It has been exactly 11 weeks since I started the ONL course. Now, after watching the last webinar, it’s time to reflect on the whole journey.
As most of the participants of the webinar pointed out, I had many good things to say about the course. I concur with those who found the course to be fun, inspiring, collaborative, enlightening and ‘with international atmosphere’. This is the closest we could do to go abroad and see things from different cultural and national perspectives without actually traveling abroad. Apart from learning the subject matter, I have gained a lot regarding online communication and discussion skills. Actually, this is my first collaborative learning experience over the Internet. As I reflected on some of the topics discussed, I found that we were collaborating to learn about collaborative learning. This truly makes the learning experience more fun, informative and real.
Truth be told, at the very beginning of the course, I expected the course to be one of those online courses where I do most of the readings by myself and come back for meetings to get feedbacks or some pointers. The first two weeks were very confusing and challenging for me as I failed to attend most of the PBL meetings. The information overload—blog post, forum discussions, webinars, and recorded PBL meetings—was overwhelming. Instead of helping me, reading the blogs from fellow participants as well as watching the webinars gave me more questions than answers to the issues I wanted to learn when I enrolled into the course. It could have helped if I was able to get answers right away during the PBL meetings. Fortunately, it only took me a couple of emails from the facilitators of our PBL group to get me started with my blog and attending meetings. I also played some catching-ups to read the ONL forum entries and blog posts from fellow participants. As time progressed, I found the meetings very interesting and informative. I saw the benefits of collaborative learning as I felt the sense of belonging and companionship. All of us were working toward the same goal—learning. Even though it was sad to see some members of our PBL group leave, the discussions and ‘out of the topic’ conversations made me long for these meetings.
As I pointed out in my first blog, I thought I was comfortable using the online tools that could be used to help me participate in the production of learning resources. It did not take me long to notice there are lots and lots of things I need to learn. I would like to extend my appreciations for all fellow participants and facilitators for making it possible for us to share these tools. Each group has used different tools to present the outcomes of their discussions and learning experiences. Apart from these tools, I had also get the chance to read a long list of relevant literature that could come in handy as I take more teaching responsibility.
Even though I am mostly involved in traditional learning in a classroom setting, I am definitely going to make an effort to complement with what I learned in the course. Particularly, I take with me two important lessons—collaborative learning, and blended learning. I am now convinced that students working for the same goal could accomplish a lot together. I also acknowledge that we need not be naïve and fail to notice the challenges and traps of different ‘learning styles’.