Portfolio Assignment 6

The intro course has helped me broaden my understanding of education and learning technology to some extent within certain areas. Some of these areas are the word ‘Technology’ & ‘Educational Technology’. Thanks to Paul Kirchner’s lecture in which he highlighted that ‘Technology’ can be anything, not necessarily the ICT tools, software and or devices.    

On the other hand, my understanding of ‘Learning’ is still the same; it’s about process, results and methodology. The social aspect of it is still controversial when it comes to the effectiveness of collaborative learning. Learning is also about methodology, and if we ask the simplest question that a non-educational specialist would ask such as ‘What makes us learn?’ it would be still very difficult to use one single mode, model or theory to answer that question.

Basically everything under the sun can make us learn anything, without the need for formal education or technology-enhanced learning. The challenge is measuring the results in terms of effectiveness and efficiency. Hence the need for developing strategies and techniques for better, faster, more enjoyable and more effective learning experience. So for me I still think the same way about ‘Learning’ but differently about ‘Educational Technology’.   

The most recent mind maps we draw reflected some sort of a change in terms of including and excluding different concepts, also in the way we organize these concepts to reflect what and how we understand about the subject. Finally, the broader perspective we have developed by now after working collaboratively.     

Collaboration is an effective way of learning for higher education students and at workplace where people have some experience and knowledge to share and discuss. It was inspiring for me to listen to other students’ ‘Understanding’ and ‘Point of View’ of the articles and materials we were assigned to read.

My role in other students’ learning was to challenge their understanding of the content and the applicability thereof in practice and real life situations. I am very glad to say that other colleagues shared with me similar understanding and way of thinking towards academics and practice.

Finally, I would like to thank you very much for the design and delivery of this Intro course. It highlighted to me the independence of the academic field of research in Learning and Education from the practice of teaching and learning as well as the evaluation of both. That, in itself, gave me the confidence to rethink the angle form which I am approaching the ‘Methodology’ part of ‘Learning’.