<\/p>\n
I am excited to get going on this journey at long last! The most surprising thing for me in this first week was learning about the wide variety of applications for technology integration there exists in the economy, and the variety in scope and sequence for research opportunities further down the road. I forgot that the name of our program is both learning, and technology. I had initially ignored\u00a0the latter, or rather I did not think of it in the way it has been presented to me this week. I just thought that I was going to blast forward with all sorts of new technological ideas and gadgets and that I would be at the leading edge of ed-tech by the time I finished my, what is sure to be ground-breaking, research in year two!<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Now that reality has set in a little and I see what is ahead of me, I am starting to re-train my brain into thinking academically as it did about ten years ago during my undergrad. I enjoyed listening to some of the current student presentations, though it did make me a little nervous by recognising that this would potentially be me in a year or so\u2019s time, though I present everyday for a living, I put a lot of unnecessary pressure on myself when presenting for colleagues. <\/span><\/p>\n I definitely signed up for this program because of the technology aspect. I wanted to see what tools were out there, and because I am an educator myself, I was hoping to be able to delve into the field of research related to the impact of technology on the students of today. (I am happy to see that it looks like this will be a possibility) I am constantly battling with colleagues, and administration over this issue, and I am hoping that I am on the correct side of the debate, but I want also to make sure I am a well read and researched soldier in the battle.<\/span><\/p>\n Probably what interested me the most in this week\u2019s readings, and symposiums was the concept of openness. It is of particular interest because it is a concept I have struggled with as a professional. I want to embrace the various avenues to connect and exchange in a professional manner, but I have struggled with an appropriate\/effective way to do this. In her webinar Catherine Cronin noted that \u201cthe notion that space and time are collapsed through the use of social media\u201d (2017), but to me, how to move forward and harness this reality effectively remains elusive. I have set up a Linked In Profile, and I am on Twitter and Facebook, but none of these are true reflections (at the moment) of the digital (and professional) me I want to be. The fact that she acknowledged #rrumalat for building in mandatory usage of open-educational practices like Twitter gives me hope that this professional goal will be met, or at least developed in the course of this program.<\/span><\/p>\n In my classroom as a teacher, I am trying to manage that transition from \u201cchalk and talk\u201d lesson delivery to a more student centred approach, where student agency is incrementally increased, and the teacher becomes more of a guide. I have struggled; however, with the messiness of this prospect. I am a sort who likes things in a an ordered package with a very concrete set of directions from a to b. I realise already that I am going to have to abandon this, at least a little, if I am to succeed in the open world. And in this way I found Dave Cormier\u2019s introductory symposium helpful in that it, discussed what worked, and what didn\u2019t when considering the nature of online open learning experiences, and just generally sorting through the hordes of information and pathways available. <\/span><\/p>\n I am thankful that this course starts out as it does, with a focus on figuring out who I am in the digital-verse, as it was one of my main goals in taking this program. So, the fact that I now have two years to create this new digital me is something I am looking forward to. I am curious to see what other rabbit holes I will wander down in pursuit of this!<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I am excited to get going on this journey at long last! The most surprising thing for me in this first week was learning about the wide variety of applications for technology integration there exists in the economy, and the variety in scope and sequence for research opportunities further down the road. I forgot … Continue reading Reflections on LRNT 521 Symposiums: Openness is the Way forward!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":52,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[19,20,21],"class_list":["post-171","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt521","tag-rrumalat","tag-lrnt-521","tag-malat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/52"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":230,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171\/revisions\/230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0011\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}