As part of the task of dipping our toes into the pool of digital portfolios, a post of our initial reflections was assigned. This ought not to be an issue — after all, I like reflections.
However, my reality at the outset of this M.Ed. cohort program was that life was full to overflowing between a new job, a new school year for three of our four children, a new season of goodbye with the death of my grandmother. I had hardly the capacity to scrape through the bare necessities of a day, let alone the wherewithal to delve into a prolonged rumination of my thoughts and insights and impressions of this new educational journey.
Time, and distance, and the inevitability of forward movement have brought me now to a place where an internal monologue (shared on digital paper) is now finally able to be undertaken. And, the first thing which occurs to me as I reflect on my initial impressions? There is
JUST
SO
MUCH
I don’t know about educational technology.
Hot on the heels of that thought was the recollection of a fascinating little piece of research into the psychology of knowledge and confidence — the Dunning-Kruger effect — of which I first heard many years ago.
Given my predisposition to thoroughly enjoy mathematics and a great many of its various representations, the graph provided in the Sprouts video was of particular value. As a visual representation, then, I feel very much as if I were to fall somewhere between
here
and
there
on that scale.
Coupled with (or perhaps exacerbated by) my new position with an online school, and the very technical and academic writings I’ve only just begun to page through for this course, the sheer volume of what I do not yet know is very nearly incapacitating.
When I first learned of the Master of Education in Educational Technology program, it was with an eager and excited anticipation of discovering how better to harness new and different technologies to bring into the classroom, to improve student learning and success and engagement.
Fast forward mere months, and I find I am questioning whether educational technology really ought to be for classroom use at all; a somewhat ironic position given my relationship with, and love of, online education which spans three decades. To be fair, some of that perspective is perpetuated by angst with the dinosaur-like systems which, underfunded (by the division) and uncultivated (by the developer), are currently hampering my ability to actually teach students who want help; on the other side of it lies my awakening skepticism regarding just who is pushing what products into the educational arena, and for what purposes?
In face of these tumultuous thoughts, I turn to some of my favourite literary fellows: wise old Bilbo’s words may have been spoken to Frodo, but they bear heeding on my journey, too. “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you’ll be swept off to.” (Tolkien, J. R. R. (2002) The Fellowship of the Ring: being the first part of The Lord of the Rings. Harper Collins Publishers, London, UK.) With this admonishment fresh in my mind,
I will walk
I will watch
I will work
I will learn
And, most importantly, I will
Seek. Grow. Share.