EdTech 513 - Multimedia - Final Reflection

This course has been an incredible learning experience.  Starting from the organization of the course, to the incredible instructor - Dr. Diane Hall - to the amount of new information on teaching and learning, I have thoroughly enjoyed this course.  I honestly feel this course should be a core element of the MET program and not just an elective.  

This course, like every one I have taken in the MET program thus far, offered me a chance to learn about things I knew nothing or very little about. I really did not know what to expect when I enrolled in this course. I was not confident when the course began as I knew others in the class would have much more experience in this area of teaching and learning, however, I felt it was essential to gain knowledge in this area for my future goal as an assistant principal or supervisor of technology in our school board.

We were asked to narrow down what was learned in the class to three topics.  I found this very difficult to do, so instead, I narrowed my learning down to three main areas.

These areas are listed below:

1. The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning principles from Clark and Mayer’s E-Learning and the Science of Instruction – all of them. I knew nothing about multimedia and how to make even a good PowerPoint presentation. All of the principles taught me something I needed to know. I will keep this reading with me as a great resource in my development of online teaching and/or online mentoring. The principles hopefully will stay with me in the development of my future presentations. 
2. Programs and Software. I used many new software programs during this course. I really enjoyed Audacity and Camtasia. I also learned the proper way to use PowerPoint as a presentation tool.  Negatively, I found that I do not like the voice-over from Adobe Premiere Pro CS6. The knowledge obtained from these programs in this course will enhance my ability to use online learning as a tool for either my current teaching position or my future administration position. 
3. Different teaching media. I learned how to make a podcast, screencast, a digital story and more. All were new to my repertoire. These all have so much value in the development of courses and the learning of our students. It will allow me to use new teaching pedagogy like a flipped classroom or the ability to create more asynchronous distance learning courses.