So here we are, friends. The end of an arduous yet rewarding journey for COETAIL and the school year. The beginning of what will definitely be a new way of doing life and school in the months ahead. And as I sit down to write my final blog post for this course, I’m feeling a range of emotions. Fatigue and exhaustion from 14 weeks of online learning and being displaced from my home. Nervousness about closing out the year and preparing for the very real scenario that this might

One of my last assignments for this course is a reflective blog post about the ways I’ve been actively growing and strengthening my PLN, both with other COETAIL-ers and beyond, and how this engagement has helped me grow as a collaborator. While the ongoing pandemic and subsequent transition to virtual learning has been challenging in nearly every imaginable way, it’s also created more opportunities than ever before for connecting and collaborating in digital communities. And

Every time I sit down to write in this blog, I struggle with what to say and how to organize my thoughts. I have so many things to share about the work I’ve been doing with colleagues, students and online with my PLN but it’s almost like there’s too much to share. I feel like I’ve got enough material in my head to write a series of books on what has become the new normal in education. That’s not to say I have all the answers; I don’t. It’s just that there’s so much happening

My sporadic blogging in Course 5 has not been for a lack of having things to share. I’ve actually never had more to share than all of the things I’m involved in with work at the moment. What I haven’t had a lot of lately is time and mental bandwidth. But like most things, it’s just a matter of sitting down and getting started, so here it goes… A couple of weeks back I got the opportunity to share my story of moving to online learning in response to school closures with a grou

It’s hard to believe we’ve reached the end of yet another course, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel a sense of relief to be reaching the end this week. The last couple of weeks of this course has coincided with the first couple of weeks of another fairly intensive online course- the ISTE Educator Certification. And while the 2 classes are direct complements of each other, the amount of time it takes to digest the information and use it to produce content (reflections,

Image by Stuart Hampton from Pixabay This week’s content and resources brought me back to my college days, specifically my undergraduate coursework as a sociology major. Several of the classes I took throughout those years allowed me the opportunity to dig deep into ideas about inequalities, socialization and gender studies, and eventually led me to my first career in victim advocacy. That work was so impactful on my life and thinking that it shaped the kind of teacher I beca

photo credit Connections This week’s readings and resources were (as always) timely and relevant to the work I’m currently doing with students and teachers. As I settle into my new role and school, I find myself looking for ways to meaningfully connect with teachers and I’m finding that many of these connections are made in curriculum meetings. It’s not that this comes as a surprise to me, it’s just that I’ve been too caught up in the day-to-day flurry of activity to actually