Contribution to Learning

EDLD 5318 Instructional Design Online Learning and EDLD 5389 Developing Effective Professional Development have been two of the most relevant yet challenging courses I have taken in the Applied Digital Learning program. I was given the opportunity to create a blended learning professional development for my colleagues as well as a blended learning course for my classroom. I loved being able to learn about effective course designs and professional development and then create a product specific to my circumstances, but it was a huge time commitment to accomplish both projects. I collaborated with Eboni Mitchell, Christopher Aebig and Claudia Rios throughout the courses, and their support and feedback were indispensable to my learning.

I really enjoyed learning about effective professional development and the key components that must be included to effect real change in EDLD 5389. Teaching is a profession where the research, resources, students and laws are continuously changing, and teachers can only keep up if they are supported by effective training. I struggled initially in this course with my first assignment, the Call to Action video. Even though I completed all the readings and videos, I feel like I didn’t have a strong enough grasp on the concepts to make the content specific enough for my audience. I continued to collaborate and share my work with my group for the next assignments, and I was able to put together a much more complete body of work. It helped not only to receive feedback on my work, but I was also able to gain a deeper understanding by reviewing their work and providing feedback. I also had to make adjustments to my second assignment due to technical and appearance issues on my webpage. I have improved my design skills significantly throughout this program, but I still struggle with how to embed/upload google documents onto a page. I flip between saving the document as an image or just creating a link. It is a lot of trial and error when creating an eportfolio, but the feedback I have received from my professors and classmates has been extremely helpful.

EDLD 5318 was the perfect opportunity to experience planning and building a blended online course. My entire innovation plan is built off blended learning, so it was essential that I build a course myself before attempting to help my colleagues do the same. I found the planning and design assignment to be something I was comfortable with. I have planned units and projects before in this program and in my professions, and I enjoyed creating a screen-cast-o-matic video to explain my design. Implementing the course was a whole other ball game. There are so many elements that go into the introduction module as well as each lesson, and I was trying to piece together everything using a LMS that I wasn’t completely comfortable with. I worked so hard to include video instructions and activity choices for each lesson, and after receiving feedback on my usability test, I realize I still have a lot of work to do to better organize the resources and instructions in each lesson. While it was difficult, I appreciated the videos, readings, and assignments in this course that gave us the opportunity to practice what we have been preaching throughout the entire program. I have a deeper understanding of blended learning and how to influence change in my school, but I won’t have any clout within my organization until I have created, implemented and experienced all the ups and downs first hand.