Here comes the end of one learning journey and the beginning of a new one. Two and half months of learning about online networking and problem based learning in online environment went very quickly and were loaded with information and impressions. What are the most important messages that I am taking with me?

First of all I have seen in practice how a course with problem based learning (PBL) structure can function in the online environment. It is essential to make small groups of people who are well connected and motivated to learn the subject. In this course we have used the FISh method of PBL. FISh method consists of three stages: Focus, Investigate and Share. Topics lasted for two weeks in which our group of 8 would meet four times. For each topic there was a scenario – a short description of a situation or someone’s reflection on the topic. In the Focus part of FISh our group would first brainstorm about the scenario, and usually in the same meeting we would decide on which points of the brainstorming session we would focus in our further work. In the The Investigate part we would individually search for interesting materials on the topic, which we would all collect in a document to share with others in the group. We would also discuss the documents and the topic in videoconference. Then, in about second meeting we would also decide in which format we wish to present our findings and conclusions to the larger community. In the last two meetings we were working together on summarizing and the presentation, and continued with discussion and clarifications of specific topics. Finally, we would Share our presentation to the broader ONL group. I think this structure is very suitable for online courses with PBL which require divergent thinking resulting in creative knowledge construction.

I am really happy with the way our group functioned. Even though not everyone managed to be present all the time, people were very much engaged and interested and always took initiative and contributed in the way they could. Moreover, I truly enjoyed when we were working on common documents together all at the same time during videoconferences. We were very constructive and efficiently complemented each other’s work. It was an excellent example of productive online collaboration of people who have never met and who, until recently, did not know each other at all.

In addition, I very much like the 5-stage model for online courses which stressed the importance of detailed information and support at the beginning of the course about the essential online tools for the course, and the importance of online socialization for the successful course development and group work, which I wrote about in earlier blogs. Even though I was a bit scarifying my time to write the blog regularly for the time for our group work, and was running late with blog posts, I actually like the fact that I was “forced” to make my first blog page and start writing. I am happy about the thoughts I have collected in each blog post on each of the topics.

Finally, there are many more aspects of online learning that we addressed in the course, and I cannot name them all here. I enjoy learning new things and I like the idea of actively creating our own personal learning networks (PNL) – connecting with the people and sources that we learn from. I am convinced that ONL community will remain a valuable part in my learning network in the years to come.

I am thankful to all the organizers, facilitators and participants for making it such a wonderful learning experience.