My name is Devin Aspinall and I am a teacher/administrator in Estevan SK. I prioritize family and spend as much time with my 3 kids and wife as possible. I also love to be active and although my body doesn’t always agree, participating in competitive basketball, hockey, baseball, and volleyball is something I still love to do.

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I am excited about writing this introductory blog post for many reasons, but mostly because this is the beginning of the end for me. I will wrap up my educational leadership graduate degree upon completion of this course and bring to an end a very rewarding but challenging journey. I don’t want to go out without a bang and do have some important goals that I would like to accomplish during my time in EC&I 834.

1. Grow my personal network – I look forward to developing connections within this class and grow confidence and understanding in developing larger scale networks through platforms such as blogging and twitter to name a few. For example, I have used Twitter for years but my @devinaspinall handle is mostly for lurking and less for engaging and contributing.
2. Develop a relevant blended course – As the major assignment in EC&I 834, we have to partially develop an online or blended course. I am excited to dig into this task and begin to make a relevant course that will be useful for years to come in my middle years math and/or science courses. I truly believe that Covid-19 will shift the way education occurs in our province for good and beginning to build a course that can be used immediately in my classroom is an exciting opportunity.
3. Exploring the unknown – As professionals we often default to what we know and has worked in the past. This course offers an opportunity to explore, analyze, and test out applications, websites, platforms, and other opportunities that I have either not heard of before or just haven’t had time to look into. Discord is an example of an already presented idea that is new to me and where I already see potential to work well to engage students. Other programs such as Flipgrid are more familiar; however, seeing how others in this class use it in their own classrooms is a great way to learn about other possibilities beyond what I already know.