In the digital environment of this course, I have been in a unique position to reap all possible rewards. Through most of my learning journey in the ADL program, I have worked with Allison Palmer, Pedro Beltran, and Brianna Rodriguez. We discovered what each of our strengths are, and learned to work together leveraging those strengths. My strength is writing, so I took the lead in most of our drafting. The publication that Allison submitted was a piece focusing on ePortfolios as assessment that we edited for her. Pedro and Brianna’s was similar, with a focus on blended learning. As ePortfolios fits under the umbrella of blended learning, this wasn’t a stretch for us as a team of four to edit and collaborate.
At the same time, I had been working through a draft of another piece that included ideas I’ve been playing around with for a while during this program. After formalizing that draft, I shared it with Jane Ngyuen and Tamara Sanford – two colleagues that I met in my very first DLL course in October of 2020. To have the opportunity to look at how far we have all come since that time was a gift. I enjoyed reading their work and collaborating with them again during the writing portion of this course.
For the podcast, I again played around with old and new. My previous work with Allison, Pedro, and Brianna was too good not to include in my ePortfolio, as it includes a conversation with Dr. Harapnuik.
This Spring as I encountered the directives for the podcast anew, I considered how I might conduct one in my own learning environment. I invited 4 key stakeholders in my district to participate in a conversation on our gifted and talented program in this district and how technology effects that program. More than a quality product, it was a strategic move for continuing to invite my colleagues to look at how we are providing all learners in our district with choice, ownership, and voice in an authentic way.
