I am what is known as a Xennial, the micro-generation sandwiched between Gen X and Millenials. Thus, I have had the opportunity to experience life with and without technology. One of the crowning distinctions of Xennials is that we have developed the work ethic of Gen X, but also the tech savvy of Millenials—the best of both worlds. I have been a student from a time when no electronic technology was being used in the classroom, to a time when there was a computer lab of 10 computers for the whole school, to a time when students each have their own classroom tablets, to a time when classes can be taken completely online. I lived through phones being tethered to the wall, with a rotary dial, to phone calls being made on wireless bluetooth earbuds by voice dial. I had an analog childhood and a digital adulthood, however, having returned to school as an adult, I was able to experience school in both analog and digital environments.
I earned my Bachelors of Fine Art in Graphic Design with a Minor in Digital Media, and my Masters of Education in Educational Technology. I work as a custom eLearning developer, building online trainings for the corporate sector. I am able to employ the skills I developed in my schooling by creating, illustrating and animating, recording and editing audio and video, and employing good design practices and principles. I have also worked in the field of education for over 20 years, from teaching autistic preschool, to being a student teacher at Elementary level, to teaching assistant for the Math department at a Junior High, to being a paraeducator at a high school, to TA for a higher education Arts Department, to being a teacher and head manager of a special needs group for adults, to my current position in corporate elearning. As well, I have been coaching community athletics and special olympics since the age of twelve. I have been at nearly every level and several perspectives of the field of education and over the period of the last 39 years, when the most technological advances the world has ever known have taken place.
Technology has proven to be a tremendous tool in a plethora of ways—it allows for access to virtually any knowledge desired, either by existing web content or by access to human sources that can provide that content upon request. It provides access to worldwide networking and special interest forums. Outside of the benefit of networking and content is the ability to differentiate; I witnessed this to be particularly beneficial in the special education classrooms where there are students have extremely diverse levels of comprehension not only amongst each other but within themselves—one student might have advanced mathematics skills but difficulty with reading comprehension. As not only technology has advanced, but pedagogy with it, and individual devices have been incorporated in the classroom, students can study the same subjects at the same time but at their various levels and speeds.
From personal experience, I had a difficult time keeping pace with the other students in math class and would fall behind and get frustrated and, to some degree, I would give up. During college, whenever I was able to take a course online, I would opt to take that route. There are several reasons for it: I actually failed out of my first semester of college because of crippling social anxiety so I love the safety I feel in an online environment, I am able to spend as much time on a concept as I need, there are resources available to provide extra or alternate explanation of a concept, I have a hearing impairment and am not able to always hear the teacher in a classroom but can have captions and replay on video lectures, it allows me to work any time that is convenient for my work and social schedule as well as the extra time required for comprehension in certain subjects.
Differentiation isn’t the only benefactor of educational technology, accommodation, or the variety of means to accomplish learning a concept has become nearly unlimited. The benefit that this presents is overcoming one of the biggest hurdles in education: motivation. Students will show greater investment in a project if they have choice in how to execute it. This will create passion for the project which will increase learning retention by incorporating emotion and chemical processes in the brain during synaptic development. Everyone has a unique learning preference, and allowing them choice in the matter can increase motivation and individual strength/interest development.
The problem with educational technology isn’t technology itself, but our lag behind what it can do for us—our sluggish evolution of pedagogy is the obstacle. Teachers should no longer be lecturers but rather must become facilitators. This may have felt impossible during the analog age of education, but technology has provided the means for teachers to accomplish this task, now we need support in the transition to a digital age of education, and humility in accepting that the way we were taught may not now be the best approach.
This last paragraph is supposed to be a conclusion of how I am going to incorporate this philosophy into my personal pedagogy, but therein lies my problem. In corporate eLearning the lessons are limited to one design without any options for methods to execute the learning. However, instructional designers have the ability to incorporate methods such as gamification and interactivity. Technology allows us to create a variety of methods within a single course, such as video animation alongside a drag and drop interaction. The variety does help to keep the learner engaged, but they are limited to the options presented to them, causing them to miss out on the stage of choosing what method they would prefer that helps to ignite the passion for the project. One method of incorporating choice is creating “choose your own adventure” style courses, however, this can be difficult depending on the subject or the seriousness desired by the client, and is only one method and as such could lose its novelty. This conundrum has had my creative wheels turning for months, and I will continue to search for solutions. At least I have gained an appreciation for the possibilities technology has presented to enrich the learning experience. I am determined to use this knowledge to create better learning experiences through corporate eLearning and whatever paths this journey takes me on.