I have come to the conclusion that these blogs written for the ONL 181 course are more of a personal reflection journey that will benefit me more than being a treasure trove of information that others might find interesting and learn from. I have been reading several blogs from the participants of the course that I am participating in… and I am impressed by the amount of knowledge and inspiration that can be found in some of the blogs. I think that many people are light years ahead of me when it comes to digital learning but that doesn’t bother me… It’s not a race, it’s a journey… my journey, and I need to take time to reflect in-depth on how I feel about each topic we discuss and learn about.

During the two weeks that we have been focusing on the topic of sharing and openness in education and learning, I have had the fortune of engaging in work activities that have given me the opportunity to think in-depth about the subject areas we have been discussing in our group… especially openness.

From the beginning of next year, I will be in charge of Arcada’s Master of Global Health Programme. This is a joint programme together with another  Finnish university and a Kenyan university. Alongside my current job as director for the international nursing programme at Arcada, I am busy creating content for two courses that I will be teaching next spring. One is a subject I am familiar with (ethics) but in a new area (global health) and the other subject is one I am a bit more unfamiliar with (crises, globalization, and health care) and this means that I need to myself gain knowledge in that specific subject. In order to do this I need to collaborate with the teachers that have taught the course previously and also look into what material is available for me to use so that I do not have to reinvent the wheel in order to teach the best course I can.

I think that we sometimes look at openness and sharing as a sort of Pandoras box… we are afraid to open it up thinking that we might not be able to control what comes out… we want openness when we need it, as it then becomes an opportunity for us. On the other hand when openness is demanded from us it can sometimes be perceived as a threat, we might question ourselves, our skills (is my material good enough!), what is our value if we start ‘giving’ our material away (will students choose our universities’ courses?) etc. Openness for me also means exchange of ideas with colleagues, not just facilitating exchange of material or data, it’s talks, it’s sharing of values and opinions and being given the opportunity to broaden my horizon… to become a better person and a better teacher.