The course finished last week and the assignment now is to summarize the learnings, and I re-read my notes a bit randomly from the past ten weeks. I have deliberately waited a few days before opening my blog page, as I’m still in a reflective stage. And that, I guess, is a pretty good sign and I still recall my first pedagogy teacher who always claimed that learning without reflection is no learning at all. I must admit that this idea and approach has followed me for more than a decade.
But if I now have to mention some of the corner-stones of the ONL181 I will bring with me it must be that I participated in a web course that is not unlike the ones I facilitate myself. A very useful learning was to initially feel a bit lost, not knowing the other participants, and their ambitions, and being forced to use some new digital tools for the presentations. This also lead to questions of what is demanded from us, as a group or individuals, to pass. Will we aim for good enough, and pass, or is there someone who is craving for an A?
Topic 3 – Learning in communities – networked & collaborative learning must be mentioned here as there were so many interesting questions about ambitions, responsibility and commitment that I still ponder about. And I liked our group discussions on that matter where we not easily could decide where to draw the line between the student’s/participant’s and the facilitator’s responsibility to make things work. To add some complexity to these questions our group had participants from different contexts and three different countries.
The presentations by David White in Topic 1 – Online participation & digital literacies were ever so inspirational, as they soothed my anxiety regarding being a loose cannon on the web. It very much is a new language with its own logic, that not always makes sense for a digital immigrant like me. I think it is worth thinking about his thoughts on how likes on social media might found a new currency. And for that we need to increase our digital footprints, if we want to be rich. Sorry for coming a bit off topic here, but as a sociologist I always enjoy these philosophical speculations about our contemporary and forthcoming society.
In Topic 4 – Design for online and blended learning I very much enjoyed Gilly Salmon’s presentations. In just a couple of minutes she explained how to think as a pedagogue. Just brilliant, and at the same time our learning process was also explained. And if you start reflecting upon your learning process, then you are about to learn things. Scaffolding – easy as pie!
Well, browsing through my notes was engaging and I see several aspects that can be discussed further. But I have to summarize these final reflections in what will be a last blog post. One of my learnings from the course is also that I will probably not continue blogging, but I’m glad I had a go. For sure, there will be no tweeting from my account, as it was very much not to my liking.
What I did like was being forced to get acquainted to a few new digital tools. And not to mention all the new acronyms from the realm of web courses; MOOC, COI, OER, PLN etc. I guess I will make use of some of these new learnings, but at present I have not entirely figured out how. And, of course, learning about learning will take a while……