Yesterday I decided to participate in the Association for Learning Technology’s (ALT) Open Course in Teaching Enhanced Learning (ocTEL). After taking part in the ETMOOC earlier in the year I feel more prepared for this experience and have a plan of action for my first week. I thought it might be useful to share my plan with other participants, especially the ones new to the whole MOOC experience as it can feel extremely over whelming at first.
My first task is to plan how I can manage my time effectively by deciding which activities I can realistically complete. Due to being on annual leave, I have more free time than usual so I’m planning in participating in 2.5 induction activities, these are activities 0.1, 0.3 and parts of 0.4. One of the strengths of this course is that at the start of each activity page there is a section called ‘If you only do one thing this week..’.This section is for anyone who only has time to complete one activity that week and outlines which tasks to follow. I’m sure I’ll be using this section frequently once I’m back at work as although I am interested in the course as a whole my main objective for taking this MOOC is to develop my connections with other educators who are interested in technology enhanced learning. Although I’m part of a small community at my own institution it would be nice to develop a wider circle to bounce ideas off and discuss our interests.
Week one activity list
This leads me on to the second point in my plan. As I have a ridiculously poor memory I found it difficult to keep track of the people and posts that interested me as part of the last MOOC, however before I left the course I was involved in a Twitter conversation with two participants who explained that they had been making a note of everyone they communicated with during the course as well as what they discussed with each individual so that they could continue to develop these connections after the course. This also created a kind of go to list for advice and inspiration on the different areas and software covered as part of the MOOC. So right from the start of this course I am going to comment on blog posts and join in with discussions in order to create connections I am then going to creating a list of the people I connect with, their blog addresses and twitter name so that I can start developing my personal learning network with regards to technology enhanced learning.
