As this course comes to a close, I think that I have taken some time to reflect about the different ways that I have learned alongside my classmates. When I was a kid, I always thought that the person that I learned from was always going to be my teacher. But as I have grown up, I have realized that often in life, the people we are learning from are each other. Throughout this course, I have had the opportunity to learn from not only Katia, but also from my peers. Whether they are sharing a resource, answering a question, or just discussions in class, I have learned from them.
I have also had the opportunity to participate in the learning of my peers. Throughout the semester I have engaged in discussions online, answered questions and posted on discord, and commented on blogs sharing praise, questions and comments related to their blog posts.
Firstly, in class, I have had the opportunity to ask questions of my group members and answer questions of them as well. I appreciated the time that we had in breakout rooms to discuss how our projects were going, if we had questions related to course content, and to discuss some of the discussion questions. I always made sure to be an active participant with my camera on and my microphone unmuted.
I also had the opportunity to engage with my peers through the comments on their blogs. I found that I really enjoyed reading their blogs each week and I liked going back to the same blogs to see how they were progressing. Seeing their learning projects get better and better was such a cool experience. I had the chance to take some advice from a few of them regarding resources to check out, and I even got to answer a few questions. One example was actually this week when a peer asked me about AI in the classroom and I was able to share my experience as an in service teacher. Since many of the students in the course are not currently practicing, it was a very cool experience.
Answering another peers question about AI in the classroom.
Lastly, on Discord, I had the chance to not only answer some questions, but share some resources as well! I enjoyed also sharing some discussions about how the semester was going. I have posted a few examples here below. This helped me to feel connected to my peers, even though it was an online course and I wasn’t getting to communicate in person!
I got to share a TikTok that I had found about a website that another student had been asking about.
Using Discord to discuss with fellow students helped me to feel a bit less lonely during an online course!
I was also able to share some help for blog work like how to link to an app!
Due to my knowledge on Canva, I was able to give some advice and also offer additional help if needed!
Crazy to believe the semester is already over and this is the last of my weekly blog posts! Thankful for what I have learned so far this semester and can’t wait to continue my learning in the future!
-Briana Leibel