Hi Everyone,
Happy Holiday Monday! I hope you have enjoyed having some time to relax and refresh this past weekend in between all of the other things on your plates. Florian, I hope you were able to enjoy a lovely weekend even if it might not be a long one where you are ;)
In terms of our course, you have been busy! There have been some good posts in response to the prompt in the course to think about Martin's writing and to apply it to your own contexts. I am really enjoying reading through your blog posts and seeing the connections you are making with each other’s blogs and the questions you are posing of each other to extend our collective thinking as we work through Weller’s book. The conversations are spanning many topics, with some picking up on the reference to Tannis Morgan’s probing questions of “who is connecting and who is not” (in the serialized version of Weller’s book) which bring up the topics of access, privilege, which also surface in the discussion of LMS’s and e-portfolio’s.
It's important to highlight that many of these conversations recognize that pedagogy is an integral part of our conversation and point to how particular pedagogies often shape how we use new technologies. We'll be touching upon this in Unit 2 in a bit more detail, but for now it may be worth reflecting where you stand:
· Are you seeing technology as a force that changes education?
· Or, are you seeing education (pedagogy included) shaping how we use particular technologies?
· What pedagogy(ies) guide your work? How does that privilege or bias the way in which you create learning experiences?
All good questions to ponder as we dig deeper in this course. I came across this article the other day and thought that it might be another good one to put into the mix as we head into our Book Club #1 discussion week, or to have as a reference going forward.
What does this week look like and what are its deliverables?
This week we will be wrapping up our reading of Weller. However, because there's a number of other items due, I avoided asking you to respond to the readings for the last part of the book as we will pick some of that up in our book club discussion. In chronological order, this week involves the following:
- Tuesday Sept 8th at 4:30 – 6:00pm pacific pacific or
- Activity 4, Book Club #1, a real-time conversation about the book. See the activity description for more details and we will be using our class Zoom room for the sessions – see our course Moodle companion shell for the link. This will be recorded for all and shared.
- Please note in the Activity 4 description – if this time does not work for you, I invite you to set up your own book club to meet and chat about the book.
- Sunday September 13th
- Assignment
1 is due. If you do have questions for the librarian
about how to conduct background research on people you would like to
write about, feel free to ask the RRU librarian’s directly at https://library.royalroads.ca/
- You can book an appointment directly or ask a question online.
- Assignment
1 is due. If you do have questions for the librarian
about how to conduct background research on people you would like to
write about, feel free to ask the RRU librarian’s directly at https://library.royalroads.ca/
Looking ahead, we move into Unit 2 next week (week of Sept 14th) where we will dive into key debates in the field.
IMPORTANT: In Unit 2 you will work in pairs so you are asked in the first week of Unit 2 to please identify your partner and you can use this google doc to do so and some of you already have – that’s great!. For those of you who are looking ahead to Assignment 2 you will see you need to pair up and seek approval for your topic by dropping me a note. I will be adding in the dates for your live “FilmMakers Cut” synchronous sessions to the google doc this week so we can start getting those in your calendars ;)
Okay, I
think that is about it from me this week. Back to reading your blogs, posting
and of course, getting ready for our live Book Club discussions. I look forward
to seeing those of you who can make it on Tuesday and as always, if you have
any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.
Have a great start to your week and we will speak soon.
Ciao,
Elizabeth