An Adult Learner

    My experience as an adult learner and educator has been a wondrous journey into a plethora of avenues that have taken me to the most incredibly awesome places.  I remember as a child the excitement of the unknown and the unpredictability of chance, I loved that monopoly game with just about all of my eleven siblings, as it taught me so much about choices.  I does seem that so many things have changed since I was a child, but that excitement still exists in the curiosity of the life long learner that I am.  

    When I look back into my first foray on the world wide web, I remember how blown away I was by how I could communicate with someone on the other side of the country!  I had much fun playing and discovering many things.  How easily one could get sidetracked into a whole new world, not really understanding the magnitude and scope of where my adventure would lead.

    I remember the first online course that I signed up for.  It was with a professor I had worked with previously and everything was all so new and awkward.  I felt lost in a place where learning was available yet, adjusting to the different format proved to be too overwhelming for me and I hate to say this but ….I gave up!

    Not certain what prompted me to give it another try but, I am very glad that I did.  Since then, I have completed many additional qualification courses and a degree in adult education, all online!  Brock University has given me this opportunity and I am very grateful to my husband’s union for the financial assistance.   Education is something all should consider to be valuable and without the support granted to me, I may never have realized my potential.

    In a perfect world, all who desire to improve their future prospects would have access to education. How do we comprehend all the technology of the 21st century and still move forward?  The learning we engage will drive our knowledge to access the tools in the forward motion.  We can only impact our students if we ourselves are impacted by the technology.

As teachers, we can make a difference for our students by modelling the inquiry process and discover the tools that will tap into the learning.  Often times when engaging in conversation with colleagues they don’t understand why I would want to “take a course”, I on the other hand can’t understand why they would not!