The process of going through CORE 2096 to me was such a transformative experience reshaping my understanding of digital literacy, personal well being and collaborative learning that will forever change my entire path in life. Being a digital literacy confident, it began with developing the most comprehensive digital literacy skills ever beyond what most people have, including the ethical frameworks in our online interactions, when to strategically use Google for research versus using Twitter for the information with real time information gathering, professional networking and the understanding of credibility, source evaluation and the proper netiquette for an example digital citizenship. Through this digital literacy foundation I was able to recognize I had been a naive user and have become more of an informed user, developing better research skills and information evaluation skills through other topics learned while applying this to the academics; and better online communicative and privacy awareness skills into the social realm and more receptive digital practices as well as increased employability through better understanding of what constitutes acceptable practices in the business worlds. Throughout the semester regular mental health check-ins and a stress free learning environment cultivated helped me learn how critical importance emotional self awareness is and how extending a supportive classroom community can extend decreased stress levels that in turn boost creativity, engagement and positive attitude toward education. These reflective practices developed my emotional intelligence and provided tools for managing academic stress, skills I will implement through regular personal check-ins in my academic journey. What’s unique about the course was the focus on collaborative learning via group discussions and peer feedback sessions in order to learn how to best work with others and add value to the group – simultaneously proving the importance of diverse perspectives, in achieving depth of understanding and showing my capacity for contributing meaningfully to group work and further developing collaborative skills necessary for future group work, involvement in the community. Finally, in terms of development of enhanced critical thinking skills, starting with becoming much better at evaluating digital information and understanding source credibility, my approach towards information consumption has finally changed, to questioning sources and seeking multiple perspectives, skills that will prove to be fundamental to all future academic work, be the key to more discerning social media usage and information sharing and are the basis for analytical thought that underpins informed decision making and complex problem solving, whatever the professional context. These interconnected learning experiences have collectively equipped me with a comprehensive foundation for digital literacy, emotional intelligence, collaborative competency, and critical analysis that will serve as the cornerstone for continued growth and success across all dimensions of my academic, social, and professional life.

If I were to show someone my comprehensive learning journey in this course, I would present three assignments that  demonstrate my progress in this course, my Digital Literacy pathway presentation, the interactive narrative game I created, and my alternative CV, each representing transformative learning experiences that fundamentally changed my understanding of technology, empathy, and professional identity. The Digital Literacy pathway presentation stands as the cornerstone of my learning, requiring deep reflection on our online activities while introducing me to the pivotal article “Knowing the Difference Between Digital Skills and Digital Literacies, and Teaching Both,” which revealed that digital skills focus on the technical “what and how” of technology use, while digital literacy encompasses the critical thinking aspects of “why, when, who, and for whom,” fundamentally shifting my understanding that simply being able to use technology does not make someone digitally literate. This presentation opened my eyes to the profound reality that everything we do online creates a digital footprint, which includes not only the websites we visit and information we share on social media, but also comprises data traces that can have lasting implications for our personal and professional reputations, with potential risks including identity theft, privacy violations, and cybercriminals exploiting these digital traces for phishing schemes or creating fake identities.. The interactive narrative game I developed represents a deeply personal yet universally relatable exploration of human resilience, as I crafted a story about a boy who had to travel to a foreign country and navigate the challenges of being the new kid in town, incorporating themes of anxiety, stress, and the feeling of being left out that aligned perfectly with the course’s emphasis on mental health awareness and emotional intelligence. This creative project demonstrated my ability to apply game-based learning principles, which research shows increases engagement and enjoyment while creating a safe environment for failure where players can learn from active application, allowing me to transform my personal experiences of cultural adaptation and social anxiety into an educational tool that could help others understand and process similar challenges through interactive storytelling. My alternative CV represents a refreshing departure from traditional professional documentation, embodying the course’s encouragement to think creatively about self-presentation while recognizing that creative CVs should only be used when appropriate for the organization, as this format allowed me to showcase not just my professional qualifications but also my personal interests, creative pursuits, and unique experiences that make me a well-rounded individual. This alternative approach aligned with modern hiring practices that increasingly value skills-based applications focusing on demonstrating capabilities through actual projects rather than simply listing qualifications, while also reflecting the course’s broader message about authentic self-expression and the importance of presenting our complete selves rather than merely our professional personas. Together, these three artifacts demonstrate my comprehensive evolution from a passive consumer of digital content to an active, critical, and creative digital citizen who understands both the opportunities and responsibilities that come with our interconnected digital world, while simultaneously developing the emotional intelligence, creative problem-solving skills, and authentic self-presentation abilities essential for navigating both personal and professional challenges in our modern, digitally-mediated society

If I could change two to three aspects of this course to significantly improve the learning experience and educational outcomes, I would focus on transforming the assignment submission system and restructuring the class timing. First and foremost, I would modify the assignment submission process to either allow students to submit assignments directly through Canvas instead of requiring blog posts, or at minimum, integrate the blog post links into Canvas assignments to create a more streamlined and familiar submission workflow, as research shows that. The current blog-based submission system, while innovative, I would prefer if we could just submit the link on canvas.. This integration would maintain the reflective and collaborative benefits of blog-style assignments while leveraging the familiar Canvas gradebook system that students are already comfortable navigating. Secondly, and perhaps most critically, I would restructure the course timing from its current 8:30 AM.  The personal challenge I experienced with the 8:30 AM start time, particularly given that my classes on Sundays and Wednesdays end at 8:00 PM, creates an extremely demanding schedule. Despite these two significant areas for improvement, I want to emphasize that the course content, teaching methodology, and overall learning environment were exceptionally valuable and enjoyable, creating the kind of supportive, stress-free educational space.

Anyone can take this course. 

Throughout this course, I have been introduced to a diverse array of digital tools that have fundamentally transformed my approach to research, presentation design, accessibility awareness, and information verification, with five particular technologies standing out as exceptionally valuable for my future personal, academic, and professional endeavors. The most impactful category of tools was the artificial intelligence platforms, particularly Perplexity AI, which emerged as my preferred research assistant due to its unique ability to provide direct answers in natural language while citing multiple sources, unlike traditional search engines that merely present a list of links, and Perplexity excelled in both providing access to scientific articles and demonstrating remarkable capability in solving and explaining complex mathematical problems through its conversational interface that uses natural language processing and contextual understanding to interpret users’ queries, making it invaluable for my academic research where I consistently used Perplexity across all projects to obtain peer-reviewed scientific articles and perform deep, comprehensive research on subjects we were designing. While I also explored Elicit, which automates several research tasks including summarizing academic papers and extracting key data points, and Microsoft Copilot, which offers generative AI service capabilities for text and image creation, Perplexity’s superior integration of search functionality with academic rigor made it my go-to research tool that I will continue using academically for literature reviews and professionally for evidence-based decision making. The interactive whiteboards in our classroom represented another transformative technology that revolutionized my understanding of modern educational tools, functioning essentially as giant touch screens where you can write with your finger without leaving permanent traces like conventional whiteboard markers, utilizing touch-based experience and virtual ink technology that eliminates the need for chalk or markers, and these interactive boards enhanced classroom engagement through their customizable features and internet connectivity that allowed us to pull up and show online documents, videos, and other classroom resources, and I plan to advocate for similar technology in my future academic presentations and professional training sessions because research shows that interactive whiteboards improve student engagement and promote a more collaborative learning environment. Perhaps the most eye-opening discovery was the color contrast checker websites, which compare text color against background color to ensure readability for individuals with visual impairments, including color blindness, by calculating contrast ratios according to accessibility standards where AA requires a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text, and this tool opened my mind to accessibility considerations I had never previously noticed, making me realize that people don’t advertise their color blindness, but it’s something we must be aware of when designing any visual content, and I now commit to using these checkers for every presentation I conduct, whether academic, professional, or personal, to ensure inclusive design practices. The course also introduced me to copyright-free image websites that provide royalty-free images where you can use them in just about every application possible without paying a royalty fee for each time you use the image, eliminating concerns about intellectual property violations while accessing millions of photos, illustrations, vector graphics, clipart, icons and design files for presentations, projects, and professional materials, and additionally, fact-checking websites became crucial tools in our digital literacy education, particularly relevant given that fake news detection systems can now achieve high accuracy in identifying misinformation, and this exposure fundamentally changed my approach to consuming online information by making me more skeptical and analytical about digital content, skills I will apply personally when evaluating social media posts, academically when assessing source credibility, and professionally when making decisions based on online information. Finally, Google Slides’ advanced linking functionality, which allows users to create hyperlinks by selecting objects and creating connections to specific slides or external resources, proved invaluable when I designed my interactive narrative game, where certain player choices needed to skip several slides in non-sequential order, demonstrating how this feature enables complex, non-linear presentation structures that I will utilize academically for creating interactive educational content and professionally for developing engaging training modules and client presentations. Collectively, these tools have equipped me with a comprehensive digital toolkit that addresses research efficiency, accessibility compliance, content creation, information verification, and interactive design, fundamentally transforming my approach to learning and preparing me for success in an increasingly digital academic and professional landscape where these technological competencies will be essential for effective communication, ethical content creation, and inclusive design practices. 

https://www.canva.com/design/DAGfkvLAxY8/fUxGeEFLpFsYFROqoE1aUQ/edit

https://www.google.com/url?q=https://literacyworldwide.org/blog/literacy-daily/2016/02/03/knowing-the-difference-between-digital-skills-and-digital-literacies-and-teaching-both&sa=D&source=editors&ust=1748727440915703&usg=AOvVaw1KXeGmagDg-f_vAaY1t0BP