Connect with Dr. Jennifer Miller-Ray

About Dr. Miller-Ray

Tag: Canvas

  • Don’t Stop Believing…Leading Change Through ACTION

    Today I had the privilege of spending the entire day with Eric Sheninger. He encouraged us to consider who will tell our story if we don’t. What will they say?

    That was an important and scary question for me to consider right now. I am gun shy as my major professor stated. My story is an amazing story and I have been blessed to meet and work with some amazing educators. This is my perspective from past experiences. I have seen kids make a very large impact in the world . I have been so blessed to identify my passions early on and to have had a creator put special opportunities in my path along with some amazing kids, teachers, and leaders.

    Assisting the community of Dublin, Texas with  Dr. Shaun Barnett and his wife Keri Barnett with a 1:1 K12 technology initiative in 2010, I became a leader. I am grateful to both of them for their leadership.  I believe this was the 2nd 1:1 K12 initiative in the state of Texas. Serving as the district instructional technologist and grant coordinator and later under a different leader a technology coordinator, I became a connected educator. I found myself working and leading the state in, dare I say the word, Project Share (the state’s first attempt for a connected Learning Management system) with Ms. Barnett. At that time, I had no one really in the area or Texas to connect with or to assist me. We brought in Alan November and Apple to assist in training.  What did I do? I joined a PhD program to connect with the top scholars of the world and began using social media to include Project Share, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. I  located people to assist me in understanding how to connect others to content. I became a passionate curator, creator, researcher, publisher, and scholar and feel as if I was blessed to oversee some amazing transformations. No one really understood what I was doing, but now I believe we planted a seed for not just a rural community, but for an entire global movement.

    Project Share: It didn’t work out, but the concept was right on. The ability for all students in Texas to have a digital portfolio via an LMS in which stakeholders could communicate and introduce blended learning was futuristic. I submitted a proposal and was surprised when we were selected to serve on a panel at the first SXSWedu conference. Yes, the LMS platform was flawed, Epsilen, but the IDEA of sharing was truly noble and ahead of it’s time. However, I found change slower than expected and a lack of understanding on the concept of connected learning. In fact, at the end of the experience after hours of free assistance from me to the Epsilen team, my participation in focus groups, and a public push for improved LMS features and training ,  I  found that I had lost my ability to even post or share with a wider network within Project Share. What did I do? I turned to other tools like Canvas and continued my passion to assist in helping others see the power of open source and communication.

    Student Voice: I remember introducing the concept of video creation with Samuel Parsi from Apple in a Challenge Based Learning PD. From that students began creating video and we were invited to lead change via a Ignite session in Austin in 2012 in the Digital Square. I remember taking students to TCEA 2012 in Austin in which my friends Randy Rogers, Dwight Goodwin, Mark Hooker, and Scott Floyd invited my students to participate in an Ignite session on their cause to TAKE 5: 5 Ways to Change Your Community and their efforts to QR code their 5 small museums. We used Google Maps to track our cause, which became eventually a Save Dublin campaign, #saveddp. Their efforts to save their rural town through digital curation left a huge impact. Mark invited our students to the first TED student event and we saw our first 3D printer. That led to a NASA STEAM camp program, which at that time and to my knowledge was the first STEAM camp program in Texas. 

    Makered and STEAM: No one in 2012 understood the maker movement. I am grateful to Whitney and Tom Kilgore who invited me to be to host some of the first #txeduchat events, all focused on STEAM and makered ideas. Those ideas assisted us last year in leading the entire world with the first student NASA launch parties . We also hosted a Google Hangout to reflect on STEAM programs.

    From this experience, I was able to take ideas to the Kennedy Space Center. This month I found myself leading makercamp at the Dallas Perot Museum and again saw kids amazed to create 3D objects for 3D printing for the first time in the Perot Learning Lab. During their makerspace, kids were amazed and so excited to see everyone enjoying their reflections.

    I was invited to Washington DC last October to lead a social media event at a NASA clean room facility. What did I do? I didn’t shut out the students and take it in just for myself. I brought the kids in, thankfully with Mr. Chris Underwood and Bea Price. They agreed to Skype with me all day and I believe that was the first time at a NASA press conference that Skype was used  during public questioning. We had 5th graders asking tough questions to some of the top heliophysics experts of the world.

    Even though I have had been afforded all of these opportunities, I found myself during this entire time wondering if I could continue the charge. It is hard to be a bright light within an institution and at times hard to overcome obstacles, barriers, fear, efforts to control innovative change. It is hard to remain positive. Change is difficult . Managing my time and focus had become difficult along with maintaining a belief that I could be positive and actually continue in the public education sector.

    This spring I had many opportunities to move to the private sector. I have had some leaders tell me “Your too bright to be in public education.” “Jennifer, you need to be at a university.” “There is no future in public education, everything is moving to charter and online options because the system is broken.”

    I say to these naysayers, I BELIEVE in everyone’s right to an equal opportunity and the spirit of public education. I BELIEVE in YOU. I BELIEVE in our CHILDREN. I AM GRATEFUL  and WE WILL SUCCEED.

    Focus on Positive

  • 6100 Course Reflection

    As a result of the 6100 course, I have developed a personal theory of learning, applied instructional design approaches employing my personal theory of learning, and created a research proposal exploring teacher STEM perceptions in online and conventional learning environments. I have a deeper understanding of how Piaget’s theory of constructivism connects to Vygotsky’s theory of social constructivism to Paper’s theory on constructionism. Prior to this course, I did not have a strong background in learning theory as it applies to instructional design approaches. Also, I was able to create two instructional activities with two colleagues exploring topics associated with alternative energy and fabrication printing employing the 5E instructional model and product based learning instructional model. Both activities included considerations for online instructional delivery. In addition, I was able to improve my ability to provide professional development using the Canvas learning management system (LMS).

    I was able to participate as a student in an online course that modeled true social presence, cognitive presence, and teacher presence. Instructors met with students twice a week, coaching students on advanced learning theory topics. Without the consistent feedback and collaborative exchanges received by both peers and instructors, I would possess required skill sets needed to complete a PhD study. My understanding of learning theory was very vague, and the collaborative synchronous meetings helped me fill in the missing gaps. I was redirected to improve my understanding of how to apply learning theory to instructional design models, and began to approach instructional design differently.

    During this course, I was able to further my research in STEM and STEAM research initiatives and found that little to no research exists regarding online STEM professional development approaches. This is a huge finding for me, as I now have a clearer understanding on the direction my studies could go as I approach dissertation study. I hope to utilize instructional design activities developed this spring using a professional development STEAM Camp K12 MOOC (Massive Open Online Course), which was released for registration in Canvas’s Open Network yesterday. I would like to compare teacher STEM perceptions in online MOOC professional development to face-to-face professional development and hope to complete a mixed methods study doing so this summer.

    Finally, I learned how to overcome obstacles and persevere during this process. The workload required this spring was heavy, but the work load  is preparing me for the final dissertation study. My writing process  has improved this spring, which is another benefit to blog postings required in the 6100 course. I was able to strengthen my connections with my online peers, through a stronger collaborative exchange. Activities required in this course paired me with three other cadre colleagues in which I had yet to work with. Our products and learning artifacts were strong and I enjoyed getting to know Bob Kaiser, Jarred Vanscoder, and October Smith this semester. Collaborative exchanges and discourse provided additional depth to my learning experience.

    To sign up for the Canvas STEAM Camp Professional development MOOC, visit Canvas’s Open Network. Registration is up and the course begins June 2, 2014 and last for a 5 week period.

  • Constructionism Approaches Within Canvas LMS

    Based on your experience putting your lesson into the Canvas LMS, what do you feel are the benefits of using such a structured space for teaching and learning? How well does the structure of an LMS fit with your theory of online learning?

    Creating a professional development spaces within a Canvas LMS supports my approach to online K12 STEM professional development. Canvas is a free LMS system that proves to be user friendly, integrates nicely with third party web tools, and includes excellent multimedia capabilities that are lacking in many other free LMS enviornments. Discussion tools can be used to create a social experience and allow for users to attach video feedback or embed external content and share experiences within a learning community in a very meaningful way. However, the space is only a tool and the content of the instructional activity itself, along with participants, and instructor encouragement must all be present for the lesson to be a productive and meaningful experience. The module component allows for clear organization. Pages offer customization approaches to allow for increased flexibility. The record and upload media feature within Canvas discussion tools will prove to be an effective tool to increase participant engagement. Collaboration tools to include Google Docs and Etherpad provide a layer of collaboration not found in many other LMS environments. Users can use Google Docs, for example, to create reflections or “artifacts”, to share with a larger community within Canvas. It is nice that Canvas works well with other media tools. Media used as a reflection tool provides the learner with the ability to produce a more meaningful perspective in which they can share within the online environment. However, Canvas does lack the embedding of social media tools, which I would find useful. I am embedding links and suggesting a community hashtag to utilize within the course to tap into social media components. The LMS can be utilized within a constructionism approach to online learning as it allows for connectedness. However, teacher presences along with clear directions and organization within the LMS must be present for the lesson within Canvas to be successful. Canvas LMS does have the ability within the learning environment to provide a means for learners to connect, share, and present alternative viewpoints. The ability for media to be incorporated as video to produce such collaboration is an added benefit to employing Canvas LMS. The following websites have assisted me in learning more about features available within Canvas.

    http://guides.instructure.com/

    https://github.com/instructure/canvas-lms/wiki