My journey with eTools

Reflection 1: CHECET 2013 Course

1. Context

Most of my work involves the running of first year labs (Mainstream, Dentistry & Extended Curriculum Students), technical support to 2nd year practicals and the running of one 3rd year practical in second semester. I'm also in charge of the whole Physics Department's e - Teaching courses, where I create and maintain all the courses. When asked I also lecture, and presently I lecture the Nursing students.

I'm currently using two LMS, namely Sakai and e -Teaching for the Physics Department, where Sakai is on a Pilot run for this year, and if all goes well, the whole of UWC will use Sakai, as the new LMS on campus.

The learning environment for the students can be best explained below by the two blogs that was done on me (please click on links to go to blogs):  

• The CIECT Team at UWC created a blog on the work I did with the help of e - Teaching for the Physics Department entitled "Physics lecturer createsinteractive online modules"
  
  

• A second blog was done this year for the use of Sakai this time, entitled "Physics lecturer makes use of SAKAI platform to reinforce lessons"

The lab students normally do a pre - practical before they come to the lab, where the pre - practical will prepare them in order to do the physics practical more efficiently and in a timely manner. I then use the LMS to embed You Tube Videos and post Applets and Simulations of similar practicals to their respective courses, where the students can get a sense of what is planned for the day of the lab session. I also use the LMS for communication purposes and to remind students to complete their pre - practicals. On the other hand for the theory classes, I use the LMS systems to create online MCQ's (systems marks the questions and marks is put in a spreadsheet for the lecturer), upload of lecture slides, assignments, tutorials and memo's.

2. Challenges

The challenge I'm facing is that I have tried numerous "emerging technology" tools (Digital Stories, Mapping, Videos, etc.) in the classroom and lab. This tools have their pro's and con's, and I'm not saying it works or not in my classroom.

I've decided to use an additional tool, online collaboration approach for the Physics lab students, where the lab students can work together on their weekly technical physics report, and for future projects have their E - Lab Book.

3. Intended Outcomes

At the end of the methodology I would like my students to get the following out of this whole process: 

• Collaboration in and outside class
• Group Working (not to rely on 1 person in group to do all work)
• Use of Collaboration Media Tools
• Share their research, ideas, suggestions, etc. amongst one another  
• Interaction between fellow class mates and lecturer to ask questions 

 All of the above outcomes will be checked using:

• Google Docs
• Google Drive 
• Google Hangout 

The tools below will be used for future studies:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Adobe Connect

I therefore would like to use the above tools to investigate this approach and to see if it is successful for the enhancement of teaching and learning at UWC Physics Department.

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Below is my presentation, presented (Thursday, 02 August 2012) at: 

The CIECT Colloquium
University of the Western Cape
South Africa
Bellville
7535