Contribution to my Learning 5317 & 5304

I went into these eight-week courses confident and ready to tackle these eight weeks. I wasn't stressed, I told myself that I would stay on top of my work and collaborations and exceeded my expectations. I was able to balance work and school at the same time without tiring myself or putting one before the other. With the help of my collaboration group (Bethany, Rachel, Jermecia, and Lola) I was able to stay focused, finish assignments early enough for them to provide me feedback, and also provide them feedback on assignments.

5317 was all about implementing and applying technology within the learning environment. As I started teaching SpEd students, I was excited, yet surprised at how well they can use technology such as their Chromebooks. I know there are a lot of stipulations on what students with learning disabilities can and can not do, but I brag about my students because they all know how to use technology very well. I implement a lot of interactive and engaging games on our smartboard and they are able to participate with little to no instructions. 5317 also provided us with the tools to work on an article we can hopefully publish in the future. For my publication, I decided to discuss how technology can better enhance SpEd students learning and how keeping connected through ePortfolios improves social life. To be honest, I am so afraid of publishing an article in my name. wondering if anyone would agree with me, what feedback they will have, and how to put my overall context and goals into less than 1,000 words. The publications I am looking to publish to our Education Week and Script Research.

5304 was all about teaching us how to provide organizational change within our community. We learned how to appeal to people's heart instead of their minds and with my content being SpEd I feel that was challenging for me to do. I feel we traditionally target the mind over the heart because we tend to pay more attention to what people think rather than what they feel. We must focus on the hearts and the why to influence change. Why are we doing this, why do we need this change? 5304 and 5317 went hand and hand because I had to implement ePortfolios into discussions for my students. That was a change that they were not used to. They had to learn how to use ePortfolios, how to submit discussions, and how to comment on their peer's posts. It was challenging in the beginning, but my students are now utilizing ePortfolio discussions once a week.

I enjoyed the courses I was in this semester. I pat myself on the back for remaining balanced and focused on what's important. For both 5304 and 5317, I am giving myself an assessment score of 95. I scored myself in the 90-100 range because I had a strong start and an even stronger finish. I am planning to finish all assignments for both classes a week before I am supposed to because I want to focus on helping my peers and proving them with proper feedback ad feedforward. Although we get about a month off, I am still excited about the classes next semester. I have 3 classes left and am excited to graduate soon.