In Conclusion of my participation in H817 Open Education (MOOC section), I offer these reflections:
Goals:
Original goals that I listed in my first post:
Badges:
Getting them - enjoyed the process on gaining two badges. Liked the feeling of having them on my blog.
Mozilla backpack - no, haven't gone there. Unfortunately my IT training kicks in and I cringe at signing up for a 'beta' program. However it has been a conversation starter with others and I'm keeping my eye on that space.
Future - I have my blog content to backup my effort for the badges. However I still think we need more of a rubric for detail on what the facilitator was looking for when awarding the badges. I may share these with my work colleagues in the future who know little or nothing of Open Education or online 'rewarding'. I've also looked at designing my own badges for various things and think this could be great fun!
Learnings:
I feel much more comfortable in conversing about Open Education. It has also opened doors for me personally in finding OER's big and little and sharing them with family and friends who might be new to this online space.
Timezone issues arose when I was unable (read: sleeping/unwilling to get out of bed and think) to participate in twitter chats and collaborative sessions. I think MOOC's should have facilitators in different timezones and different continents.
It would be great to see some language conversion available on the google+ community as well. this might attract more people from different language backgrounds.
Blog Stats:
I chose these two stats from this blog which has been dedicated to this course.
Does this reflect my PLN or is it more about who is participating in this course? It's not really location specific as I'm located in Australia and sometimes I would have liked to have more direct interaction with someone in my own timezone. However, posting, sleeping, then reading responses also worked well.
What Next:
I'm definitely on the hunt for my next MOOC. However my criteria and goals will again be more refined. As part of my survey response to Martin I also mentioned that I might think twice about joining a MOOC that was part of a closed course. I would have liked more interaction with those in the closed course but I felt (not quantified) that they already had a community setup and established ways of communicating and we (open learners) were a different party.
I'm also using lessons learnt in a more closer to home environment, encouraging friends and family in places around this country to use available internet resources. My family are spread across three different states here and I'm really enjoying engaging and collaborating with them online for the first time.
I've enjoyed my interactions and sharing from all....
Thank you.
PS Please feel free to fill in your "reaction" below.
Goals:
Original goals that I listed in my first post:
- think about how open education can relate to and work with the regimented, paid, closed education environment that I am involved with
- have fun and learn some more internet tools that help in effective online learning
- increase my PLN
What I came away with:
- Open education related to my current position: I just had a conversation this last week in relation to this. This conversation would not have been possible without my participation in this MOOC. The Uni has now hired somebody to look at how OER's could be incorporated into our LMS! Sound of clapping! Ongoing goal.
- Fun - not really. It was more like work in this online course. Internet tools - not so much but I have learnt a bit more about blogging and have enjoyed the xtranormal's at the end of this course (put that on my todo list)
- PLN - yes, it's growing and thank you to all who have shared in the Google+ Community and Deb for setting it up!
Badges:
Getting them - enjoyed the process on gaining two badges. Liked the feeling of having them on my blog.
Mozilla backpack - no, haven't gone there. Unfortunately my IT training kicks in and I cringe at signing up for a 'beta' program. However it has been a conversation starter with others and I'm keeping my eye on that space.
Future - I have my blog content to backup my effort for the badges. However I still think we need more of a rubric for detail on what the facilitator was looking for when awarding the badges. I may share these with my work colleagues in the future who know little or nothing of Open Education or online 'rewarding'. I've also looked at designing my own badges for various things and think this could be great fun!
Learnings:
I feel much more comfortable in conversing about Open Education. It has also opened doors for me personally in finding OER's big and little and sharing them with family and friends who might be new to this online space.
Timezone issues arose when I was unable (read: sleeping/unwilling to get out of bed and think) to participate in twitter chats and collaborative sessions. I think MOOC's should have facilitators in different timezones and different continents.
It would be great to see some language conversion available on the google+ community as well. this might attract more people from different language backgrounds.
Blog Stats:
I chose these two stats from this blog which has been dedicated to this course.
Does this reflect my PLN or is it more about who is participating in this course? It's not really location specific as I'm located in Australia and sometimes I would have liked to have more direct interaction with someone in my own timezone. However, posting, sleeping, then reading responses also worked well.
Graphs below: the first one is Browsers and the second one is Operating systems.
Questions that this raised for me:
- Would these graphs change if there was a lot of South African and South American viewing
- Is this important when designing material for future MOOCs
- Why don't more people use Chrome - it's a great browser
- I wonder if I could get these stats for the Google+ community
What Next:
I'm definitely on the hunt for my next MOOC. However my criteria and goals will again be more refined. As part of my survey response to Martin I also mentioned that I might think twice about joining a MOOC that was part of a closed course. I would have liked more interaction with those in the closed course but I felt (not quantified) that they already had a community setup and established ways of communicating and we (open learners) were a different party.
I'm also using lessons learnt in a more closer to home environment, encouraging friends and family in places around this country to use available internet resources. My family are spread across three different states here and I'm really enjoying engaging and collaborating with them online for the first time.
I've enjoyed my interactions and sharing from all....
Thank you.
PS Please feel free to fill in your "reaction" below.
Wendy,
ReplyDeletemy experience of you is that you are a very thoughtful learner. I have enjoyed your interventions in our MOOC. I know what you mean about the boundary between open/closed course that H817 was...I had to challenge myself to 'come out' in the open course. I have really loved G+ for learning together and have challenged many preconceptions about 'communities and blogs'. I hope we could find a way to blend open/closed as I feel, if we could do it well, it would bring greater depth to the learning for all. 'see' you around :-) PS- I love google chrome but have mac... PPS your poems rock
Hi Wendy didn't realize you're from Alice and even more surprising you seem to be well connected :-) I'm from QLD but live in Switzerland.
ReplyDeleteI found it interesting to read your reflections about participating with closed H817 students. (I'm one of them as well.) Yes it's true we did have spaces to fall back into for group chat and to support each other, but I have the feeling that I engaged more with open participants than MA students. And I know that there are others from the MA cohort who did the same. For me it wasn't about sticking to a particular group but responding where I could to content or comments that I found thought provoking; that related to my working context and posts where I had another opinion.
Having the open participants during this module, I feel, has been invaluable because it has added so much more diversity and I've been able to profit from that. If anything I feel as MA students we didn't have as much freedom as I would have liked. Week 7 we were all busy writing our assignments and of course were collecting resources for them during the course of this open section which influenced our choice of activities and readings.
The stats are interesting. I write quite a bit about Skype teaching and digital tools and seem to have a lot of clicks from all over the place but particularly the US, Brazil and Europe in general.
Good luck with all your further projects.
Trish
Wendy, I enjoy having you in my PLN. You always have an interesting perspective that inspires new thoughts and reflections. Thank you for being a part of that.
ReplyDeleteDeobrah
Wendy, interesting reflections. I'm in Trish's tutor group and agree wholeheartedly with her comments. It's been fab having so many different perspectives on this open course and you have been generous in terms of both commenting and sharing your thoughts. Thanks especially for being the first person to welcome me on Google+, you and Deb and Dave Barr did a great job in setting the tone for a friendly collaborative space and helping me get over my posting-anxiety.
ReplyDeleteI count myself as one of the least academic members of "formal H817" and have relished the chance to put my L-plates on and do things like have opinions, make videos and spend less time reading (and struggling to produce) dense academic texts.
Best wishes, Nuala
I think time zones are a problem with synchronous meetings - at least you can review what was said if they are recorded, but it really doesn't matter asynchronously- post and go to sleep- someone will always be awake somewhere to answer while you were sleeping :)
ReplyDeleteI agree the Google + was a warm place to land - They leaders did a great job replying quickly and made us feel right at home !