The
Final Project
This paper for the final project of EDU 697:
Capstone: A project approach will look at all eight of the program learning
outcomes (PLOs) that encompass the full master’s degree in education, teaching
and learning with technology. In this
final document, the PLOs will be ranked, first to last, regarding its
importance to a work environment of an education and training manager in the
military and the challenges faced when designing and developing an ePortfolio
for the final project.
The
PLOs for this course are listed below:
|
PLO 1
|
Demonstrate knowledge and skills
related to learning using technology.
|
|
PLO 2
|
Demonstrate knowledge and skills
in current and emerging instructional technologies.
|
|
PLO 3
|
Design learning opportunities
that apply technology-enhanced instructional strategies to support the needs
of all learners.
|
|
PLO 4
|
Apply
research to support learning in a technology-enhanced environment.
|
|
PLO 5
|
Exemplify ethical practices of
technology usage.
|
|
PLO 6
|
Evaluate technology resources to
facilitate effective assessment and evaluation.
|
|
PLO 7
|
Utilize technology to collect and
analyze data, interpret results, and communicate findings.
|
|
PLO 8
|
Demonstrate the ability to make
informed decisions regarding the use of technology in support of learning and
leadership.
|
As one can see, they are not in any
particular order, but when you look at a person they can choose how and when
they would use each one, which is what will now be done below. Please keep in mind that these will be ranked
according to how they would be used in the work environment of an education and
training manager.
In
this field of work courses are built to help train a diverse group of personnel
and a lot of times technology is used to enhance that course. It is important first and foremost to have
the knowledge and skills related to learning using technology. So, the first PLO that is important in this
field of work would be PLO 1. Without
the actual knowledge and skills in using technology to help students learn, one
would find that technology would be “just thrown in” to help make it look
“cool” and that never helps students learn. Technology should always be used to
coincide with instructional strategies and is it doesn’t fit into learning than
it should not be used.
The
next two PLOS, 2 and 4, go hand in hand when building courses in this field of
work. When trying to find current and
emerging technologies to use for a course, one would apply research to find
just the right technology to use to enhance the environment. It is important to make sure that the
technology not only supports learning but to ensure that it is not something
that is old and not useful anymore. With
that said, the next PLO falls in line with these two.
The
next PLO would be 8 in this field of work.
Once research was done and current and emerging technologies were found,
it would be easier to make an informed decision regarding the use of said
technology in support of learning and leadership. An informed decision is very important, this
means that one would not just decide to use technology because, like said above,
it was “cool”. It would be used because
it enhanced learning and supported all learners in the course.
The
next two PLOs in this rank structure would then be PLO 3 and 5. In this work environment of the education and
training manager, it is important to remember that there is a diverse group of
people that will be sitting in and learning from the course built, therefore
the education and training manager would than design learning opportunities for
all learners, not just one group. In
other words, the course technologies would have to include people that are
color blind (perhaps), English is their second language (believe it or not this
is very common) or the way they learn is not just visual but hands on and so
on. While anything is being designed and
developed it is easier to consider the ethical practices of that technology as
it is being built. This way nothing is
missed and allowed to go through, say for instance allowing maybe sensitive
information to leak out.
Last
but not least, PLO 6 and 7 would be used to ensure that after the class was
built all was well. Both of these PLOs
can be used together. PLO 6 would be the assessments and evaluations that have
been built into the course, usually using a test database or some form of
game. Each test score, survey or grade
from a project would be collected, analyzed, the results would be interpreted
and the findings would go before a chaired meeting with all subject matter
experts each year (sometimes every 6 months if new and there tends to be
problems) to ensure that the course was of good quality and if there were any
changes that could be made, say changes that included different technology or a
better instructional strategy to teaching the course.
Each of these PLOs is important when building
a course; it becomes natural to use each of them simultaneously when doing
so. Please see below for a quick look
chart with the current rankings:
|
PLO #
|
Description of PLO
|
|
PLO 1
|
Demonstrate knowledge and skills
related to learning using technology.
|
|
PLO 2
|
Demonstrate knowledge and skills in current
and emerging instructional technologies.
|
|
PLO 4
|
Apply
research to support learning in a technology-enhanced environment.
|
|
PLO 8
|
Demonstrate the ability to make
informed decisions regarding the use of technology in support of learning and
leadership.
|
|
PLO 3
|
Design learning opportunities that
apply technology-enhanced instructional strategies to support the needs of
all learners.
|
|
PLO 5
|
Exemplify ethical practices of
technology usage.
|
|
PLO 6
|
Evaluate technology resources to
facilitate effective assessment and evaluation.
|
|
PLO 7
|
Utilize technology to collect and
analyze data, interpret results, and communicate findings.
|
As
for challenges while designing and developing the final ePortfolio for the last
week of this course, there were some in the beginning, but once the ePortfolio
took shape it became clearer what needed to go where. Wikispaces was decided on within the first
week of the course because of its ease of use and the many capabilities that
each Wikispace gives while designing anything from a classroom to an ePortfolio
(this of course was decided on after a failed attempt to make Blogger the
technology!).
Once
this technology was chosen it was then a matter of deciding how to display each
PLO and what MATLT activity to redesign to fit each PLO. This was overcome each time by looking
through past courses and taking a detailed look at each activity to see what
could be missing or made better and if that change fell in line with the PLO
being worked on each time. Instead of waiting
to build the ePortfolio at the end of this course, it was decided to build
WHILE doing, making it less stressful in the end and allowed for critiques from
not only the instructor each time an assignment was completed but also allowed
the final product to go into week 6 discussion sooner than most. This ensured that all changes could be made
in a timely manner before the due date.
