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Topic 2: Technology Exploration
Technology is a tool for more than just receiving topic-related information in a
course. Technology is a tool for communicating, sharing, and collaborating. To
that end, Assignment 1 for this course is called “Community Engagement.” We’ll
be engaging in discussions of weekly topics with each other, and sharing our
thoughts, experience, and growing expertise with wider audiences of educators
who are also interested in educational technology use. But, to begin this sharing
and collaborating, you will need a digital platform.
Your first Technology Exploration task in this course is to create your own portfo-
lio site to host some of your ongoing Community Engagement artifacts. Setting
up your portfolio site now will not only give you a platform for your Community
Engagements—it will also help you practise some digital authoring skills that will
come in handy in the Final Project as you build your Technology Integration Ac-
tivity!

Activity 1: Set Up Your Portfolio
Your first activity this week is to set up and configure your portfolio site. You
should already have received information about your personal portfolio site and
how to log into it. If not, please contact the instructor. If you’ve taken a course in
this program before, you will carry on using the site you’ve already created. By the
end of this week you should be able
to write and publish a post, add a category to a post, comment on another learn-
er’s post, and approve comments on your own site.
See the following tutorials on setting up your WordPress blog.
Once you have set up your portfolio site, share the link by adding it to the “Sharing
Portfolios” page on the course site.

Learning How to Blog
If you have never created a blog (portfolio) post before, it may feel a little daunt-
ing. Like all writing, it takes practice to get better. Watch Pat Flynn’s (2016) How to
Write the Perfect Blog Post. It’s a
longer video (about 14 minutes),
but it has good tips on how to get
started with blogging to reach
your intended audience.

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