Graduated! 👨🏾‍🎓 (M.A. Ed & Tech)

Humber Showcase 2017: #MLGA Presentation #WeAreFearless

Humber Showcase 2017

This year, I hosted my very first workshop at Humber Showcase 2017 to teach instructors how to use WordPress to build, manage and facilitate social collaboration between students, instructors and industry professionals. Through the power of WordPress, students are able to share their projects and experiences, reflect on course learning outcomes and build networking skills throughout their academic career.

Twitter Promo

HIVE Set up

Laptop Stickers

Workshop Outcomes

During this one hour workshop, participants learned and discussed how to use WordPress to enhance ICT literacy skills and build online social communities that foster learning opportunities between programs, courses and industry professionals. The workshop included:

• Setting up a free WordPress.com site
• Choosing a theme
• Creating Posts
• Creating Pages
• Creating Navigation menus
• Writing/editing posts
• Adding multimedia
• Adding a poll or survey
• Following and commenting
• Social Sharing
• Using the WordPress Mobile app
• Notifications

Read Full Post Here

It’s Over… I’ve Officially Earned My Master’s Degree in EdTech!

Today is officially the last day of my Master’s program and I still can’t believe that this two year journey has come to an end. The past two years have been an unbelievable experience for me. I have learned so much about teaching and learning and I have made so many great connections and relationships in the process. I have also learned so much about myself over the past two years and gained new insights and perspectives that I hope to share with my students and apply to my professional career. What I have learned the most from this experience is that no matter the challenge, you can accomplish anything in life, if you put your mind, body, and soul into it.

M.

#ItsOver #Graduation2017 #EdTech #MEd #RRUMALAT

My Final Research Paper Has Been Submitted!

Two years of countless readings, writing, and research… and with one click, it’s all over. My final research paper has been submitted! Now, I wait…. 🙏🏽

#RealistIshIeverWrote #AgainstAllOdds

Hackathon Environment Learning Plan (HELP)

This is 9 months, 60 pages, and 10,018 words of research wrapped up into one learning model. Here’s a sneak peek at my hackathon environment learning plan (HELP).

I think I’m all Done! Tomorrow… I submit! #HELP #EdTech #NoMoreDaysLeft 

Unquote That Requote of The Quote You Cited. It Could Be A Paraphrase in Disguise.

Alvin Toffler’s 1970 book, Future Shock is credited with numerous quotables in the realm of education technology. One of his most famous quotes is “The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.” Forgive me if my interpretation strays from his original quote because, this is not an actual direct quote. While developing my final research paper on the integration of Web 2.0 technologies within Hackathons, I came across some of Toffler’s many educational quotes, which would compliment my research. The above quote seemed appropriate for one of my chapter introductions, so I purchased a paperback copy of Future Shock from Amazon and skimmed through the book trying to locate the quote and ensure that I would not use it out of context. After a few hours, I had no luck finding this quote in its entirety. However, I found many fragmented instances of the quote throughout Chapter 18: Education in Future Tense.

“The illiterate of the 21st century will not be those who cannot read and write, but those who cannot learn, unlearn, and relearn.”

I searched online to find out if anyone else cited this quote in hopes of finding a reference to its page number or chapter. I came across an article by Darcy Moore from 2009, which addressed the same issue I was facing. He also could not locate the direct quote in Toffler’s book. I quickly thought of the irony to this situation. Toffler spoke in length within his book about teaching the students of the future how to collect, analyze and interpret large sets of data in order to identify and clarify conflicts (Toffler, 1970). With so much information available on the Internet, it has become common to accept misinformation as fact. In short, I ended up reading the entire book and found the “quote”. Ok, it wasn’t the exact quote but the crux of it fit my introduction and context of my research. “By instructing students how to learn, unlearn and relearn, a powerful new dimension can be added to education” (Toffler, 1970, p. 211). It was perfect! As you can see, this quote has pieces of the altered requote that has been attributed to Toffler.

The fact is, Alvin Toffler’s “quote” is actually a requote from Psychologist Herbert Gerjuoy of the Human Resources research Organization who he credits in the paragraph below as saying,

“The new education must teach the individual how to classify and reclassify information, how to evaluate its veracity, how to change categories when necessary, how to move from the concrete to the abstract and back, how to look at problems from a new direction—how to teach himself. Tomorrow’s illiterate will not be the man who can’t read; he will be the man who has not learned how to learn.”

Segments of Toffler’s actual quotes are actually paraphrased and have been collected, merged and adapted over time. What’s the moral of this story? If you ever come across a quote that you intend on requoting, be sure to check your sources. You might have to unquote that requote of the quote you cited. 😉

References

Toffler, A. (1970). Future Shock. New York, N.Y.: Random House, Inc.

Formatting Inline Level 3 APA Headings Using Microsoft Word for Mac 2011.

I’ve never really had trouble applying level 3 headings to my research papers in the past until now. With my final research paper submission approaching, the need for including a table contents (TOC) has made me realized how troublesome inline level 3 headings were. When I applied my level 3 heading styles, it would apply the style to the entire paragraph. Even worse, it would add the entire paragraph to my TOC. After multiple online searches, I couldn’t find any resolutions for this issue. What made things even more difficult was that I use Microsoft Word for Mac, so options like ‘style separators’ don’t exist in my version of Word. Luckily, I figured out a work-around for formatting inline level 3 APA headings using Microsoft Word for Mac; and it only takes 5 simple steps!

Formatting Inline Level 3 APA Headings

Step 1

Step 1: Apply your body text style to the entire paragraph.

Step 2

Step 2: Turn on Hidden Characters and place your cursor after your heading and hit the ‘enter/return’ key to create a new paragraph break.

Step 3

Step 3: Highlight only the paragraph break icon and go to the Format menu and select Font.

Step 4

Step 4: Check the hidden box to hide the paragraph break icon.

Step 5

Step 5: Highlight your level 3 heading and apply your Heading 3 style from the Styles menu. Then uncheck ‘show hidden characters’ from the control menu. Voila! You’re all done. 🙂

*Level 3 headings are lowercase, bold face, and indented with a period at the end. Your heading should begin with an uppercase character and your paragraph text will continue after the heading’s period (inline).

Hackathons: Integrating Web 2.0 Technologies for Instructional Designers in Higher Education.

For our final course in the RRU MALAT program, each student was asked to summarize their research as part of a virtual symposium. We were asked to produce a

10-minute presentation that outlines the following:

•    Context of our research
•    Research questions and purpose
•    Supporting theoretical frameworks
•    Methodology and rationale
•    Initial findings and recommendations

The intention of this activity is to focus on orienting “new-to-program” students as they begin their orientation within their field of study; while “near-to-completion” students are able to share their knowledge with the larger professional community.

I hope you enjoy my symposium presentation on ‘Hackathons, Integrating Web 2.0 Technologies for Instructional Designers in Higher Education’. For your convenience, a transcript of the attached video presentation can be downloaded here.

M.

Everyone Has a Plan ’till They Get Punched In The Mouth.

Everyone has a plan ’till they get punched in the mouth.

— Mike Tyson

I finally listened to an online info session that I missed last week about my upcoming research paper. As of January 22nd 2017, I’ll begin working on my final paper, which is due June 4th 2017 (I can’t wait! 🙌🏽). After listening to the info session I missed last week, I realized that half of 2017 will be spent in my basement reading, writing and reflecting… pretty much the same way I spent half of 2015 and the entire year of 2016. 😜

For some odd reason I thought the next six months would be easier than the past year and half… I thought I’d have time to complete my paper at my own pace, actually spend some time with friends, maybe plan a couple “weekend getaways” with the family… WRONG! (Insert punch in the mouth here 🥊) There’s schedules to be made, milestones to attain and deadlines to be met. It’s suggested that 200 hours of effort be put towards our research in order to complete a 10,000 word/45 page research paper. 😰 I’ve already began to plan a weekly agenda, outline my tasks and also allot time for research, writing and synthesizing my findings… (there I go again with that word “plan”).

Even though it seems like there’s a lot to do, it can be done. Yes, I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and stressed (as usual) but who wouldn’t be? It’s normal. Especially when expectations are so high and time is limited. There’s a lot to be done over the next six months but I’m learning to practice what I preach and “trust the process”, stay focussed and enjoy the experience.

#6Months2Go

Higher Ed’s Digital Skills Gap: Faculty & Students — Online Learning Insights

“Digital technology is an ally for higher education” —Professor Mary McAleese, Teaching and Learning in Irish Higher Education (2015) Most educators today possess the digital skills needed to function in academic life. There’s the basics—managing email, using the Learning Management System (LMS), uploading papers to plagiarism checkers among others. Yet some faculty still struggle with […]

via Higher Ed’s Digital Skills Gap: Faculty & Students — Online Learning Insights