Whelp, this is it! To say that this has been a whirlwind in an understatement. I feel like this has been a long six weeks, yet it has flown by in a sense as well. I have to say that when we began this course I was a little taken aback by the amount of freedom that we had in our own Inquiries and areas of interest. Especially since I was taking another UBC course that was extremely structured with a ton of required readings. Now, I think that this course is such a powerful way of learning and I am so thankful that we were able to research our areas of interest.
I know that coming from a tech background I have attended workshops that were great, however, I already knew a lot of the content and I honestly thought that I may have been able to deliver it to the audience in a way that may be more applicable, because to be honest, when I looked around the room it was evident that most people were either disinterested or in the same boat that I was in. I was a little weary that this course would be similar, yet I was pleasantly surprised! It was so amazing to look further into my own areas of interest and be able to apply some of my findings to my teaching practice.
I think that the biggest take away from this course is the PLN that has been created through our Blog posts and following each other on social media. I have thoroughly enjoyed learning from my peers in this course and finding out more about them as people and educators. I am really hoping that this will kickstart my active involvement in educational social media.
I really enjoyed completing the final project. It was reminiscent of preparing for presentations, which is something that makes me nervous and anxious about, however, once I am finished I feel like I have accomplished so much and have improved my presentations skills every time. I miss this aspect of working with my peers and I am hoping that there is a school out there looking for a TL that is enthusiastic about teaching staff about tech gadgets. I know that I have made a step in the right direction by furthering my education yet again and I hope that this will help me reach my goal.
I leave this course with so much hope and wonder about the future of the Library and our education system in general. This pandemic has been filled with its ups and downs but I do feel like it has brought a little bit of light to the state of our education system. I am hoping the next time we try to negotiate for small class sizes, increased wages and more funding in general, the public will be behind us this time.
Hopefully I will keep up with my blog as it was my vision when I started this website a couple years ago. The content will change, but I love getting my thoughts out and these blog posts have almost been therapeutic. I leave you with this powerful video that was presented to me at the end of my other UBC course, it’s too good not to share to others that will appreciate it. Let’s shift our thinking, move forward into the 21st century and guide our fellow staff members to join that journey with you. We have been told to lead by example, so as staff we all need to be moving forward as a unit and learning together.