A year ago in June, I was attending ISTE in Denver and had the opportunity to meet a leader in education that I follow, Alice Keeler. I knew that she was taking EdTech classes at Boise State University, so I told her that I was a BSU M.E.T. grad. She asked if had taken a course from Jackie Gerstein. I said that I hadn’t, and she went on to tell me about this course and that I really should go back and take it. Needless to say, I took her advice and enrolled in this course. And now here I am at the end of the course.
This course more than met my expectations. I’ve learned so much, but it’s really just the tip of the iceberg! Each topic – PLNs, digital footprints, curation, social media case studies and teaching with social media, social media guidelines, virtual professional development, course development, video feedback, blogging – is an area where I can continue to set goals and grow and develop using the wealth of resources, ideas, and tools that I picked up in this class. (And I did save every resource using Diigo.)
Before writing this reflection, I took some time to go back and reread my past blog posts during this course. I’m thankful I have them to go back to and revisit as I begin to dig deeper into each of these areas. So many things to do and to share in my role as an instructional designer working with faculty of face-to-face and online courses, in online course development, and on my own. I would especially enjoy facilitating a course like this or something similar in the future. Some things that I plan to do right away are continue participating in Twitter chats, consciously begin to develop a stronger social presence, and look for ways to share the things I’ve learned.
One of the most enjoyable activities in this course for me was the virtual live professional development. It was fun to participate in the webinars with others from our class, and seeing everyone participating in so many chats each time I was on Tweetdeck was great! I’m looking forward seeing classmates in future classes and chats. The format of this class really did lend itself to building a community, more so I think than many other online courses I’ve taken.
As far as blogging through the course, it has become easier for me than when I was working on my M.E.T. I really understand the purpose behind it and the value of it much better now. I’ve never considered myself a writer having always been more of a math and science person. However throughout this course, I’ve enjoyed this reflection and writing time and tried to capture the learning here to be able to come back and refer to in the future.
Catalyst 