Contributing to others’ learning!

To be a lifelong learner not only involves constantly seeking out new information to expand your knowledge, but it also consists in supporting others through their learning journey too. As EDTC 300 comes to an end I would like to take this time to share the many ways in which I feel I have contributed to the learning of others throughout the semester! I would like to point out that at the beginning of the semester the responsibility of contributing to my classmate’s learning made me nervous as I did not have a ton of experience with technology and did not know what it would entail. However, as the course went on I became more confident and enjoyed taking the time to read what others had to share and respond to them, as well as read what others had contributed to my learning. I have learned so much about my PLN (Personal Learning Network), and the importance of other social media platforms as a professional development tool. I have been able to contribute to my own and others learning in so many ways in this course. 

There were three main areas that I contributed to others’ learning: commenting on others’ blog posts, my own blog posts, and Twitter. Let’s take a closer look at each online resource! 

Commenting on other’s blog posts:

At the beginning of the course, I was worried I wasn’t going to be able to keep up with reading and commenting on others’ blogs, however, looking back on the term I believe that I did pretty good in that department. Some weeks I found that I commented on others’ works more than others, but I always found the time to at least take a look at three people’s posts. As this post would be way too long if I provided every post that I commented on, I am going to share a few that I believe highlight my participation the most.

My own blog posts:

My blog posts provided me with the opportunity to share my own ideas on topics and new learnings with others. I also had the opportunity to learn how to cook/bake gluten-free recipes and share my progress via my learning project posts. It was awesome to hear other people’s thoughts on my posts and answer the questions that were generated. 

Twitter:

Twitter was the platform that I was most nervous about using in this course. I had never used it before and did not know what to expect, but as this course comes to an end I have found a new appreciation for it. Through the use of Twitter, I was able to discover a variety of educational resources from education accounts, my fellow classmates, and through my own research using websites such as Feedly. Twitter provided the opportunity to understand how social media can be used as a professional development tool to connect people all over the world. It was also a great opportunity to begin to build my own digital identity. I was able to find a variety of hashtags that provided me with plenty of resources, perspectives, and interesting articles such as #SaskEdChat, #StudentsLivesMatter, #mentalhealth, and #edtech. 

All of these platforms allowed me to grow my personal learning network. I was able to connect with my classmates and other educators and professionals. This allowed me to expand my learning while also sharing my voice, ideas, and perspectives. I know that I will continue to use online resources like these to continue being a lifelong learner.

Thanks for following along with my journey!