Weekly Reflection 1- The Beginning
Before the first class even began, the course title brought up two very different feelings for me. On one hand, excitement: learning new things, creativity, freedom, and exploration. On the other, fear: what if I don’t get it? What if I can’t do it? That fear was stronger because the course is online. I am much more comfortable learning in person and Zoom-based classes can still feel distant to me. Still, I decided to take the learning itself as a challenge.
So far, Rick and Tanya have been very supportive, which has helped reduce some of that anxiety. I am choosing to trust the process and stay open, even when I feel unsure.
This course also brought back an old memory. Between 2000 and 2004, I kept a daily blog on Blogger. At the time, blogging was new, and a friend encouraged me to start one, he always said I had a talent for ranting! Even with that experience, more than twenty years later I felt surprisingly lost when I opened the WordPress dashboard. The layout did not feel intuitive, and I could not easily find where everything was.
By carefully reading the instructions, I was able to create my blog, hurray! I could edit the heading, but I could not change my header image at first. During class, Tanya showed us how to do this, and that small moment made a big difference. Her reminder to not be afraid to click and try changed my mindset. I stopped hesitating and started experimenting typing, adding images, publishing, editing, and publishing again. That permission to explore changed how I felt about the project.
What stood out to me was how encouragement toward autonomy and freedom, even through a short comment from the instructor, can completely change how a learner approaches a task. This reminded me of the Most Likely to Succeed film we watched, where students were encouraged to figure things out on their own. Not meeting deadlines in traditional ways did not mean failure. Instead, learning was seen as a process. Not everyone learns in the same way, and that itself is an important lesson.
This approach challenges the long-standing tendency in education to standardize learning and push everyone toward the same outcomes in the name of efficiency. Experiences like this course value experimentation, diversity, and learning through process rather than perfection.
My trial-and-error approach paid off, and I now have three posts published, which feels genuinely exciting.
That said, I am still learning my way around the platform. I am not sure how much control I have over layout, image size, or text placement, or whether these limits come from the theme I chose. I may explore different themes later. I am also thinking about future possibilities, such as adding music, embedding videos, or including my own drawings. Time is the biggest challenge, so part of my learning this week was understanding the importance of using freely licensed images through Creative Commons licensing, which allows me to use images ethically in my posts.
At this point, I feel more excited than scared. As a student, this experience reminds me how uncomfortable new learning can feel, especially when there is a lot of freedom and choice. While I value that freedom, I also notice how easy it is to feel disoriented. This has made me reflect on change in education. When we ask for more flexibility and innovation, we also need clear intentions, shared values, and supportive structures. Change often includes uncertainty but learning how to reorient and reflect is part of the process.
As a future teacher, this experience helps me remember what it feels like to learn without knowing exactly how well you are doing. It reminds me how important reassurance and encouragement are, especially in open and technology-rich learning spaces. It also raises questions about equity and access, as students come with different levels of experience, confidence, and access to technology.
This week, I learned some very practical skills:
how to set up a WordPress blog using the opened.ca platform
how to add a title, text, images, and publish a post
how to upload media
how to categorize posts
how to edit and delete content
This video was very useful and easy to follow
More importantly, I learned that confidence comes through trying. I’m looking forward to the next session and to continuing to experiment, click, make mistakes, and learn along the way.
Until next week. Peace and love.