I have actually participated in a few open learning activities through a couple of different MOOCs but have not found time to blog about them since I am busy participating in them. I am participating in the ETMOOC (Educational Technology & Media MOOC) and the Aboriginal Worldviews and Education MOOC through University of Toronto. I wanted to remain committed to ETMOOC but at the same time, technology was becoming so dominant in my life that I needed more variety in my open learning experience. Therefore, I decided to participate in the Aboriginal Worldviews and Education MOOC since it is relevant to my teaching practice.
ETMOOC
I participated in the following open learning activities in ETMOOC:
- Introduction to Twitter
- Advanced Blogging
- Introduction to Social Curation
- Web Storytelling: 50 Ways, 5-Card Flickr & Pecha Flickr
I participated in the first two MOOCs after I had first played with Twitter and blogging without any prior instructions. I must admit that after watching the two activities that I had not learned as much as thought that I would have since I had already trouble shooted a number of things prior to the sessions. However, I did learn more about myself in the process. I already knew that I was a hands on learning but perhaps a better description would be to use the term experiential learning. In the past, I would say that I was too impatient to sit down and listen to a lesson on blogging. The way the open lesson is presented with links to websites and other programs, it allows me to experience the learning in my own way. For example, during the lessons on Twitter and blogging, I was trying some of the suggestions in my own accounts. This makes the learning relevant and I remember what I have learned because I was able to complete it at the same time.
The last two learning activities were quite different from my previous experiences with blogging and tweeting. I found that both the social curation and web storytelling very heavy with content. I was able to participate during the social curation and as a result have signed up for Diigo, Symbaloo, and LinkedIn. I cannot keep track of all the tools that I now use unless I Google myself then I find my footprints prints which lead me to all of these tools that I have signed up for. There is so much information offered in these online courses but not enough time in between to really play or experience all that they offer. I felt the same way about Alan Levine’s (aka cogdog) presentation on Web Storytelling. Of all the presentations thus far, I enjoyed his the most. I was so excited about the possibilities of using digital storytelling when I teach problem solving in math. I have already used Diigo to bookmark his wikipage which has the all websites he referenced in his presentation. I have introduced Pecha Flickr to my children (ages 7 and 10) who absolutely love it and played with it for two hours straight. I also used Pecha Flickr recently at a presentation. The adults were so thrilled with it that they wanted to participate in it more. It feels great to share this learning with others in a face to face situation.
As I continue on this path as an open learner, I know what works for me and what doesn’t I really need structure in my life to enable me to participate in open learner which means having a scheduled time to participate. At the beginning of this open learning experience, I would attend the live sessions because I thought that I would never get around to the archived sessions. This has turned out to be true for the ETMOOC sessions. I have been incredibly focused on my learning projects for the two courses that I am taking that I do not always find time to watch the archived lessons. I do appreciate being able to link to webpages and activities during the open learning activity.
I signed up for the Aboriginal Worldviews & Education offered through the University of Toronto. I thought that I would like the structure of a course that was four weeks in duration and had defined study weeks with topics. There were no live sessions but rather videos and papers to view on your own time. I will write more about this MOOC in my next post but it was not what I completely expected. There was a disclaimer that the course would require 6 – 8 hours of your time per week. That is the time to watch and read all the information but it not include the time for assignments, quizzes, peer review and posting. I am still playing catch up on this course.
Did I really want this much structure in a MOOC and my open learning?