hearing person.
Half way there - still a lot to accomplish but the view has been amazing.