Sometimes you just need to do it

an #etmooc participant blog post published on
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That was me… and then about an hour later I had joined a smooc (small meaningful open online course) to create a website. Now those that know me IRL may be a little worried about this one. I already teach basic webpage design, and am quite competent at CSS and HTML, but I am self taught and sometimes feel like I should go back and “do it properly”. But I just don’t have the time… and there is another thing…

If there is one thing that the #etmooc experience has taught me, it is that I am not really enjoying the traditional approach to professional learning as much as I used to. I am, in addition to a couple of other things, completing my MEd – and this week has been interesting in the way that I thought about the “traditional” approach to learning.

I am completing two subjects face to face just now, one is tutorial based where we do the readings and watch some clips of lectures given all over the world and then we all meet in class and discuss our thinking about policy development. For the other there are a lot of readings to complete, a lecture to listen to and then we write a critical reflection on what it is that we think about the readings and lecture. That particular lecturer made the mistake of telling me that all of the lectures will be recorded and placed online for us to listen to if we can’t make it. They are not interactive. So I don’t go.

I love my face-to-face tutorial, I learn a lot from the people around me. It isn’t group work – which I actually hate with a passion – but it is collaborative in the way we learn. But for the other subject I would much rather take myself home at the end of the day and listen to the lecture online, than sit through it face-to-face. I don’t get anything extra from it at all. Or more to the point I don’t get anything extra.

So what have I done?

I have joined the #womenlearningtech. And I have already learned things which I am going to be able to use this week. Yay!

As an aside you should check out my Rare Animal.. the Freshwater Pointy Nosed Camel Whale… that was fun :)