Learning how to learn online - Reflections of FO2010

Preparation for course commencement

I had looked at FOC09, however as I was pregnant and preparing for a birth in mid June, not to mention a new baby in the second half of 2009, I thought better of starting a course that I was going to struggle to complete. Therefore when the FO2010 course commenced in July I was very ready to get stuck into it. I had not read many of the readings, which I had initially intended whilst on mat leave but I must admit I was satisfied that I could manage the weekly activities by reading texts and investigating the links provided.

Blogging and connecting with others' blogs

One of the initial activities was to create a blog and indicate on in a post my intentions in joining the course. In looking back at this I have written that my goal was "networking with an international group of people who are also interested in oline facilitation". Have I achieved this? I believe this has been one of the areas that I have not succeeded as well as I could have. By coordinating new blog posts to feed into Google Reader I would have been made aware of new postings and then able to comment on posts.

Commenting on blogposts is a key way to initiate communication and recognise the work of another FO2010 participant. Instead of organising my RSS feeds to blogs I used the participant page to navigate who had added a post that I had not yet read (as once read the title goes blue). I think the reason I did this was that I saw the huge number of participants who initially enrolled in the course and I expected that keeping up with all blogs would be an impossible task, little did I know then that probably 60% of original participants would drop out of the course.

Blogging for me has been an excellent opportunity to reflect and coordinate where I was going and what I was thinking. It is a way for me to direct my thoughts ie. when I hear an idea or point of view and I am considering my opinion/position, I think 'how would I blog about that?'. This has been a key skill that I have developed during the course, and still have a long way to go. Listening to and participating in Karen's mini conf session has inspired me to become a better blogger because this is a major way to present yourself online, which in turn brings interaction and recognition from others which in turn leads to more learning and growing.

Live sessions

Using Elluminate to attend weekly group sessions has allowed me to become very familiar with this tool, from a participant's perspective. I still need a bit of practise from a facilitator perspective however I am not sure if Elluminate will be available to me in the future so I will focus on it then. As a participant I find Elluminate very easy to use.

WizIQ was a great tool for online meetings although I had challenges it made it that much more rewarding, as I discussed in my blog post.

During the process of this course I have developed and learned how to use my Personal Learning Network within a couple of Personal Learning Environments. Twitter has been a key tool allowing me to connect with a network that I have built over the last few months. I have been able to play with soooo many new learning tools (web 2.0) which I now realise was one of my key objectives. I also have a network to continue to find out more tools.
I am a real fan of WizIQ and on occasion will log in to find out what tutorials/lessons are available.

So in summary ....

• I should have coordinated all blogposts into Google reader and kept up to date then commented to initiate communication and build strong network relationships.


• I am a twitter addict


• I am committed to becoming a better blogger

My next steps...

Create my eportfolio - I am really keen to coordinate an eportfolio for myself. I am very committed to maintaining an open source method of sharing learning and so believe that I would be best to use freely available tools (that I have learned to use in FO2010) to create my folio however have to decide whether to do this with a blog as my core.

Tweet more - I must admit to having become a twitter addict, it is like an online course via links. I can find out so much about educational technology and online learning by just signing into twitter regularly. I also need to learn how to add value by tweeting more myself.

Blog more - I need to actually do the blogging, I think the thoughts, consider my position on a topic and then don't seem to get a chance to write it down or it ends up in edit mode for too long and becomes redundant. Perhaps I need to restrict my word count (as is done with twitter) to ensure I am concise and then maybe have subsequent posts that follow a point or argument. I need to put more links to illustrate what I am thinking...this is what I find more interesting when reading others' blog posts.

I have also decided to take up with my previous blog 'Kim's thinking' as this blog (that you are reading now) was designed specifically for FO2010.

I have many more thought running through my mind but in the interests of actually putting these thoughts out there I am going to publish this post. Looking forward to Fridays session - 'Pulling it all together'.

Engaging personally

It has been a busy week online in my world. As you can see from my visual I have also been exerting some very positive influence on my 7 year old son, we will work on the spelling next week. But, back to me....

Twitter

I have been using Twitter a bit more and am actually finding it to be a nice quick reference to what people are up to (reading & thinking about, rather than what they are eating for lunch). Now is the challenge of collating a list of people to follow then keeping up with them.


I participated in the Twitter discussion on Thurs evening with Sarah, Folke and Matty Bee, there were also other participants one of whom suggested to develop a successful online network you need to..."engage personally, contribute meaningfully, pay attention, listen a lot, be consistent". I think I will take this advice on board & make an attempt to be more consistent with connecting & keeping up with all the forums that I now have to monitor, Twitter, FB, Wikis blogs, email (blah yuck!) and posting to my blog.
I can see that Twitter will become one of my favourite places to go to see what others are up to, it can be quick and easy or I can get lost in the plethora of further reading references that people add. I have learned how to reply, retweet and use a hashtag to get involved in a 'stream' and I even used Twitter to comment on Mattybee's blog (at least I think I did). I can see that Twitter will be a good way to "orchestrate serendipity" as Rachel Happe explains in her article '5 ways to orchestrate serendipity'.

[Blog update as at 19th Sep] I have stumbled across a helpful preso on Slideshare re: Twitter basics by Heidi Miller [contributing meaningfully]. I tried to email the FO2010 group from Slideshare but was not very successful so I tweeted it. Then I followed Heidi on Twitter [engaging personally]

I also joined in this mornings #FO2010 group discussion in Twitter and it was interesting that some participants (including myself) were not showing up in the stream of comments/tweets. We are learning so much about the perils of experiencing technical difficulties. I am not sure if I will be initiating any Tweet streams or twit chats (need to get used to the lingo) any time soon but I will certainly use Twitter to keep in touch with a wide audience of learning professionals.


e-Gems Elluminate session Wed

I involved myself in an e-gems session held in Elluminate facilitated by Melanie Worral on the topic of Instructional Design. Rather than just exit the session and perhaps read a few references that were provided (lurk, lurk) I also opted to follow Melanie on Twitter ... this is me 'engaging personally'.


It was interesting to note that during the session Melanie engaged participants in a whiteboard brainstorm session/discussion which was very successful, however later in the session when she attempted to pass the mic to engage us all in a verbal discussion there was silence, so Melanie threw up another blank slide & we again typed our comments; there was hardly a white space on the board when we finished...note to facilitator: always have a plan B.


PLENK2010

I have also commenced another course called Personal Learnning Environments, Network and Knowledge 2010 [PLENK2010]. Yet another ball to juggle and I have committed to another blog for this course, I forsee a lot of cross-referencing to this blog & vice versa.


I have noticed that I am becoming more 'open' to sharing of myself online. For my first post on PLENK2010 I added an image of myself..a little bit conceited, perhaps, however there is no way I would have posted a real image of myself 2 months ago. I am enjoying interacting with new people online and part of my interest is putting a face to the name..it's the human thing. Again this is me engaging personally.

Online identity

Online identity is a topic that I have been considering since I have started blogging again.
How much of me do I give away, in my endeavour to build an online identity?

It was unfortunate that the guest speaker could not attend this weeks group Elluminate session however I think that the topic selected was very relevant to thoughts and reflections of many of the course participants over the last few weeks. Another great example of a facilitator(s) thinking on their feet.

Blogging - When I initially considered this course I read Sarah's blog and was inspired to divulge the personal side of me to allow others (those who would participate in the course-FO2010) to make a human connection. I warmed to Sarah when I was able to see her smiling face in her photo, understand a little about her personal/family circumstances and understand her professional persona.
Online appearance was a consideration when I created a new blog. Do I differentiate my FO2010 blog by loading a new look photo. In the end the decision was made because I could not spend another moment fiddling with my new blog, I just loaded the same old photo that I have used on FB. I find that by using a photoshopped image of myself I avoid the cringing everytime I log on. I did not want a Second Life avatar, mainly because I do not have one as yet, but also I feel that this is a false impression of who I really am, to me it seems like it is a 'facade' of who you want to be. Perhaps this is an indication that I need to play around in SL to gain a more thorough understanding.

Social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and a multitude of others have become commonplace in recent years. These sites allow connections to be made in cyberspace, but they still allow very human connections. I still see FB as a place where I can catch up with friends, at the commencement of FO2010 I did not understand how this could be used as a platform for communication in a course with strangers spread across the world. Now it is clear that the connections and friendships made online, are just as 'real' as the connections made face to face. My Twitter experience left a bad taste in my mouth, when I initially discovered Twitter I expected a network where people could make professional connections. I am not sure where this initial impression came from however I was soon dissapointed as I found that I was still getting updates about the cheese sandwich that someone had eaten for lunch. I expect that now might againbe a good time to dabble in Twitter again, it seems like it will be around for a while.

As an online facilitator there are many goals that I have, one of which is to give a little of myself to allow learners to 'connect' with me on a personal/human level. I find that by watching & learning from others I am adding to my list of Do and Don'ts. One factor which I find very endearing is Sarah's use of 'funny phrases' that really give an insight into who she is..."other days it all turns to custard". I believe that Sarah's intention, as she discussed in the session, to allow her online persona to be 'honest' to who she really is allows me to 'connect' with her.

I am now wondering how my style as a facilitator will be modified to an online environment. How will I use humor and convey my personal stories. Always more to think about.

Image is a shot from my recent trip to Queenstown...ahh the serenity!