As I’m off work for half term I can finally take stock on how this year has been developing. To say we’re only six week’s in to the year  I’ve already achieved a lot with regards to my professional ‘ILT’ life. This includes:

• Starting a part time BSC in Computing, IT and Design
• Learning basic computer programming
• Applying to return to the University of Huddersfield next year to complete the MSc in Multimedia and e-Learning
• Creating my first video blog post and participating in my first MOOC
• Leading my first staff development session on the use of interactive presentation tools
• Continuing with my ‘ILT Stars’ projects

With all this going on I have struggled to feel connected with the #etmooc and apart from reading the odd blog post I haven’t really participated in the course for the last week and a half. I have struggled to keep up and feel part of the ‘community’. Due to this being the first mooc that I have participated in it has been a lot to get used to and I have felt like I’m on the edge looking in – not a great feeling to have when your participating in a connectivist course. However I am going to persevere and thanks to debseed’s blog posts dropping into my email box over the past few days I’ve been inspired to  creating my own digital stories and therefore re-connect with the course. Although it would be great to develop links with a few more participants my primary reason for starting this course was to discover new technology and as my first post outlines I’ve started to achieve this and this new technology ( a comic book generator) has already made it’s way into mine and my colleagues lessons and the students love it!

To help me feel more connected I’m going to spend an hour or so every day this week (hopefully in my pj’s as I am on holiday) reading the #etmooc google plus page on my iPad, plus as well as reading the blog feed and watching the archived elluminate sessions that I have missed, to help me feel connected and part of the course I am going to be making sure that I comment on the posts that interest me and fingers crossed others will find my own posts interesting and leave me a few comments

As this is a reflective post to finish off here’s a brief round up of what I’ve learnt from the #etmooc so far:

• I’ve downloaded the google plus app and have started to follow the #etmooc community – I am yet to post so this is something I could try this week
• I have downloaded the Flip It app and have added the #etmooc Twitter feed although I’m not sure I’ll get much use out of this app as I don’t find it too appealing
• I’ve learnt how to make an animated gif in photoshop – look out for this in my next post
• My overall awareness of the day to day impact and the power of social media has increased – there hasn’t been a day so far where I haven’t used social media as a teaching tool
• My excitement for ILT has been given a boost and this has impacted upon my day-to-day role as I’ve introduced new technology to my own students and have trained my collegues on how to use the software in their own classes
• By reading Sue Water’s blog I’ve started to re-develop the way that I organise and read posts from my PLN. This has included downloading the Flip It app to turn my social media feeds into a constantly updating magazine and creating a IFTTT account to make my on-line identity work smart