The Final Poetry Collection

     This learning project was an incredible opportunity to explore my creativity. It was also an outlet-- a way to express myself and my thoughts. It was an honor to spend some time each week rediscovering my passion for creative writing. Some people aren't so fortunate to find fulfillment in something they've learned to do. For me, writing poetry was more than a learning project, it was an extension of my taking care of myself. I think what stands out from other hobbies and interests I've pursued before is tech integration. For these 13 weeks, I used tech and digital resources to support my learning journey. 

    Researching different poetry forms was not a hard task. Thanks to Savannah Jackson at Jericho Writers, I was able to collect a list of forms to explore. Although the selection for each week was picked randomly, I never minded any of them. In fact, I was pleasantly surprised by the ones I was unfamiliar with. Some poetry forms were just interesting and challenging.

Here are some of the websites that really contributed to my learning:

• Poetry Foundation
• Poets.org
• Masterclass
• Interesting Literature
• Thoughtful Learning
• The Art of Narrative
• Thanet Writers
• Art in Context
• Random Passages
• Writers.com
• Just Add Students
• Johnny Savage (YouTube Video)
• Google Arts and Culture
• Grammarly

I also used other digital resources to support or further represent my poems:

• Poem Generator: comparing AI-generated poems with the poems I wrote.
• Screencastify: to record my research process.
• Shotcut: a video-editing tool that I used to make a video of the research + the poem.
• Davinci Resolve: a video-editing tool I wanted to use but couldn't.
• Scratch: a cool coding program that I used to code my poem.

    As you can tell, I benefited so much from the digital resources that were readily available. A massive part of my learning project is the knowledge I gained from researching and trying out tools. Of course, learning how to write was the main goal, but learning to use digital resources was a goal too. 

    This allows me to think about one of the situations we face today. How to use technology in the classroom? Well, let me just say that this learning project is an example of how we can use tech for ELA. We can pull lots of information to learn how to write beyond the teacher's instruction. If I had been born earlier, I probably would have had to visit the library and look for poetry books. Today, we can find these poetry books in technology.

    All this to say that I'm happy to have done this learning project. I challenged myself and eventually produced these meaningful poems that I will keep for a long time. Perhaps, I may cringe at them later, but then I'll reminisce about the journey behind them. 

Here is the poetry collection of the past 13 weeks of my learning project:

    Thank you to everyone who's kept up and followed me on this journey. Although I didn't quite see any interactions, I know I wasn't alone in learning something new this semester. So, congratulations for making it this far in your own learning projects, and maybe like me, you'll also continue this project beyond EDTC 300.