Created by Samara Marin using Dalle-E 2024

The Applied Digital Learning Program (ADL) showed me about myself just as much as it showed me about being a leader and the ever changing digital environment in the classroom. The video above and the infographic below both break down the personal journey that the ADL program showed me.

From beginning to end, the Applied Digital Learning (ADL) program has been one of reflection, whether it looks like reflecting on my original COVA page, to completely revamping my innovation project.

Created by Samara Marin using Dall-E.

Mia,  Maria,  Ana,  Amburh, and Rose began the program with me back in January, and I am happy to see them graduate from the program during the same rotation as me. Along the way, I met various members of the cohort before mine, who had begun the program before me and finished it eight weeks before, but I hope to see them at graduation as well. Having a group of classmates that helped me, comprised of people simultaneously and in different phases of our educational journey, helped because those ahead gave us insight into what was to come. Even with this synthesis course, we learned how to correct user errors, such as spawning new pages beforehand or collecting permission to use their images on our page, because we constantly collaborated with our group. We may have had one or two classes together, and they didn’t always overlap, but we knew how to help each other. These students were Rebecca Chang, Audrey Parcell, and Sara Ann Oro Santana.

One aspect of the program I wish I could have done better was complete tasks I knew I had to do sooner. For example, I needed images of those I worked with in the program before my capstone course because I communicated with students who had a similar class but started the program earlier than myself. However, I didn’t proactively save their pictures despite asking for permission. So now I am stuck with only names and no images of those who helped me. If I could redo the program, I would be more proactive throughout the entire program than I was in the ePortfolio course. In the ePortfolio course, I completed the page describing ePortfolios and even my COVA page before I was told to do so. In my synthesis course, I proactively created pages but not discussion posts. What did work, however, was learning to reflect in a way that allowed me to praise what worked and still correct what didn’t work. As I write this, I can Poreciate that although my study habits aren’t perfect, they are leaps and bounds before my ADHD diagnosis. However, this also allows me to reflect on the continued need for improvement.

Created by Samara Marin Using Dall-E

I felt unsure when I started the program and needed to know everything to prove I was a good educator. Once I began to drown in work and uncertainty, my confidence took a hit; however, the Ed course had us reading about The Growth Mindset and how failure could be seen as a learning experience. As someone who joined the program because I felt stuck in my learning journey, wasn’t that what I wanted? Even being told I could revise assignments and that I should, I still feared failure during my Disruptive Innovation course. So, if I had to say my low in this program, it would be the disruptive innovation course and page. I look at my work, and when reflecting on it, I still don’t see myself in that coursework. My highest point for this program was when I finally made my innovation plan reflect me by focusing more on AI during my Digital Environments course. With the renewed fire in my learner’s journey, I have come to terms thatwith every failure and every detour, the tree that represents my journey is simply growing a new branch in a different direction.

Created by Samara Marin using Dall-E

Dweck, C. (2016). Mindset: The New Philosophy of Learning. Random House. 

Harapnuik, D., & Thibodeaux, T. (2023). COVA: Inspire Learning Through Choice, Ownership, Voice, and Authentic Experiences (2nd ed.). Learner’s Mindset Publishing. 

Harapnuik. D. (2020). Feedforward vs. Feedback. https://www.harapnuik.org/?p=8273

Why Use an ePortfolio. Harapnuik.org. (n.d.-b). https://www.harapnuik.org/?page_id=6063