My Flight Path

Current Coordinates

At the beginning of EDCI 338, I would describe myself as having very little experience with multimedia and interactive technologies. Most of my experience has come from other classes where I have learned different strategies for teaching, planning lessons, and working with students. I feel that teaching and pedagogy are strengths that I can bring to this course. I have also gained experience explaining activities, giving instructions, and adapting lessons for different learners. However, I still want to become a more confident teacher, especially when speaking and presenting information to others.

Mapping the Route

My main goal for this course is to learn how multimedia and social media can be used effectively in teaching and learning. I want to be able to include multimedia in lesson plans instead of only relying on traditional instruction. For example, I would like to learn how to display content in a clear and engaging way for students of different ages and learning needs. This connects to the course objective of examining how social media can support learning and applying it to create a personal learning network. I am interested in finding ways to use online platforms to share ideas, communicate with other educators, and continue developing professionally.

Another goal is to better understand personalized learning. Students do not all learn in the same way, so I want to learn how technology can help teachers provide more flexible and meaningful learning experiences. I also want to become more aware of the fact that the Internet is not a neutral or equal space for everyone. Access to technology, privacy, identity, and online safety can affect how students participate. These issues are important for me as a future teacher because I need to make sure that digital learning activities are safe, respectful, accessible, and inclusive.

Anticipating Turbulance

The most daunting part of the course will probably be learning unfamiliar platforms. For example, creating a portfolio for a new class and keeping files organized and accessible may be challenging for me. I am not always confident about where to save work or how to organize digital materials so that they can be found easily later. To manage this turbulence, I plan to try new platforms instead of avoiding them. I will use tutorials, ask questions, and observe how classmates and other educators organize their work. I will also create a consistent system for naming files, saving important links, and keeping course materials in one place.

I also want to learn more about privacy, copyright, Creative Commons, and responsible use of GenAI. These are important skills when creating and sharing resources online. By the end of the course, I hope to feel more comfortable using digital, networked, and open literacies in my teaching. My career prognosis is that digital communication and multimedia will continue to be important for educators, so developing these skills will help me become a more confident and adaptable teacher. Overall, I see this course as an opportunity to build my epistemic agency by making thoughtful decisions about how I learn, create, and share information online.