We find our digital module for English Language learners, a collaborative effort of mine, Tamara Wong's and Naomi Robins' from ETEC 510. From behind the firewall, we stumble into a maze of glass, the maze of WebCT Vista where we negotiated the turns to apply our learning for the benefit of our own students.
Collaboration makes learning fun. Stumbling our way through a maze of glass walls on our own might prove frustrating or even boring. We risk being minimally stimulated at times, lacking motivation to truly negotiate the turns and dead ends with efficiency. We will likely at some point tumble back into the open, the ultimate objective, but will we have been as enriched as possible by the process?
ETEC 510 is like reaching those walls of glass: as with most MET courses, there is still a lot to learn, but there is also a lot of potential for less stimulating technical problems that are more easily and joyfully dealt with in collaborative partnerships. Likewise, the nuances of lesson and unit planning often suggests that more minds are better. I know for me, my lessons are more creative when I work in conjunction with others and I learn more by watching the ideas of others flourish under those same conditions. And so, I stumbled into the maze of glass laughing and energetic, always racing to keep the pace up and the ideas generating
As for the firewall, there is the literal, virtual one that prevents me from providing you with a mirror of it here. Then, there is the metaphorical one: our funhouse maze of glass walls is protected by all the obstacles which proceed it. We cannot typically get to this point in the funhouse without first moving through the previous stages. Likewise, I could not have proceeded as effectively through ETEC 510 and the construction of this shopping module in Vista without first having proceeded through courses that gave me my theoretical and pedagogical (or andragogical, in the case) rationales for even wanting to create blended learning environments. There was also the foundational skills that preceeded this course to allow me to be useful to my peers, my collaborators, and allowed me to work more efficiently to create a more effective learning environment.
At any rate, what I have created in lieu of a mirror here is a bit more of a window.
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Artifact #13: Digital Module: Shopping for English Language Learners (new immigrants) on youtube.
(The MP4 screencast file is too large for webnode. By using Youtube, I can display it there as well as get an embed code for here, as seen below.)
Was there something about reading mazes in Artifacts #11 and 12?
We're finding our way to Artifact #14.
We're finding our way: on to Artifact #14.