From the Other Side of the Camera

Welcome to the Spring semester of 2023. I am an EdTech graduate student at Cal State LA. As a graduate student one of my tasks is to create a blog and post to it, so here is my first blog post as a graduate student. As I make my way through my graduate program I plan to post to this blog and track my growth along the way.

I started taking 4 graduate classes at Cal State LA, while teaching full-time, coaching Cross Country and Track. I also moonlight as a graphic designer on the side. My new journey is exciting, and a little bit overwhelming, but look forward to seeing this venture through.

After starting my first semester online in the graduate program, it is interesting for me to experience learning from the other side of the camera. As a high school teacher during The Pandemic, I was responsible for delivering assignments, facilitating discussions, grading and troubleshooting tech issues for my online classes - from my bedroom. Teaching in a Zoom setting did not worry me because I am comfortable with technology and delivering content in an online format. Before teaching I delivered many of my projects through email, or Dropbox. A lot of my meetings where conducted over Skype, for years leading up to my career shift to teaching full-time.

Growing up, and even as a young adult student, I experienced education in high school, college and post college in a traditional learning environment - go to class, interact and engage interpersonally. Even my web design classes, and internet marketing classes in college had labs we needed to report to once, or twice a week.

Now that I am the student, in a virtual learning environment, it is interesting to see what it is like to be the learner. I would be lying if I said it was easy to keep up with my to-do lists for each class. At first the nuances of being an online learner can be overwhelming, especially when you login to your first “asynchronous” module and no one is there - oops! But I am getting used to it, and starting to really enjoy it from the learner’s perspective. 

If I ever get the opportunity to teach online again, I hope this experience allows me to be more empathetic to the various situations that arise for online learners.