In the Spring of 1999, I graduated from the University of Oklahoma. Boomer Sooner! By Fall '99, I had started grad school as it was part of the teacher educator program at the time. One year, 17 credit hours and some student loan debt later, I had a valid teaching certificate and decided it was time to stop racking up the loans and instead get to work. During that last summer I was in school, I got married and Mr. Crowe and I decided to head Texas to teach. I assured myself that one day I would finish the masters program that I started, but as years passed and a couple babies joined the mix it never happened. My credit hours sat collecting dust.
So much has changed in the digital world since I left school and today. I know lots of people (friends and colleagues) who skipped the traditional brick and mortar school and were getting their advanced degrees online. For a couple of recent years, I hemmed and hawed and occasionally googled to see what my options were. The cost intimidated me. The time commitment worried me. But, this summer I finally filled out my FAFSA, clicked "apply" to Lamar University and here I am at the end of my first masters course in nearly 20 years.
Why did I want to pursue this degree (Masters of Education in Digital Learning and Leading)? It's certainly not for the raise in pay I'll get. It'll take me until I'm eligible for retirement to break even. From an purely economic standpoint, this doesn't make sense. My kids are in school and we have activities that keep us running all over the place. From a time standpoint, it still doesn't make sense. Prior to settling in on a program I kept googling and asking for feedback on Facebook about online graduate schools, programs of study, and the ability to pack lunches, do laundry, work and study (a very condensed version of my typical day). I wanted to be the student. I want to be the one making connections and learning. If you are interested in my thoughts on what learning actually is, click here. I wanted to be able to use the concepts I was learning to share and inspire others to try, fail, improve, stretch, be uncomfortable, and grow. Speaking of growth...are you familiar with Carol Dweck's 2006 book Mindset: The New Psychology of Success? The book was required reading during week one of my first class and it affirmed that I was in the right place. All my hesitation, all my fear, all my "things are good enough as they are" status quo notions were being questioned. That urge to at the very least try being in school even though it didn't seem to logically make sense was my own growth mindset taking its place as the pilot on this journey. When you're excited about growing as a learner, you sometimes want to come up with a way to share that joy. It's an added bonus that figuring out how to share it was actually our first assignment. You may read up on my first assignment and think...yeah right. Did she actually give that activity to the school? Yes, I shared it with one of the teachers helping to plan the connections class activities. I'm not sure when it might get used. Or if. It's a brand new campus and they've got lots of "new" to figure out. But I'll circle around and present my idea again.
Dr. Dwayne Harapnuik challenged my whole class to really look internally and think about our "why." For more information on why your "why" is important, check out this 2009 TED talk Start with Why - How Great Leaders Inspire Action by Simon Sinek. Dr. H presented some opportunities for us to look at research, literature, and videos and make connections between ourselves and our classrooms/work environments. He then asked us to present what we learned. ANY. WAY. WE. WANTED. And with a vague rubric. What?!? So I played around online. I tried some web tools. I was able to pick and choose what tool to continue with because the learning was all mine. I owned my work and got to share my thoughts, ideas and voice in a class meant to help us share our thoughts and ideas in a real, authentic and meaningful way. My professor used a learning model to teach a learning model. So clever. Dr. Tilisa Thibodeaux (2018) explains the COVA model in the video Digital Learning: Choice, Ownership and Voice Through Authentic Learning Opportunities. There's not a rigid, checklist rubric that can handle the variety of assignments my class turned in. I have a feeling more vague rubrics are headed my way and that's ok. I'm pretty sure I explored and learned more with the freedom than if I was given a step by step guide.
I interviewed for a new job this past summer (Technology Instructional Specialist). One of the first questions was "why are you interested in this position?" Because technology is amazing and I want to help other educators integrate it seamlessly into their courses and maximize its potential. I sat in on a different interview recently where someone referred to technology as the "great equalizer." Technology is what puts us all on a pretty level playing when it comes to acquiring knowledge about the world around us. But it's also what allows us to do something with that knowledge that might not have otherwise been possible. You don't have to be in the same room to collaborate with the innovators of the world. You can be one of the innovators of the world. You could be one tweet, Facebook post, or other digital professional learning community message board post away from global audience members who just may have the resources to bring your idea to life.
So here I am at the end of my first class. I feel like I have grown as learner. I've tried some new web tools (Canva and Flowvella) and I'm now tweeting a bit. My name is Crowe...tweeting...see what I did there? Some of my personal conversations have shifted a bit. I find myself wanting to talk about the videos I have been watching and books/articles I have been reading. I remember early in my teaching career listening to the veteran professional development presenters talk about the latest educational book they read. None of that professional reading captivated me 15 years ago. Flash forward and now I'm the one telling my peers Carol Dweck's book on mindsets is amazing and I've finally cracked open my copy of Neil DeGrasse Tyson's (2017) Astrophysics for People in a Hurry. Don't be too impressed. I haven't finished reading that one...YET. But I will. I will also continue to learn. I will continue to move forward in the Digital Learning and Leading program. Hopefully it won't take me three tries again to get my second assignment turned in during my next class. Talk about failing forward...I'll probably not make those mistakes again as I make sure all my share settings are correct. Sometimes we all need to fail so we can see where we are going wrong and how to improve. I'm thankful I had a professor and TA who were willing to accept that mistakes happen and sometimes learners benefit more from fixing the mistake than anything else.
This is just the beginning of my journey. Stay tuned for the next stop.
References
Dweck, Carol. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. New York, NY: Random House.
TEDx Talks (Producer). (2009, Sept. 28). Start with why - how great leaders inspire action. [Video file]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA&feature=youtu.be
Thibodeaux, Tilisa (Producer). Digital learning: Giving learners choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning opportunities. [Video file]. Retrieved from http://tilisathibodeaux.com/wordpress/?page_id=1539
Tyson, Neil deGrass. (2017). Astrophysics for people in a hurry. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
Comentarios