I prepared a slide to summarize the course as part of the presentation for PBL9 and I have included it below. We used a new tool for each topic. I think this was a good way to try out new tools since you were “forced” to start using them and I could then judge their pros and cons. Some of the tools were introduced to us by the facilitators/group members and some we got to know by the larger ONL community, realizing how good sharing can be!
During the course I have reflected a lot upon social networks and how powerful they can be to get students engaged. People want to be seen by others even if they are not the exocentric person, but just to know that your work matters. To create a collaboration where new knowledge can be created is magic, but also very difficult to create since it is easier for group members just to contribute with their own share.
Another important insight was that sharing is the thing. Just start sharing! It might be someone that might get helped by your information although you think it is banal. There might be persons taking advantage of this, but then let them get the freeride. You have probably learnt more and if everyone starts sharing this will soon not be a big problem. It is still difficult to find and evaluate information so skills will still matter. When it comes to skills I had not previously thought about digital literacies and what skills you need to create your personal network etc.
My more or less only criticism to this ONL course is about the first topic and the PBL work. I think it would have been nice to get a more simple PBL scenario for the first topic, i.e., including a more specific question to easier define a task for the group and each member. By this those that were not experienced by PBL would have gotten an easier introduction and those who were experienced could still use the scenario on their level. In addition it was not clear to me when starting the course that one need to adjust your “time-frames” to a group to make group work possible, but in the end it worked out fine anyway.
The best thing with the course was maybe the learning blogs. First I had no idea what it was and I did not want to do it… But then I realized that I learned a lot summarizing the topic for myself with the inspiration/suggestions on the homepage. Great! I will definitely use it if/when I start my own course and make it mandatory to hand it in (probably adding feedback by the students to be mandatory as well). I would also like to use menti.com (in the classroom or online) and Zoom (including break-out sessions). Thank you for a nice course!
