The way in which your assessment tasks are submitted will depend on the form of the assignment.

• Posts to the ePortfolio will be submitted through the blog within iLearn.  If students wish to use a blog external to iLearn, permission must be sought from the convenors.
•  Participation in class discussions will be assessed directly via your contributions to the forums on the iLearn site.  
• The Learning Activity Design should be submitted as a document or documents via the corresponding task submission box on iLearn. 

 Extensions of time for the submission of the assignments may be granted provided application is made to the Convenor via http://ask.mq.edu.au. The application must be made before the due date and include a reasonable explanation with documentary support where necessary (for instance, a Professional Authority Form). For more information about the Disruption to Studies policy and procedure see: http://mq.edu.au/policy/docs/disruption_studies/policy.html

 The following requirements apply to assessment tasks:

1. All students must keep a copy of their assignments in case a submitted copy is mislaid.

2. Where appropriate, the School of Education Referencing Procedures must be adopted. A copy may be obtained from the School Office, C3A827. These requirements are based on the APA referencing style.

3. The APA Style Help website at http://www.apastyle.org/apa-style-help.aspx contains useful material on APA style conventions.

4. Student performance on assessment tasks will be reported using a grade. If you wish to appeal against your grade you must first contact the original marker within one week of a marked assignment being returned. If you remain concerned you should arrange to meet with the unit convenor.

5. Remember assignments must be your own work.  Plagiarism – using the work of another person and presenting it as one’s own - is a serious offence.Please refer to the University’s Academic Honesty Policy http://www.mq.edu.au/policy/docs/academic_honesty/policy.html.

EDCN865 is primarily an online course and all materials are delivered through Macquarie University's online learning management system iLearn http://ilearn.mq.edu.au.  

Technology Used and Required

The course requires access to a device with internet and word processing.  Although this is a unit about technology in education, the aim is not to teach skills, but rather pedagogical approaches to technology in the classroom.  However, participants are expected to have some prior knowledge of the technologies commonly used day-to-day. 

Lecture and Tutorial Times 

There are six on-site workshops and all participants are encouraged to attend.  The collegiality and sharing of ideas creates valuable learning. 

Monday evening on-campus Workshops

• Week 2:   Monday 7th March
• Week 4:   Monday 21st March
• Week 6:   Monday 4th April
• Week 9:   Tuesday 26th April - please note this is a Tuesday as Monday is a public holiday
• Week 12:  Monday 16th May
• Week 14:  Monday 30th May

Time:   7:00 - 9:00p.m.

Venue: C5A 201

Teaching and Learning Strategy

The assessment tasks for EDCN865 focus on participants discussing, designing and creating technology-rich and real activities to be used in their working contexts, and on reflecting on the activities' pedagogical effectiveness, aligning this with contemporary literature.  In this sense, the course aims to be practical but underpinned by learning theories.

Information about iLearn and Resources

Readings and resources for the current topic are posted each week in  iLearn, http://ilearn.mq.edu.au

The focus this year is about aligning technologies in practice with learning theories and contemporary research literature on each topic.  

Assessment 1, the e-portfolio, comprises fortnightly tasks on the practical aspects of learning technologies and resources and their use in participants' working contexts. Assessment 2, discussion is designed to evoke conversations on the pedagogies surrounding the use of technologies, aligning them to a current research paper.  Each of these assessments is weighted at 30%.

Assessment 3 Project asks participants to design and create a learning activity for students in their working context, over several weeks.    The weighting for this assessment is now 40%.

Previous assessments on lesson planning and participation have been removed.

Introduction

This unit is designed for classroom teachers who wish to explore ways of integrating Information Communications Technologies (ICTs) into their teaching and learning. It provides opportunities to consider theory in relation to practice, allows for the development of relevant skills (not necessarily technological), and encourages experiment and evaluation of classroom practices. It is also concerned with educational issues related to the use of technology in the classroom - the language involved, the pedagogies that are appropriate, and the new literacies associated with 21^st Century learning.

We plan to use the many opportunities of collaborating with each other throughout the thirteen weeks of the semester.  We will also be drawing upon the expertise of the group in order to learn from each other and stay up-to-date.  It is our aim to tailor the unit to your needs as far as is practicable and to this end we offer a flexible curriculum design and a wide range of choices for assessment tasks. We hope the unit proves to be a worthwhile experience for you and that it makes a significant contribution to your own, and indirectly, to your students’ learning.

Educational Philosophy

The general educational philosophy of the unit is outlined below. It is offered here to give you an understanding of the basis on which decisions about the unit have been made.

1. Each of you comes to the unit with a different background and different expectations. We hope to draw on your experiences as a resource for learning that can be shared with others so that we can contribute to and gain from each other's knowledge, experience and research activities. All of us, as participants, are teachers and learners.

2. We try to give you room for choice so that you can individualise your learning experiences as much as possible, particularly in relation to assessment.

3. As staff, we see our role as providing you with a framework for a unit of study in which we act as facilitators who make known the range of available resources and strategies to enable the exploration of options in your chosen areas of study. Our role includes:

   • providing guidelines for independent study by participants

   • acting as a sounding board to assist participants to clarify their thinking and make decisions about their personalised programs

   • being a resource person for the group and sharing skills, knowledge and experience where appropriate with the participants

   • suggesting criteria by which work is to be evaluated and applying these criteria in evaluating your work

   • encouraging you to engage in critical thinking and reflection, appropriate to postgraduate study.

4. We want you to experience a diversity of approaches in the organisation of your learning experiences. To achieve this goal, the unit will include the opportunity to work individually as well as collaboratively.

5. We have found the effectiveness of learning is increased when participants reflect on their own learning. You will, therefore, have opportunities to evaluate your own learning during the unit.

6. Students are encouraged to recognise the opportunities provided by this unit for developing their generic skills in:

• Foundation skills of literacy, numeracy and information technologySelf-awareness and interpersonal skills, including the capacity for self-management
• Collaboration and leadership
• Communication skills for effective presentation and cultural understanding
• Problem-solving skills to supply and adapt knowledge to the real world
• Critical analysis skills to evaluate, synthesise and judge
• Creative thinking skills to imagine, invent and discover