Hello, my name is Barb Hall, and I'd like to welcome you to my e-portfolio. This website is a collection of my artifacts, reflections, and comments, all gleaned from my experiences as a Master of Distance Education Student at Athabasca University, and any relevant experience that follows. I started my studies at Athabasca University in the Fall 2009 session, as a non-program student. I had been eyeing the AU calendar for several years, and had wanted to return to graduate school following a lengthy absence from my undergrad days. I am currently self-employed as a Piano Tuner/Technician. It is a very gratifying and interesting way to make a living. The training for this type of work is limited, as there is only one program in Canada, and only a handful in the U.S. One of the reasons I decided to pursue the MDE at AU was initially to learn how to create an online or hybrid style program in Piano Technology that would make it possible for anyone interested in the program to study at their own pace. I myself like the flexibility in an online program and want to make other learner's opportunities possible, just AU has done for me. I was going through some difficult times. Both of my parents became ill and had to be placed in nursing homes. It was my responsibility to ensure that their needs were met, and in so doing, I became overwhelmed with the day to day tasks that came with it. I needed an escape from a world that had become so emotionally, physically, and financially draining. My decision to start school was a matter of finding the funds, and digging deep to find the dedication and motivation required to complete the program. Once I started, I didn't look back. I have enjoyed every course, every assignment, and every experience in the program, and can honestly say without exaggerating, that the experience saved my life. As my learning in the program progressed and I acquired new skills, I realized the potential that I could achieve with these skills had a much larger scope. I was fortunate that there was tremendous flexibility in subject matter permitted for most of the required assignments. While many of my assignments dealt with the steps required in developing an online program in Piano Technology, there were some that did not. The courses were well designed and permitted me to experiment with subject matters like instructional analysis and design that I had no previous experience with. I was taught how to apply this theory to any program and look forward to a career in instructional design and creating courses for other students like myself who appreciate the opportunity to study online. The slide show on this page is a sample of some of the hundreds of photos I've taken of my beautiful perennial garden. It is a perfect representation of my learning process at AU. It is here where I also gather my thoughts and reflect, renew my resolve to continue to learn and create, and find a sense of balance between my professional and educational obligations. Like the flowers, my accumulated knowledge is the result of many transforming "blooms" of information, acquired from experience, research, study and exploration. The flowers in my garden will continue to grow and bloom for the rest of their lives, and I will continue to learn long after I graduate as a "life-long learner". Compentencies and Related Artifacts
Artifacts Artifact 1 - MOODLE Instructional Unit - Reflections The instructional unit can be accessed here: http://www.learnpianotechnology.com. Please contact me for sign in and password id. This was the final assignment in this course. It was made up of two components. The first part is the completion of our instructional unit that we had built upon with the other assignments in the course. The second part, included here, was a short report on our reflections about what constituted good instruction, and how we felt our instructional unit met those requirements. It was based on contributions to the first forum in the class entitled "What Makes Instruction Great". Since my background is non-educational, most of my contributions were anecdotal and not grounded in theory. What this exercise did was teach me how to do self evaluation and take what I learned in this course to determine if my instructional unit could be considered great. Both the comments from the instructor, and the effort put into the unit indicated that I had met or exceeded most of the requirements to make instruction great. This assignment was a continuation of the first and second one. We were asked to continue the analysis of our instructional unit,but this time we formed a partnership with a classmate and did a peer review of each others instructional unit. When you are a subject matter expert in something, it is very hard to put yourself in the position of somebody who knows nothing about it. The review I wrote was for a college information data management system, and my course was a introduction to Piano Technology. Both writing and receiving the review was a very rewarding process. While reviewing someone else's work, I was not only thinking of ways it could be improved, I was thinking what I could do for my own instructional unit. The remarks I received about my unit were extremely helpful and I adopted every suggestion that was made. It was a great learning experience, and made the changes for my instructional unit extremely worth while. The result is a unit that is more concise, provides better feedback and is clearer to understand for anyone not familiar with the subject. |