Digital resources make education and learning more accessible and engaging. These resources can provide a wealth of information at our fingertips, making it easy to find and use diverse materials that cater to different learning styles. Digital platforms enable easy sharing and collaboration, which helps create a sense of community and connection among our targeted audience.
In this course, we discussed the importance of digital resources, navigated the decision-making process of creating an article for a publication company that best fits our audience, and the significance of media engaging our target audience. The key takeaway was the publication process. So, the journey? Let's talk about it.
Like any other part of our learning journey in the ADL program, we were given choice, ownership, voice, and an authentic learning experience (COVA). At the start of the course, we set out to create a publication outline that would be the foundational piece for a publication article that we would write. During the publication outline assignment, I was able to determine my article topic, the target audience, and research different education-based publication sites to which I would potentially want to submit my article for publication. After thorough research, I was able to narrow my interests down to three publication sites.
Edutopia
ISTE
EdSurge
Edutopia catered to educators' interest in tech integration, assessments, integrated studies, project-based learning, social-emotional learning, and professional learning. ISTE has a focus on teaching and learning with the incorporation of technology. Lastly, EdSurge has interests in students’ mental health relating to academic studies and reasonable costs based on demographics. Based on each of these publications' interests, I was able to determine which publication best fit my topic. Edutopia was chosen because my article would discuss project-based learning and ePortfolios and how they can benefit students' social-emotional aspects which also connected back to my innovation proposal and literature review from prior courses.
Based on the outline, I utilized the publication requirements to construct a publication rough draft. For Edutopia, the article was to be roughly 850-1,000 words to be considered for publishing as well as target a specific audience.
The targeted audience is educators at the elementary, middle, and high school levels. The article entails the benefits of incorporating project-based learning with a digital reflection tool through ePortfolios. It also describes how it directly correlates with learners' social-emotional competencies and the importance of integrating the two. Lastly, the article gives educators a key takeaway piece by providing a QR code for a FREE informative flyer on how educators can implement project-based learning and ePortfolios into their classrooms making the article informative and allowing educators the opportunity to immediately implement the learned information.
Lastly, I closed out my journey in this course learning the importance of media and how we can utilize it to engage our audience and influence their thinking. We were given the opportunity to create a media project podcast or long-form video.
I chose to connect with one of my peers- Kimberely in the program and create a podcast that reflected the information in my publication article. To make sure that my podcast was cohesive with my ePortfolio I decided to title it "Out of the Box Learning Podcast".
The podcast consisted of two episodes that should transform educators' thought processes behind why we should implement the project-based learning and ePortfolio cross-model and how to implement it, while also giving personal insight and stories from my podcast guest Kimberely Goffney.
Overall, digital publication can come in many forms. Each of these assignments overarches the big picture that digital resources make learning at any level more engaging, enjoyable, and effective whether you are publishing an article or creating a podcast for the world to hear. This course has been by far one of my favorites in its creative nature while also pushing me out of my comfort zone by sharing my voice with the world.
To view the final publication draft that will be submitted to Edutopia after receiving feedforward from peers click the link below.
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