August actually marks the last month of this virtual prolific Mid-Year Festival (MyFest), and I am beyond excited to be reflecting and responding to this prompt: my suitcase from this experience. To establish a context, MyFest included multiple tracks that all comprised of synchronous and asynchronous activities. That is, live sessions, daily create, slack conversations, and the overwhelming Twitter hashtag #MyFest22, which had lots of thoughtful discussions and insights. Hence, I am filled with loads of gratitude to each single moment of that experience; I am also thankful to everyone who contributed. However, The reason why I shared this phrase in my title is because I consider it the most intriguing statement in the whole of MyFest. Dr. Mia Zamora mentioned it in a “dreaming Hire ed future”session, which was, in fact,  powerful to me. It is really interesting that everyone is working from their home and in their own time zone.

Appreciation

Throughout those few months, I started to appreciate many things, which I am thrilled to be sharing:

• Community building and reflection sessions

This was, and still remains, one of the fabulous experiences to be collected in the final suitcase of MyFest. Engaging with many people from all over the globe is just a unique and informative experience, especially when there is no boundary or hurdle. Students are learning from these renowned faculty, and faculty themselves, are eager to exchange on-going conversation with these students to develop new educational paths. The connections made from the breakout rooms are actually valuable. That is, having to do an activity in a breakout room and then engaging in minor unrelated conversations made me appreciate the power of communication. Also, as we lack the notion of safe spaces in conferences and seminars, , I also admired how keen the organizers were, attempting to achieve equity and safe spaces for everybody.

• Digital literacy track

Thanks to @bali_maha and the team at the Center of Learning and Teaching (CLT) at AUC, they provided a perspicacious hands-on experience into the area of digital literacy. Thanks also should go to the panelists and facilitators of the “ethical ed-tech session; a one that was full of valuable information and insightful conversation. I really cannot forget the strong chat saved from that session.

• Ungrading: Dr. Rissa

As a student, I have not had the opportunity to experience “Ungrading” even as a learner, but this track was an eye opening one not only due to its educational content, but also due to the modeling and conversations we had in breakout rooms. I enjoyed  learning about such a wonderful and unparalleled new form of assessment, given my actual interest in assessment beforehand.