As I continue my journey with the ADL program, I am now beginning to feel more comfortable and familiar with the expectations. Coming from a completely different background, I had countless concerns and doubts when I first registered to the program. I took my chances, and now I am almost done with the second semester. I am not only completing and complying with the requirements, but I feel accomplished, happy and I must say I added a thing or two to my list of newly-acquired skills and knowledge.
At this point, what is working for me is scheduling and maximizing every hour I can work and accomplish a task. I am currently doing a lot of different roles “FULLTIME.” I am a fulltime teacher, a fulltime student and a fulltime mom and wife. All these roles require my full attention but truly all these important aspects of my life keep me driven and alive. Just like what I teach my students, attend to tasks-on-hand so you have time for yourself and other things. Setting weekly or even daily goals has been instrumental in organizing my schedule. I keep track of what needs to be attended first, prioritize and I motivate myself to keep the timeline. I assign 2-3 days a week afterschool to complete all my assignments and requirements for the 2 courses. I read all assigned texts, watch videos, post weekly discussions, collaborate with my learning networks, attend or review Zoom meetings, update my ePortfolio, and complete assignments. Time management is always a hit or miss, trial or error scheme. Just like what we have learned, our day-to-day whirlwinds can always get in the way. Being proactive and applying a growth mindset approach, I intend to organize and work on a more effective practical schedule and planner. Since each course requirement will usually be interrelated, I need to organize all the resources I have used in a file or drive for future reference. This will enable me to easily access relevant information and give me more time to complete the actual assignment. I will also use audiobook versions of assigned books (if available) since it is more flexible in terms of accessibility
Throughout this second semester in the Applied Digital Learning program, I have come to realize the importance of collaboration and contribution. I personally experienced that learning is more effective, fun and meaningful when it is shared. Being part of different learning networks and communities allowed me to learn from others, at the same time in my own little way I was able to contribute something to them. The regular collaboration made each one of us accountable for every assignment. We were each other’s assistant, guide, reminder, critique, reviewer, conscience, and most especially now after this semester, we are already friends.
I have kept the same core collaboration group from last semester. We have remained in contact through our GroupMe chat group and Facebook page. I am mostly collaborating with our GroupMe platform which is a growing community of learning partners. I have mainly connected with Claudia R., Sabine M., Nadin N., Nelly R, Misma S., Gauri M., Melissa C., and the other members who I have the privilege of sharing ideas with, discussing assignments with, and seeking advice from constantly. The difference from last semester and now, we are more comfortable now with each other. We can openly discuss our concerns and questions, give each other feedbacks and feedforwards, compliment and celebrate each other’s successes. I have a better understanding of the assignments after we discuss it as a group. We provide each other support by sharing ideas on how we completed a particular assignment, we share resources we have found or used, and even post our assignments for their review and reference in case they need one. This learning community has been influential to me in so many ways. We are each other’s constant reminder that we can get through every assignment amidst the whirlwinds in our perspective lives. And now, we are almost done again with yet another semester. How amazing is that, to be able to share not only the hardship, but the proud accomplishment with them. Nothing beats that! I am truly looking forward to more collaboration with them. We have also made plans of meeting up not for homework, but just for fun.
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