The timing of this course still blows my mind. I found it amazing to be learning about Digital learning environments (DLE) at the same time that they were the forefront of everyone’s mind.
Sadly being the new kid on the block and not part of the executive my new found knowledge was overlooked. As I sit here typing this reflection I find myself torn between regret and anger. Regret because I should have ignored the usual politics of ‘the exec will handle this and tell you what to do’ and stood up and said “Hey, I actually know a bit about this”. Anger because it never occurred to leadership that other staff might have knowledge worth sharing and its not a secret that I am currently doing this Master’s and it would hurt to ask if I had done anything in the course so far that may help. Neither of these emotions make me seem professional and hindsight makes experts of us all. But if the second lockdown comes I will be ready.
The remote learning experience has taught me just as much as this subject has in reality. I have always been a proponent of teacher choice. We are expected to embrace the different ways our students learn yet rarely are we allowed to embrace our own individuality. If I was still a classroom teacher I would have struggled to follow the blueprint laid out for our schools DLE. Numeracy, Literacy, HSIE, Science, STEM etc all in separate lessons on google classroom and mostly just worksheets modified and uploaded. I would have preferred an inquiry based model.
Having focused on the 7 learning spaces, plus our added head space, in assignment 2, I was conscious of the need for variety not just in the way we wanted student’s to present work but also in how we presented it to them. I readily admit I was too focused on ICT and things like videos were impossible to include in printed packages but every attempt was made to provide enough information that they would not be disadvantaged if they didn’t watch the video of me reading the text or watch something I put on a clickview playlist.
The reading I did for the final assignment made me reflect further on the covid experience. I was knowingly being ineffective yet I didn’t know how to approach the situation with school leaders. Patrick Larkin’s (2016) article suggested setting up a blog of ideas that could be shared with others. Even if I had just done that it would have made me feel more proactive, whether colleagues looked at it or not.
Weirdly this course has me longing to be back on a “regular” class. I have already starting changing my library teaching practice and am planning more changes in the future but I see so much potential in using a digital learning environment with a class on a daily basis. I would have been so excited to have a class during lockdown. Of course I am talking about one where I could set up my DLE my way and quite possibly after a week my excitement may have changed.
Going forward I want to be more vocal about DLE in our school setting and may bite the bullet and submit assignment 3 to the executive for their consideration. I am also going to show the Technology team the work my team did in assignment two and suggest it be introduced at one of our PL meetings the work we did could really be useful to other teachers as they continue refining their online practices.
My biggest regret is I didn’t get as immersed in this as I wanted to. Its a flimsy excuse but the real world got in the way. Lucky for me there are PDF’s to dip back into whenever I can.
References
Larkin, P. (2016). #EDTECH: A pathway for leaders to create digital learning environments. Principal Leadership, 17(2), 24-25. Retrieved from https://ezproxy.csu.edu.au/login?url=https://search-proquest-com.ezproxy.csu.edu.au/docview/1843822324?accountid=10344