My final blog post as part of TW6082 Learning and Collaborative Technologies was to recap on the year (or for me, two years) gone by since we started our masters. Due to the word count of this assignment and other personal commitments, I could only cover the skills I gained and motivations I had throughout my studies within my post.
New skills I developed during my masters
• My interview assignment helped me to improve my interpersonal and communication skills. I improved my interpersonal skills by communicating verbally with Jess Beeley about the topic of universal design for learning and her previous role as a learning technologist at the University of Limerick. I developed both verbal and non-verbal communication skills when interviewing Jess by learning when and where to speak and in my general interaction with her.
• My Open Educational Resource and podcast assignments helped me to gain instructional design, recording and editing skills. I gained instructional design skills by creating instructional videos using various aspects of Microsoft Word and Adobe Acrobat. I gained recording and editing skills when I created the audio and video elements of both my podcast and tutorials. I used audacity, Vid.io, Microsoft video editor, Zoom, Panopto and the voice recorder on my laptop for these assignments.
My motivations:
• The small things count, such as when I went to Dublin for Rocky Horror and the Same Chance conference. It was great to have a break from my college work by spending time with friends. Many of these disability activism skills during will help me in the field of universal design for learning. Throughout this semester, I was able to have my friend Sophie over. Having someone to have meals with, walk to college and do work with helped ease the busyness of each day
• I met one of my role models Chloe Hayden, which made my year. This encouraged me to keep being a disability advocate and to continue my work in the world of universal design for learning (UDL). Chloe personally encouraged me to be my true authentic autistic self, which is something will be working on in the future
• It was great to gain skills from my assignments which I hope to use in the future. Hopefully that will include working in the field of universal design for learning. For more on this, check out my e-portfolio.
• My interest and knowledge in UDL I gained through my masters gained me the opportunity to do some professional UDL work. From talking to Jess Beeley and Thomas O’Shaughnessy, I participated in the UDL@UL project in December. Other participants included Thomas, Jess, one of my lecturers Yvonne Cleary and other students such as William Nolan, who also works with the disability service at the University of Limerick
I really enjoyed this assignment, even though it was a pain sometimes. It helped me post more to my blog, which is something I need to do but never have the time to do. I hope you enjoyed reading all my posts 😊!
References
thatswhtjustnsaid (2017) The Rocky Horror Picture Show GIF [GIF], available: web address: https://giphy.com/gifs/horror-rocky-the-picture-show-GqHbaev28Mvcs
[accessed 28 Feburary 2023].
The Voice in the Darkness 
Leave a comment