I have to be honest with you all – I was nervous for this class. And then when I read the course outline and it stated that we were going to be online until 9:45pm each Tuesday, I seriously considered dropping it.

Thankfully, it was Dr. Hildebrand to the rescue in that very first Zoom Meeting to quell the dread of having to sit in an online class for almost three hours! Tuesday evenings are a little nuts-o at my
house since my daughter and I have a paper route that we deliver on Tuesdays plus both my youngest son and my daughter have volleyball practice on Tuesday evenings.

 

Did I talk too much about volleyball this semester? My spring “break” included two trips, totalling five days spent in Regina, for volleyball tournaments! My son’s team did take home a gold medal in Div 1 at Sask Cup #2 so that was pretty exciting to watch!

 

 

But, back to the subject of networked learning!

FUN FACT: I don’t like group work or discussions any more now as a grown-up than I did back in elementary, middle or high school! Honestly though, I didn’t dread the breakout room discussions and feel like I participated and contributed as much as I could…. Except for maybe that one time where I was actually in the high school gym watching my son play a fiercely competitive game of basketball, the last of its kind as a senior in high school, and I literally sprinted out of the gym and into the hallway when I saw we were joining breakout rooms so I could share a raspy (have you ever cheered at a basketball game?? IYKYK) overview of the new-to-me tool I had tried when sharing my learning project progress …. Don’t tell our professor!! 😉
I was lucky to have engaging humans in the breakout room discussions. No screenshots or screencasts because that might be a little weird, but shoutouts to Chayse, Zach, Megan, Kyle, Cody and Karley.

With so many engaged learners in this class, I found that it was easier to keep up with a few classmates’ weekly blog posts which I regularly commented on. I did peruse many blog posts, with the undeniable proof in the form of a second place finish in our class Blooket! Thanks for that suggestion, Emma! I really did enjoy reading many perspectives on the topics we covered, but I really, really enjoyed seeing everyone’s progress on their learning projects.

My ability to support others mainly came in the form of commenting on blog posts and responding to those who had posted comments on my own blog posts. For some, I posted once and done.

               

Some others I followed along almost weekly to add a comment to see the progression of their learning projects or their thoughts on our weekly topic for our blog post.

I did regularly check Discord to read what others were sharing, but others came to the rescue with answers to the questions that were posted. I appreciated reading the answers to others’ questions because sometimes I was wondering the same thing!

I actively responded to others’ comments on my blog and I was much more timely once I got the email notifications coming in to my Outlook mail app! Thanks for the help, Dr. Hildebrand!

Overall I would say that I was a fairly engaged learner and surprised myself with how much I enjoyed the class as well as the network learning piece.

I guess maybe it’s all a part of growing up!