Media Project

This past year has been my year of rediscovering myself, as an educator, more so as a learner. I took challenges, embraced a different path in my career, and continue to explore ways to improve my professional and personal life. One of my most remarkable discoveries was that it is really never too late to learn something new. As I continue to pursue the Applied Digital Learning program, I have been given opportunities to equip my teaching vessel with more innovative strategies, which in turn will make me more effective as a teacher. With the growing diversity of our learners and the intention to transform our current educational system, we all need to be proactive and do our share. As a teacher, my Innovation Proposal of a blended learning center is my contribution. From the day I was conceptualizing the plan, to doing my first Literature Review, designing an Implementation Outline, proposing an Influencer Strategy, to my 4DX and Organization Change Plan, it has been a journey and still is a joyride made possible with countless collaboration with other professionals I now call my learning community, my colleagues. Establishing that collaboration and professional network are the key for me to build the foundation of this project. A smorgasbord of discussions, we have supported each other’s projects and almost at the finish line, the collaboration is still overflowing.

 

Recently, I had the privilege to work directly with 3 of my peers and create a media project showcasing our respective innovation plans. Nadin Noman, Tamara Alzghoul and Claudia Rios are educators like me who have been working on their blended learning models in their respective classrooms. We share the same goal of implementing this learning approach to our young learners, ages 4-7 years old. We consolidated our plans and decided to record a group podcast to share our thoughts, plans and even concerns on blended learning. We were granted another opportunity when Dr. Harapnuik was able to join us and be our resource speaker. Throughout the discussion, what resonated among us was our advocacy for innovative approaches like blended learning to be in place in all our schools. We all share the same sentiment that with the proper leverage (as Dr.H described it), blended learning can really make a difference in our schools. We shared strategies on how to implement the station or independent rotation, flipped classroom or other forms of online learning. The importance of time management, student transition and behavior, and even parent involvement were also discussed. One important aspect that we spoke about was how blended learning can be instrumental in promoting cultural diversity. We all shared how technology has played an important role to break language barriers and differentiate instruction suitable to every learner. It was evident that these elements play a vital role with the success of its implementation. The podcast, the discussion, even all the collaborative planning prior to the actual recording, was a whole new learning experience for me. It has opened doors for me to navigate my future plans for my innovation proposal. The outcome of the podcast was inspiring, the ideas shared were not only motivating, it’s another driving force for me to really commit in making that change happen.