EDLD 5302: Concepts of Educational Technology 95/100 EDLD 5304: Leading Organization Change 94/100 My second semester of Graduate School is in the books! What a relief it was to have these two courses paired together this semester. 5304 was like a really intense crucial conversation, while 5302 felt like a casual conversation, although still challenging.
I continued to be a part of a GroupMe group with about 20 members of ADL classmates. I love this group. There is always someone willing to help out and provide notes, thoughts, and guidance. My core collaboration group included Veronica Balli and Erika Peña, whom I worked with last semester as well. We are such a great team that brings our own strengths to the table. We all took on leadership roles at different stages of our assignments and would collaborate in person on our campus, through video chat on Microsoft Teams, or via text message daily. We truly worked collaboratively, word for word, finishing each other's sentences. We gave one other feedforward on our ePortfolios and assignments. Learning and working alongside Erika and Veronica has helped me grow as a learner.
Creation, Collaboration, and Connections of 5302 and 5304
In EDLD 5302, Concepts of Educational Technology, the course centers around the growth mindset, a term created by Carol Dweck. We were encouraged to create a Growth Mindset Plan, which showed how we'd implement and promote a growth mindset in our organization. My core collaboration team members and I worked on the plan together, however, we each wrote our own conclusion, which described how the growth mindset had impacted us personally. Embracing challenges, criticism, and failure as learning opportunities, rather than letting them bring me down, is something I have been working on.
Dr. Harapnuik always mentions that any assignment we do is all about the learning. This is what our second assignment was about...writing a Learning Manifesto, my beliefs about learning. This wasn't a difficult assignment, but for some reason, it was the most challenging for me to begin. I had so many thoughts and ideas in my head and I just didn't know how to organize them all, but once I got started, the words just started to flow.
5302 also required us to improve our ePortfolios. Having a space where I can put all of my learning is really cool. I love the beach, so I wanted to incorporate the beach somehow on every page. This semester, I continued to use WIX, but I discovered the Editor version, which is so much easier to manipulate! Editing pages was much easier this time around. I'm looking forward to creating more pages for my ADL courses, my learning, and my personal career. I plan on reaching out and joining more Learning Networks as well. I have already joined a few, but I'm looking for one in particular...one that incorporates blended learning and dyslexia.
In EDLD 5304, Organizational Change, the course was centered around how to influence and execute change in our organization. We began with developing our Why-How-What framework, which encouraged us to focus on why we wanted to bring about change in our organization. This assignment was to be done on our own instead of collaboratively, so it was challenging for me not to have my group's input. My core collaboration team did, however, provide feedforward for me as I was working on it. From there, we thought about how we were going to influence our organization to follow through with our initiative and developed vital behaviors and six keys of influence, which are showcased in our Influencer Strategy. Once we identified the vital behaviors and the six sources of influence were analyzed, we incorporated the 4 Disciplines of Execution, which is a strategy on HOW to execute lasting change in our organization. It isn't easy to change someone's behavior, but we're hoping the 4DX will help us keep our team members accountable in implementing blended learning. Every organization has members that are resistant to change. With keeping that in mind, we are preparing ourselves to have crucial conversations because knowing what to say and how to say it in a direct, respectful, influencing way is what's going to make change happen. I have learned so much in the past eight weeks. I reflected on the assignments we had this semester and last, listened to feedback received, and made all necessary and suggested revisions. I met my deadlines by turning in all of my assignments by the due dates. I participated in all the discussions and gave feedback on several posts with my thoughts and research. I participated in our weekly live Zoom meeting when I was able to and watched the recording for both classes when I couldn't attend. I read all of the required books and watched the videos in our course modules, which correlated very well with our assignments and discussion posts.
The Road Ahead
Something I want to improve upon is keeping up with my blogs and required readings so
that I don't fall behind and create more stress for myself. In order to mentally prepare for next semester, I will begin reading the required text over Spring Break, studying the 3 column tables on Dr. Harapnuik's website, and looking through the assignment examples. I will also continue to look for a couple of professional learning networks in the fields of blended learning and dyslexia.
I'm looking forward to what's to come next semester and how I'm going to push my innovation plan even further. These courses have really prepared me to build up the courage to influence and execute change in my organization. With the right mindset, our organization will thrive.
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