Throughout my six years of being a full time university student, I have come to dread online classes. I have found them to lack connection with my peers and authentic opportunities to collaborate. However, my experience in EDTC 300 has shifted my viewpoint. Throughout the semester, this class has fostered a welcoming community for learning and growing together.
During Lectures
During our online classes, I have been an active contributor in the zoom chat during large group discussions, and I have continued to contribute during small group discussions in breakout rooms. Some of my favourite breakout room conversations this semester included:
- discussing how Amanda Todd’s story can be a learning opportunity for students
- discussing our thoughts on digital citizenship and how we would teach about it in our classrooms
- laughing about what we found after googling ourselves
- exploring the tree octopus site together
Outside of Lectures
Outside of class time, I helped my friend Kerina get caught up when she joined the class late, and answered her question on how attendance is recorded. These conversations occurred through private messages so I will not be adding in screenshots of those conversations for privacy reasons.
I checked in on the Discord throughout the semester to stay up to date with my classmates helpful conversations. However, usually someone already responded to my classmates questions by the time I checked the Discord.
Throughout the semester, I spent time reading and responding to my classmates insightful blog posts on both class content and their learning projects. I also enjoyed reading the comments my classmates left on my posts. The kind words spread between each other in this class were inspiring and created a great sense of community throughout the semester.
Collection of Comments on Classmates’ Blogs:
One Comment
Carys Moffatt
I also found it hard to respond on Discord sometimes so I often found it better to help through the blog comments as well!