Howdy from Niagara!

Enjoying the glorious, sunny spring weather last week.

Howdy everyone, my name’s Melissa Drake, but you can call me Mel. I’m originally from Texas, and I’d have to give up my Texan card if I didn’t tell you that within the first two minutes of meeting you, and I’ve lived in Canada for 4 years now. I cannot adequately convey my excitement for the summer, for all my plants to bloom and garden to grow, and the arrival of more birds and insects as the weather gets warmer. One of the things keeping me sane during the pandemic is getting outside the house, gardening, and practicing nature photography.

My teaching career began at a public international high school in Texas where I taught English, Reading, and ESL for 8 years to students who were 100% English Language Learning newcomer refugees and immigrants who had limited or no previous English language education or experience. It was a tough gig, and we were always building the plane as we were flying it, but the experience expanded my worldview and has challenged me to think more about equity in education. I am a lifelong learner with diverse postsecondary education experiences in the U.S., México, and Canada, and after finishing an Ontario Colleges Greenhouse Technician diploma last year, I landed my first teaching gig in Canada as a Communications instructor teaching introductory-level research and workplace writing courses at Niagara College. I began the MET program in January, have finished 3 courses thus far, and for the next few weeks, I’ll still be teaching a dual-credit COMM course to high school seniors.

In a pre-pandemic world we had the luxury of considering online and mobile learning as convenient alternatives to face to face or blended courses, but we aren’t living in that world anymore. Last semester I didn’t consider mobile learning to be a particularly exciting or engaging educational technology to learn about or research, but I now realize its importance and impact on our future educational landscape. I’m excited to dig into mobile learning in a practical, creative, and research-driven manner through our coursework, and I want to give equal consideration to both the opportunities in mobile learning and explore the equity issues that prevent some from participating. I look forward to our shared learning experiences this semester and to meeting all of you soon.


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9 responses to “Howdy from Niagara!”

  1. Yi Chen

    Hello Mel,
    So nice to see you here! Love your pictures, they make feel like the spring is coming. How do you feel about the experience of distance teaching?


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    1. Mel Drake

      Hello Yi!!! Glad to see you and that we are working together again this semester! Photography, nature walks, and gardening have been saving me from madness – I bet the are you’re in is looking fantastic right now, too, and lots of birds migrate through there.

      Teaching online has been okay, except only half of my students are “present” – I don’t have many students, so when there’s an issue that needs resolving I just give them my cell, ask them to text beforehand, and we set up a call. Our semester ends next week, and all students still present are doing A-okay. It’s the ones that have disappeared completely that I’m worried about, as they need the course to graduate from HS.


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  2. Jane Wu

    Hello Mel,
    Your post is the first one, and I got attracted by how you organized your post, and then it was your photos. Amazing!
    I hope you can show me how to use this platform better. I couldn’t even figure out how to add another photo besides the feature photo.


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    1. Mel Drake

      Hello Jane,

      Thank you! Have you since figured it out? If not, I just recorded a screen capture (no audio) and embedded it into the post. Check it out and let me know if it helps.

      Melissa


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  3. anne emberline

    Hi Mel! I was actually in Texas when things started to really shift with the pandemic – I was headed there for SXSW EDU and found out it was all cancelled while I was on the plane in Vancouver, literally as my plane was leaving the gate. I ended up in Texas anyway and had a beautiful week spending time with some other stranded conference goers. That was pretty much my last hurrah of regular social existence, so I’ll probably have warm fuzzy feelings about Texas forever now. Haha.


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    1. Mel Drake

      Hello Anne! When you posted in the Facebook MET community about SXSW, I considered heading down there, but the timing wasn’t right. Austin was my home for 12 years, and it is an absolutely fuzzy feeling inducing place to be. What were the highlights for you? (I want to live vicariously through your memories of the experience, ha!) I’m glad you enjoyed the city and make it back for the conference and get to see some of the music festival – it is an epic experience.


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      1. Anne Emberline

        Ah yes, I remember your comment on FB now! I had so many amazing moments connecting with the other stranded conference folks. We ended up holding our own “AltSXSW” event with about 100 people and even had some of the original presenters doing their talks and activities. It was a really inspiring and special event, so intimate and enriching, and I made a lot of new friends. We basically just roamed the city together for a week and had a great time. Other highlights – bar hopping! I’m not usually a big fan of bar hopping, but in Austin it’s a real treat 🙂


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  4. Jamie Ashton

    Hi Mel,

    First off, I love your photos! The shallow depth of field is so pretty – what camera/lens are you shooting with?

    The description of “building the plane as we were flying it” rings so true, I had similar experiences in the ESL world but also came out of it with a lot of new skills, sensitivities and appreciations. It was actually one of the things that led me to moving more into instructional design and visual communications, is because I adore the process of problem solving where information sharing isn’t happening well, and then improving it! That said, I share your current sentiments about online learning going from luxury to necessity in a way that hasn’t always been accessible or equal across the board. We are getting a whole lotta insight into it though, that we can hopefully use to adapt and improve these areas in the future and make blended/online learning more effective and productive than before.

    It’s really good to get an initial insight into your interests and focuses in this course. I’ll see you in the forums!

    J


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    1. Mel Drake

      Thank you, Jamie! I’ve been an amateur photographer for a long time, comfortably shooting in Program mode, and in the past year or so I’ve been forcing myself out of my comfort zone to play more with aperture, consider backgrounds for bokeh effects and with macro (insect) photography, trying to increase that shallow depth of field as much as I can to get more in focus. Currently using a Nikon 610, and the 2 shots on the left are with my new macro Nikkor 105mm 2.8 and the one on the left is a 70-300mm 4.5-5.6.

      There is an aspect to working in an everchanging, unpredictable work environment that builds adaptability and certainly changed me for the better. However, the more I learn about how ESL campuses operate in different places, the more I realize that some problem solving could have been applied at various levels of the organization and district to help students and teachers be more successful.

      We have a lot to learn about the past few months, and it is an exciting frontier. I’m glad we are in this together!


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