It’s funny, people obsess over the show, The Office. My wife is one of those people. She has watched it straight through countless times. I enjoy it, it makes me laugh, what else can you ask for? I occasionally watch some episodes with her, I know the characters, the plot, but I am in no way a super fan. I was really watching the last episode of the series with her and in a moment of sentimentality, one of characters, Creed, delivered the following message:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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“It all seems so very arbitrary. I applied for a job at this company because they were hiring. I took a desk at the back because it was empty. But no matter how to get there or where you end up, human beings have this miraculous gift of making that place their home.” (Daniels, 2013).

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I am not local to Lamar University, in fact, I had never heard of it. I did, however, speak to a few teachers in my school who had begun this so called "Applied Digital Learning" program and said they were into it. I think it is important to be transparent, especially in the world of education. In my organization, the more credits you have, the you more you get paid. I think the same can be said for most educators. With this in mind, and my growing family as well, I wanted to be sure that I was participating in a program that I was interested in. Well, boy, did I luck out.

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Like Creed says, I took a (virtual) "desk at the back because it was empty." My journey took off from there, naturally building all of the necessary resources to fully implement change in my organization. I worked with others from around the country, we compared and contrasted strategies and ideologies, gave one another constructive criticism, feedback and feedforward, and most importantly, we learned...together.

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The centerpiece for this learning was my Innovation Plan. This was the driving force that I built all of my materials around and what will continue to lead the way as I put this plan into reality. I've said it countless times throughout the last year to my peers and I'll say it until I cannot anymore, learning is not one-size-fits-all. We have to tailor our lessons to our learners. The transition to a blended learning model will do just that, allowing students to be the catalyst behind their own learning.

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CSLE+COVA, the synergy. My wife, a fellow educator, always says we have far too many acronyms in education, and while I tend to agree with her, I respectfully disagree in this instance. When studying for my undergrad degree at Penn State University, I always stressed that I wanted to focus on making my mathematics classroom based around real-life application and consistently bring context and rationale to every lesson I taught. Well, as much as I'd still like to do that, I've found that it isn't realistic at times. However, that does not mean the learning going on is not effective or meaningful. Creating significant learning environments by giving the learner choice, ownership, and voice through authentic learning wraps up everything I now stand for in my classroom, as Dr. H speaks so eloquently about in what was my first exposure to the idea of CSLE+COVA. The impact that this mindset has had on me not only as an educator, but as a person cannot go overlooked. Please find my reflection below.

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Discussion boards were a big component of the ADL program, but when zooming out a bit, the real stress was on the collaboration with peers. I found myself working with many different groups throughout my stay. When I had to take a semester off for the birth of my second daughter, I was forced into an uncomfortable position where I had to find some members to work with as my initial group had moved on. While inconvenient initially, this was such a great opportunity for me to get to know other learners in the program. Additionally, I had the unique opportunity to work with two members of my district who were also apart of the Applied Digital Learning program. While both in my school, they are outside of my department, social studies and special education to be specific, so I did not spend much time working with them in the past. Since then, we have met with staff developers and administrators to begin to work to implement some of the many things we learned within this program. While all of my reflections from each course on my "Contribution to my Learning and Learning Community" can be found on my blog, I also want to highlight some extensions of my learning community.

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References

Daniels, G. (Writer), Kwapis, K. (Director). (2013, May 16). Finale (Season 13, Episode 24/25) [TV series episode]. The Office. NBC.