I can see the horizon! I am currently wrapping up the first two classes of my last semester. You can choose the accelerated pathway in the Applied Digital Learning program at Lamar University. If you choose this pathway, your course will be 8 weeks long. That means I take two classes for the first part of one semester and another two for the second half. I ONLY HAVE TWO CLASSES LEFT! This program has flown by and it is true that time indeed flies when you are having fun. These last 8 weeks have required me to grow as an educator and leader in my institution. I have become more comfortable with new technological innovations than ever. I also feel like I have grown my peer group ten-fold in these last couple of courses and that has helped me come out of my innovative shell and better collaborate with my peers. They have provided great feedforward along the way. Knowing that I am not in this journey alone is welcoming and to have people to put our heads together to problem solve has been inspiring. These ladies were with me through both courses, 5315 and 5317.
In 5317, I was just as nervous going in as I was every other course. However, I was excited because I have always loved reading articles from educators and listening to educator podcasts. Just to know that other people are in the same boat as me is a relaxing thought. I have not ever imagined myself being one of these influencers though. Once my publication outline was put together and I received the feedforward from my peer group, I was even more excited to put my rough draft together. There were plenty of places that I would love to be published in that focus on advice from other educators on a variety of topics. My rough draft came together with ease. When you are writing about something you have an interest and passion for, the words just flow. I received the feedforward from my amazing team and then started working on our podcast. This was tricky but fun at the same time. I say tricky just because we are all busy working adults who have very different schedules so finding a time that we could all sit down to record in a quiet area was a task in itself but we got it done and edited. I think it came out great being that it was our first time recording. This is a podcast that I want to continue and think that it could be a great hobby to take up. Once the podcast was done, I worked on perfecting the final draft of my publication. When I read back on it, I cannot believe that I developed and wrote something so professional. I surprised myself! I will be continuing to write for publication as I found a great enjoyment in this.
To be 100 percent transparent, when I noticed there was another literature review course 5315, I was shaking in my boots. I was so worried that I would not be able to develop the words for another literature review as we have already done one on my innovation project. However, I quickly changed my mind on that. Action research is so detailed and organized that there is plenty to delve into. Like I said, if you are writing about interests and passions, the words just flow. That was the same for this review of research. The outline helped tremendously to organize this literature review and I felt like this literature review went a lot better than my first as it was more organized because of the outline that I followed. It was also a breeze to develop my action research literature review because there is already an abundance of research on the topic I was focusing on but not in my specifications of fourth-grade math. Being that there was a lack of research on these specifications, it left the perfect opening for my action research plan. I collaborated with my team on every project in this course, as well participated in all of the discussions which helped tremendously to get an idea of the direction I needed to go with the next assignment.
Both courses were great as well as the professors and my wonderful peers. I don't know what I would do without the feedforward I receive from my learning community.
Overall, I would give myself a score of 95 in these two courses. I frequently collaborated with my peer group of Mistee, Samantha, Tosha, and Stephanie who were awesome. I also participated in all discussion posts and turned in all of my assignments on time. The only reason I dock myself 5 points is that I can be a bit rushed when completing some of my assignments. I am a busy mom and teacher and this gets the best of me at times. I cannot wait for the next two courses!
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