The first semester of graduate school in the Applied Digital Learning program has been an enriching experience. I’ve learned a lot about myself, my peers, and the field of education. I’ve also had the opportunity to form collaborative groups with a few of my classmates in courses EDLD 5305 Innovation in (Educational) Tech and EDLD 5303 Creating an ePortfolio. If I were to give myself a numerical grade for my contributions to my collaborative group in each course, would give myself a 46 out of 50 for EDLD 5305 and a 95 out of 100 for EDLD 5303.
Collaboration in EDLD 5305 – Innovation in Education – Tech
In EDLD 5303 – Innovation in Tech, we were tasked with conceptualizing, developing, and sharing an innovative plan where providing students with authentic learning opportunities was the primary focus, and the use of technology is an essential support. My collaborative group members were Laura Hopkins, Tamia Parker, Chole Vallot, and Dai’Ja Harrell. While I was able to collaborate more consistently with Laura and Tamia, I appreciated the chance to work with individuals who had a vision to improve educational outcomes for their students.
When we met, we were able discuss the details of each assignment and clarify any outstanding questions we might’ve had before proceeding to work on/submit anything. I also like that we could share our diverse experiences in our places of work and find commonality despite the difference in location, district size, student body size, etc.
As far as my contributions to this learning community, I initiated forming the group with Laura, and grew the group through Tamia. I used email and text to establish meeting times and during our first meeting, I sent out a repeating calendar invitation to all group members for our designated meeting day – Mondays from 5:30 p.m. – 6:00 p.m. before the EDLD 5305 Zoom class. I also set a reminder to be provided to all members 15 minutes before the meeting time. Furthermore, I created a meeting agenda document which I shared with all group members, and during each meeting, Laura and I input snippets of what we discussed.
For the course itself, I participated in all blackboard discussions by making my own post, commenting on other posts, and responding to anyone who might’ve commented on my posts. In doing this, I was able to read about different perspectives, and see how different classmates have different takeaways from each reading, video, etc.
Touching on what I could’ve done better, closer to the end of the course, I focused more on class assignments like the literature review and innovation outline and less on the discussions on Blackboard. Even though I posted on all discussions, replied to at least three or more other posts, and also had responses on my posts, I could have kept up the momentum I had at the start of the semester with better time blocking on my end. I also think I could have ensured I verified with my EDLD 5305 group members that we were also going to be collaborating for EDLD 5303 as well. This slipup caused me to not realize until two weeks in my 5305 teammates belonged to other collaborative groups for 5303. For these reasons, I give myself a 46 out of 50.
Collaboration in EDLD 5303 – Creating an ePortfolio
This leads me to EDLD 5303 – Creating an ePortfolio. In this class, we were asked to create an online portfolio of our work that includes blogging capabilities. I found this to be a great opportunity to take ownership of my learning, showcase my personality, and highlight my skills and accomplishments. I really wanted a new challenge, so I selected WordPress.org as my platform of choice after having previously created “ePortfolios” using Google Drive and Google Sites. WordPress was a beast to handle at first, but I think I finally figured it out (although I’m still learning new things every time I log in).
I truly enjoyed going through the process of learning how to build a website/ePortfolio using WordPress! While there was an immensely steep learning curve made more manageable by tutorials on YouTube and by doing a bit of research on ePortfolio design, I appreciate that I was initially able to share ideas and progress with Laura Hopkins from my EDLD 5305 group (she also used WordPress to create her ePortfolio). Additionally, when I realized my grouping error, I reached out to multiple people using the private message feature in the Zoom meeting platform. Although most people responded that they were already in groups that were full, I was thankfully able to connect with Ashley Lee along with Dai’Ja Harrell from the 5305 group.
We set a meeting time of Thursdays mornings at 10:00 a.m. – 11:00 a.m., and during that time, Ashley and I were able to review each other’s blog posts and ePortfolio progress and provide feedback, feed forward, make edits, and comments on posts as well. For this group, I also sent out a recurring calendar invitation with a 15-minute reminder and put together an agenda where we documented our meeting times and items we discussed.
In relation to contributions to the EDLD 5303 learning community as a whole, I was able to post in all discussions on Blackboard, comment on other posts and reply to anyone who left a response on my posts (responded at least five times). As with the previous course, I enjoyed being able to read the posts of my peers which contained varying perspectives and unique ways of interpreting the readings, videos and resources. I also enjoyed being able to review the ePortfolios of other students and professionals. When I explored the various ePortfolios, I was able to learn new things, gain new insights, and develop new ideas. I could also see the effort and dedication that has gone into creating many ePortfolios, and this was inspiring and motivating.
Additionally, since we’re learning in a virtual setting and don’t get to meet each other in person, viewing other ePortfolios has given me the chance to get a glimpse into our classmates’ personalities (through their writing) and style (through their ePortfolio design). I was able to comment on a number of blog posts after reading and exploring!
Thinking about what I can do better, from the earlier refection, I must ensure that I verify that my group members are on the same page because I initially proceeded with the EDLD 5305 group thinking that we would also retain the same group structure for EDLD 5303. I would also like to improve on visiting more blogs and encouraging cross-group collaboration or working with classmates who also used WordPress or similar platforms. This is because I think it would have been beneficial to share growing pains as we created our ePortfolios on the platform (but scheduling is the main challenge here). For these reasons, I give myself a 95 out of 100.
Tying it All Together
I tied my contributions to my learning community together because at the end of the day, I found ways to learn, grow and support myself and my learning community by having distinct groups, but also by intermixing my learning and contributions between the 5305 and 5303 classes and group members. I was also able to make a cross-post in the EDLD 5303 discussion board soliciting feedback from an item in the 5305 class (the innovation plan). This was very useful in helping me get feedback/feedforward for my innovation plan and my ePortfolio as a whole.
Overall, I’m grateful for the opportunity to collaborate with my peers in these two classes. It’s been a rewarding experience to work together to create something new and innovative and to learn from each other in the process! I am excited to continue my studies and build on the knowledge, skills and connections I’ve gained this semester.
