Starting another journey

Category: Educational Technology

Communicator in Online Communities

Photo by Allie on Unsplash

Well, of course I have to do SOMETHING new when I can’t do any IB (International Baccalaureate) Face-to-Face workshops! Lucky for me, I was accepted to be trained as an online workshop facilitator.

One of our concerns as a Masters of Educational Technology cohort of online learners was how to build community. I am pleased that our third module of four in my IB training is on just that – community and communication. As the material is copyrighted, I am only sharing a brief quote from the workshop:

“Building a sense of community in an online workshop is an essential first step. Learners feel more comfortable, safer and at ease among a group of peers than with a group of strangers. Building a sense of team and community facilitates the transfer of ownership to the group and, as a consequence, a sense of accountability.”

I was SO excited to read this! Yes, SO EXCITED that I had to stop reading and start a blog about it. You may have read my frustration with some of my earlier online experiences, but this training shows how IB have developed their courses with intention. Two lines further into this module, and we were provided with an outside non-copyrighted source from the University of Waterloo on netiquette for online courses! University of Waterloo has always been a source of great remote learning, even back in the 80s when I was finishing my second degree and taking correspondence (yes, snail mail) courses from them.

Now, I cannot share the set of strategies they suggested because of copyright infringement, but I researched their suggestions and found some shareable resources like this one from E-Learning, one from Purdue University and another based on synchronous discussions from University of Waterloo!

They also talked about universal design and introduced it through this video:

They go on to talk about motivation, which tends to dwindle after the first week. They focus on how feedback is a positive enforcement to encourage motivation, and how small/short learning engagements also foster motivation.

Well, I have to start my first short learning engagement (small group reflection on a strategy to empower and engage online asynchronous participants in a community in 60 seconds or less each on FlipGrid). Hope you found this post helpful!

Online Learning Extravaganza!

Photo by Allie on Unsplash

So what do you do when you are semi-retired and get to take two months off from your Master of Educational Technology programme? Well, the plan was to lead a couple of workshops outside of the country and help supervise International Baccalaureate (IB) exams at my old school, but the coronavirus pandemic put a stop to that! So instead, I am learning about G Suite for Education and am taking a course to become an online workshop facilitator for IB. I am also just finishing a course to improve my understanding of indigenous perspectives and, although it was mostly lecture style, it was interesting. Last week, I passed my Google Certified Educator Level 1 Exam, this week I passed my assessment for suitability to be a Google Trainer, and later this week I will take my Google Certified Educator Level 2 Exam – wish me luck!

Part of getting certified as a Google Trainer requires evidence of training at least five people or groups in GSuite over the last year. Well, all my school evidence disappeared with my access to my school account and all my IB evidence has proprietary information that I am unable to share. I decided to contact the Heads of Department at my school, looking for guinea pigs willing teachers who needed some help. Originally, I was just going to contact individual teachers, but I thought that might be imposing as they would feel obligated to get involved and they are already coping with many emails and courses being delivered totally online. Instead, I asked Department Heads to pass on the message so no one would feel obligated. Yes, they have a tech department for support at school, but there is SO much to do with a Grade 6-12 school offering their FULL program online, that I expect there will be holes that can be filled. Within 24 hours, I had three people with questions. Perfect! I can learn more about the GSuite, learn more about current online apps for my Master’s project and help out people I care about. Not all of the questions so far will be suitable as evidence for my Google Trainer examples, but that doesn’t matter. I am learning and hopefully easing the stress on some of the teachers who need support amid this emergency pivot to online education.

Fact Checking and Filter Bubbles

Photo by Drew Beamer on Unsplash

This week’s goal areas for improving my digital literacies according to the BC Digital Literacy Framework:

4. Digital Citizenship – b. Privacy and Security – understands the security implications of computer networks and client/servers. (Gr. 10-12) AND j. Understanding and Awareness of the Role of ICT in Society – is aware of the general trends within new media even if he/she does not use them. (Gr. 10-12)

Disclaimer: This blog post will have almost nothing to do with the work I did on my course this week, since what I did was a continuation of last week. Instead, I am looking at a behaviour trend and forcing myself to change something about it.

It seems everything I read now or watch on TV, I have this unreasonable need to fact check. If we are watching a science fiction show or a comedy, I can relax, but if we are watching anything based even remotely in real life, I am driving my husband nuts by simultaneously researching on my computer:  triangulating or trying to find a primary source. If I can’t find sufficient sources on my regular google.ca search, I will try duckduckgo.com or switch to an incognito window and try google.com or bing.com.

In researching this blog post, I found this article which states Baidu.com is the most common search engine used in China. I think I will try that out in the next few weeks to see what perspectives it gives, particularly on apps that may be available in China. Yandex.com is popular in Russia, as is Google, so maybe I should try Yandex using my Cyrillic alphabet keyboard and my trusty English/Ukrainian dictionary.

Of all these search engines, DuckDuckGo doesn’t store personal information or follow with ads, so it really is what I should be using, but habits are hard to break. Another one I should consider, from the article, is Ecosia.org. It is based in Berlin, Germany and uses the money from advertising to plant trees around the world! 🌱Similar to DuckDuckGo, it doesn’t store your searches, use tracking tools or sell your data.

Did I check the veracity of this article? Um, yes. 🙄

By searching on Ecosia, I found a number of sites confirming Baidu as the most popular search engine in China. Two were:

Quertime

Dragon Social – which also had background information on China’s Great Firewall. This article references primary information sources.

There were many sites confirming Yandex as a popular Russian search engine, including:

SEO Marketing

Digital Marketing Community

StatCounter – which is a primary source.

I also went to DuckDuckGo’s homepage and it stated “Our privacy policy is simple: we don’t collect or share any of your personal information. Ever.” I also looked at Ecosia’s home page. After that, I switched my preferences in Chrome so I now use Ecosia as my default search engine. We shall see how that affects my searches in the next few weeks compared to my husband who will still be on Google.