EDLD5363_Week_5_Assessment


 * EDLD 5363 Course Reflection **

Multimedia and video technology skills are becoming increasingly integral to instructional planning. It is no longer enough for faculty and staff to be proficient in utilizing existing multimedia content. They must be able to create and distribute their own projects, as well. In addition, according to the Technology Applications Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills, educators should also be teaching students these skills. Because of these increasing demands, I had envisioned that this course would provide me with the skills and insights on how to train teachers to apply and integrate these skills into their content area.

This course provided me with the outcomes as stated in the syllabus, which aligned with what I had envisioned. Through the completion of this course I am better able to communicate the impact of multimedia and video on learning and teaching for both adults and children. I can teach others to formulate and communicate the value of digital storytelling in the educational context, as well as plan, design, develop, and evaluate an individual digital storytelling project. I can demonstrate video editing techniques and teach others to plan, design, develop, and evaluate a group video production project. I am able to select and use technology equipment and software for appropriate tasks and assist others for continual growth and expertise in technology operations and concepts.

The content of this course was directly applicable to my current position as district instructional technologist. Since I am responsible for the majority of faculty and staff technology training in my district, it is imperative that I have the skills to not only accomplish technology applications, but to show others how to teach and apply those skills, as well. With the skills learned from this course, I will be able to provide teachers with integration ideas using video technology applications.

I learned through this course how to better communicate the impact of multimedia and video on learning and teaching for both adults and children. It also provided me with the knowledge of how to incorporate Web 2.0 applications to share multimedia and video technology products. This will provide teachers with greater flexibility and accessibility to their projects. It also will provide them with the ability to distribute their content online for students to access on-demand anywhere Internet is available.

Emphasis was placed on collaborative participation in a group project. Because I did not live anywhere near my other group members, we had to complete the assigned video completely online. This is a significant challenge when working with large multimedia files, because we were limited in terms of quality and what types of files could be shared. I feel like the quality of our video was compromised, because we had to select file formats that were smaller and more manageable for uploading online. Then, we had to degrade the files further by re-editing and re-uploading.

As with any group, some members contributed much more than others. Our group never really accomplished an organized method of communication, which led to only a couple of us doing the majority of the assignment. I believe with any collaborative effort, especially one that is long-distance, that on-going communication barriers are the major obstacles to overcome.

I was successful in completing all course assignments. The course assignments were easily understandable and the expectations were clearly defined. I most appreciated the details of the assignments for weeks three through five. Those helped keep the assigned Public Service Announcement video project focused and moving forward. I will be able to share with faculty in my district a well organized method for assigning video technology projects with the use of well-defined directions. The use of rubrics will also help students ascertain the expectations for video technology assignments.

In terms of delegating tasks among other group members, we tried, but were not terribly successful. Marisol Peralez created our project wiki and deserves much credit for trying to involve all of our group members as equally as possible. To improve the collaboration, I will encourage teachers to define specific due dates for communication through group project wikis. I believe if the group I participated in had established specific times for communicating, we would have been more successful at equally contributing. I knew I would enjoy this course. I have taught classes with middle school students and have facilitated several faculty-training sessions about multimedia and video technology; so, I had some prior knowledge of digital video editing. However, I was extremely hesitant about working on a group project, because of the demands of my current work schedule. I felt like I was going to be the weak player on my team; but, in fact, I turned out to be one that did a significant amount of the work in terms of completing the group assignment. I discovered that I am more focused on the task at hand if the demands increase.

In terms of attitude, I have always felt like as a technology leader, that I need to display two qualities: persistence and a positive, nurturing attitude. I am not quite sure if I was able to posses those qualities during my group project experience in this class. It was quite difficult working long-distance on a project of this magnitude. However, with that said, I love video technology and I love showing teachers the power it can have in terms of integrating with meaningful content with their students.