Reflections from Open Networked Learning - Fall 2018

This week we have been summarizing our learning in the course and I think we are all a bit emotional about the course "ending" but one of the concepts remains at the forefront - personal learning network. I now have a new group of colleagues from different countries and with different areas of expertise that I can continue to remain in touch with and more importantly continue to learn from. In my mind one of the main benefits of online learning is the autonomy for the learner. I was like my students in the fact that I anticipated a lot of independent work and perhaps a bit of working with others. However this course showed me that online learning is about active learning through collaboration. To facilitate this learning, the course was designed with activities that enhanced opportunities to collaborate together - and that is what sticks with me! For example this blog (although important for individual reflection) was something I tended to forget about because working...

The past two weeks we explored the topic of designing online and blended courses. Our group revisited the COI framework but also focused heavily on constructive alignment and how this can guide our planning and design. For me I moved into thinking more about the facilitation (perhaps because we had great facilitators this week who I really learned from in terms of online facilitation), but the idea of phases of an online course also relates to planning. Boettcher and Conrad (2016) describe every course as a planned sequence of learning experiences that has four phases. These phases are summarized as follows: 1. Course Beginnings : Focus on presence, community, and clear expectations. In our discussions, our PBL group has focused on setting expectations for learners and communicating them right from the start. The beginning is also the phase where the COI model should be implemented to assure a coherence between teaching presence, social presence, and cognitive presence. 2. Earl...

This week I was one of the co-facilitators for the topic of learning communities. I had an idea in mind of how the week would go (or some big questions I was focused on related to communities of practice). After the webinar and the focus on personal learning networks, I also thought perhaps we would move in that direction, but our discussion focused on collaboration and how we as educators can use scaffolding for online learning design and facilitation (and how that fosters collaboration). While we used the word collaboration, as I reflect back on our work I think of an article that I proposed to the group which references Siemens (2014) and his proposed continuum of e-learning learner-learner interactions. The 4 stages are presented as follows: 1. Communication: General talking, discussion 2. Collaboration: Working together and sharing ideas in a flexible environment 3. Cooperation: Working together but each with his own purpose 4. Community: Working together for a common purpose...