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Trying to define my expertise in fslt13

May 18th, 2013 by

I was very eager to begin my participation as an expert in fslt13 week 0. I wrote two blog posts and commented on some forums. I enjoyed the first sessions. Then came a pause: I began to think about my expertise. What could I give in order to help or support my co-learners?

It was easier to recognize what I cannot offer: I do not know the British universities and their assessments or grades. Most of our expert participants live in UK, Oxford, London etc. They know these practices, so I may leave this side to them. I also recognized the difference between fslt13 and my way to act as an online teacher. I did not use any strict schedules or small groups. I gave the freedom to participate when the students wanted, when the time was suitable for them. I even gave the freedom to select their topics. Some people did their assignments at the beginning of their studies, some at the end. Every assignment was very personal and I did not care about the style or correctness of their texts. The diversity was great and I used to be a flexible 24/7 teacher. I cannot wait that this is the case in fslt13, this course is more normal or usual: topic of the week is clear and there are deadlines.

I have to find my expertise on a general level. I have participated so many different MOOCs that I know the process. My former blog posts based on my former experiences. I know that some chaos, uncertainty and disorientation belong to the orientation phase of MOOCs. But I began to ask myself on week 1 that who wants this knowledge of mine? I read again the arrival lounge discussions and found many different expectations.

One group of students aimed to learn to teach better, new skills and techniques. Some wanted to learn more from higher education and enhance their competitiveness. – I used to work in teacher education but teaching is contextualized and depends on the culture. So I am not sure how I could help these people in their career building.

Another group of students wants to learn more about online learning or about MOOCs and the technologies used in them. Here I recognized many questions which I was interested in myself: the engagement, cultural effects, teaching philosophy and style. Some students told that this is their first MOOC and they want to live it through . That got me to think that what makes a MOOC? Is it the openness and the freedom to choose the tools? This fslt can be performed by following guides and deadlines and working alone just like whatever university course, is this?

The diversity of expectations and very heterogeneous students are considered as a richness in open online courses. I have a hunch that this is true in fslt13 and our students will learn quite different skills and knowledge depending on their different orientations.

We have many experienced moocers which already know online learning very well. Our list of expert participants could be much longer than it is (about 22 of 133 = registered in Moodle today). But it is not important how our roles are defined. I believe that this experimentation to use expert participants, as described in this blog of MazWaite, this will produce us some new knowledge. This is a post about my process of losing my expertise and redefining it in this context. I had to define what I am not to understand what I am. Sometimes I wish I were more simple (simpler does not sound right, I am not sure..)

Now I am going to follow Icehockey, Finland against Sweden, our favorite enemy.

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Be yourself!

May 9th, 2013 by

The beginning of MOOC is always the same: what to read, what to do, how to participate? I have lived through about ten moocs, but these feelings of disorientation  don’t leave me. That’s why I was very happy to find this image in Facebook today:

There are pages of Global Shapers. You may like the pages and find more good advices.Thanks for the image.

BE YOURSELF  is something that is good to find again and again. It is simple and not simple at the same time. Just calm down and be yourself. It is enough. And actually you cannot be anything else. Everyone else is already taken :)

We have 80 active participants in our fslt13 Moodle today, our second day and the number will rise up. It means that we have great amount of different expertise and interesting people. They live mostly in UK but also in Canada, Ireland, USA, Spain, Honkong, NZ, Australia, Mexico, Saudi Arabia and Portugal.

What can I say to myself just now? Relax and enjoy, calm down and forget wrong expectations. Wrong  means (when I speak to myself) that do not wait to behave perfectly and help everyone in the best ways. Just find something to do, so you don’t concentrate on yourself. Be yourself and act, do something that you really want to do. Do not pretend anything.

I have worked as an online teacher many years and found my way. Perhaps it depends on my personality but I don’t like exact advices (to say some words to everyone, no). You must behave authentically and be yourself (again!) Adult students can take care of themselves and each other, they take responsibility of their learning. So let them do it. Now I feel relaxed and return to the Moodle forums.

It is raining in Finland and nice to sit inside with my computer. See you! Remember the meeting at 16. a’clock BST.

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Posted in online learning | 7 Comments »

Looking forward to fslt13

May 7th, 2013 by

Some exciting will happen in near future. I’ll participate on the second First Steps  into Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, a mooc organized by Oxford Brookes University. I am very pleased because I was invited to be an expert participant during this new course. So I must have the appropriate capacity :) capability? or skills. Choose the best, please.

I have been interested in research around the moocs and many slides and articles have been published about fslt12. You can see them all here. One of the results is the idea to recognize the different roles of participants and ask someones to take an expert role. Actually I, for instance, have always been myself and if I have experiences about online teaching from the very beginning, of course I use it.

Gilly Salmon published a very useful model of online facilitation already in 2001. She named it as e-Moderating, the key to teaching and learning online. It has these five steps. I’ll use it to set my goals or questions for next month.

This model helped a lot when online studies were new and everything seemed very difficult. You can share to problems to these levels and solve one problem at a time. I remember that in fslt12 there were many newbies who need this description in order to find their place.

Socialization happens through different ways but technological problems will be met for ever. So many new devices are developed all the time.

Facilitating is easier at the lower steps (if you know the answer) but it is more complicated at the upper steps. You should be very sensitive concerning the support needed. The student must find the way, do not give the straight way at once. You have to observe, wait and guess the right questions to do. Facilitating learning is not simple at all. Now we have the opportunity to learn from each other, in the expert participant group and Oxford Brookes team.

My first learning experience was today when I had to check what is BST: it is British Standard Time. I was used to London time or Greenwich, I hope BST is the same (there are no summer time differences) . Sometimes we Finnish people even say that we speak London, I like the saying.

Communicating in English is a permanent challenge to me. I should be clear but I don’t know nuances of all words. When I studied literature in the course Fantasy and science fiction, our modern world, in Michigan University, I received much peer feedback (everyone got, the course was constructed so), about my language. Only one peer student said that ‘my English ruins everything, I use wrong words etc.’ The others accepted my expressions but I remember best that critic. Now I can move this problem to Marion Waite and George Roberts who invited me to participate in fslt13 after reading my posts a year ago :) I can only do my best.

I wrote ten blog posts during fslt12 and after reading them I consider the post ‘Did I change?’ written on August first, a month after the course, is the best. It is good to have breaks in the reflection process. What will happen this year, it depends on many factors. I am eager to meet my co-learners and explore the diversity between us. See you there!

 

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Posted in online learning, online pedagogy | 2 Comments »

What did I learn from #edcmooc peer gradings?

Mar 6th, 2013 by

My final assignment can be found in this Feb 27 blog post. This time I will analyze the feedback I got from the ‘official’ peer gradings and other comments. The inspiring quality of #edcmooc can be identified in the way that students shared their digital artefacts all the time, before the dead line and after it. The official gradings were written into Coursera platform, other comments to my blog, FB group and my FB timeline.

I copy first the criterion (2 = achieves this fully or almost fully ) and then the gradings of peer 1,2, and 3.

The artefact addresses one or more themes for the course and suggests that the author understands at least one key concept

My peer graders agreed with this statement.

Peer 1 explained that “ I found this addressed a Utopian view into a human entering the digital world. While mentioning technology a lot of it was about new world, blogging environments and social networking – many of which are themes that echo across the course’s weeks of materials. I think the author has taken concepts such as humans in the digital world and addressed them clearly in their artifact.”

Peer 2. ” I could see the link between considering the nature and scope of one’s online identity can be related to engagement with digital education, and having a sense of being human and oneself. So the artefact asked some interesting questions about fear of online spaces, confidence to experiment, and fearlessness in wading into new spaces. I liked the idea of being a digital Viking – a nice metaphor. Yes, the author understands at least one key concept from the course, and expands upon the ideas of human interaction and identity.”

Peer 3 used the concepts given and agreed with it, I suppose he/she is not native English speaker.

The artefact has something to say about digital education

Again the peers agreed with the criterion and showed excellent understanding. I have to admire them.

Peer 1. “While there’s no direct link to education, you can see they have been a self-paced learner during the process and so on a personal perspective it addressed education.” and peer 2  “Indeed, I think it does engage with digital education, although I didn’t feel the artefact explicitly drew attention to the many dimensions of digital education with which it could have expanded upon, the notion of online identity seems broadly connected to digital education”. and peer 3 copied the criteria as such.”

The choice of media is appropriate for the message

Peer 1. “The media used (Prezi) worked well, it drove me through the ideas neatly and provided a narrative. The whole thing got me thinking, parts like ‘try a new technology’ made me think of how some people want to explore, break, tweak technology and others want things that ‘just work’ or to pick up one new thing at a time – this is a reduced demand, but still a very normal way to approach things.”

Peer 2:  “Choice of media seems good – though now wish I’d seen something other than Prezis – as I did one and now I think I’ve made a mistake.” (I could not follow which mistake ?)

Peer 3 “The choice of media is appropriate for the message”

The artefact stimulates a reaction in you, as its audience, e.g. emotion, thinking, action

Peer 1 “I enjoyed this artifact, thanks for sharing it &* thanks for making it personal. The artifact clearly expresses an individual who has been avatared into the digital world, perhaps with some reluctance but also what’s most important is they have seen acceptance into this new environment.

Peer 2: “I didn’t feel a strong reaction to it, perhaps because I feel that as adult educators having an online identity should be par for the course. But it’s good to be reminded that many educators are nervous and anxious about engaging with the online world, and therefore perhaps there are mature students who also share such anxieties.”

Peer 3: “Beautiful made. Triggers me ‘thinking’ (criteria 5): what’s my opinion and emotion?”

Peer 2 commented that  “My impression is that this artefact raises a good point about the lack of comfort human beings with frailties and shyness might experience when thrust into the online world for education, for participating in global or local issues and projects. It had a nice narrative, and a strong thread linking the points raised together.”

The comments from other forums were very warm and supportive:

  • I enjoy your presentation a lot Heli. Digital but very human at the same time and a very warm message;o)
  • I liked being reminded of how our identity expands when we go virtual.
  • It is very intellectual, but has a personal angle that makes it easier for me to understand.

New ideas I got from my daughter: voice or music was lacking. I had no time and competence for doing this. And my Peer 1  assessed that “The journey was very personal and as such; the reflections would be focused around the individual and the person how they have gone through this.” Yes it was personal but the interpretation was not.

My self reflection: I did the artefact in a hurry and I surprised how well it was received. The content I chose from my earlier works, all the images were saved  in my computer. The idea of Digital Viking came from the course participants.  The content is a mix and could be organized better. My energy went to training Prezi, which I did not know and it didn’t obey my fingers at all. I deleted all my doings on Monday evening and began to plan a new presentation on Tuesday ; Wednesday was the dead line day. The presentation seems better than I believed, I had a feeling of chaos. The most important insight is that Prezi tells narratives, stories, and I can make the order to follow the story. It is much better than only ‘text and images’. I took a step forwards in using new devices and I am proud of this step. My identity is empowering … thanks to all my peers!

 

 

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Age 60+ forum in #edcmooc

Mar 5th, 2013 by

One of the edcmooc study groups was named “Age 60+”. Dolores McCarthy started it a month ago and it has been in active daily use. To me, it is the only forum from which I receive emails. I have not contributed there, I only told my blog address and my intention to write about the group. Now I read all the content, the threads and comments. There were 25 female and 15 male participants writing to each other using positive supportive ways. I cannot interpret  why Anonymous was chosen 21 times?

First I had an idea to explore the group but everyone is individual, I don’t try to say anything generally. Of course some are techno oriented but most members are ordinary people who have learned to use the computers since 1990′ies at work. The oldest is 82 and the group welcomed also 50+ people. I copy a summary from David Benson:

I thought I would show you my plug for your discussion group. I have found the sense of community here very nice. I came here to ask a question because I knew someone would answer it. I would encourage you in future MOOC’s to always do the same thing. Have an over 60′s group in all of your MOOC’s

.. if you visit that place you see how there are lots of green and up ticks and they sort of understand life better. If anyone wants to know how to act in a MOOC I would venture to their discussion and see how people work in a community. If I ever wanted to know something I would go there and ask because there are “hawks” there … people who are actively watching to be helpful. Every MOOC should have an over 60′s forum for people who understand that sometimes knowing everything is not the most important thing. It takes people a few years and much water under the bridge to figure that out.

The group was worried about people who had no interaction on these forums. Their behavior could be impersonal, technologically dull and short on any real understanding of the themes of this course. Some of the raters gave very low grades and made some really nasty comments. These are problems in every massive course.

The 60+ group shared a lot of experiences about new devices and helped in many questions, thoroughly enjoying the interaction.  In the future you need to take people together and let your presence known. You know most of us learned in kindergarten how to treat people.

David continues taking responsibility and caring about co-learners:

I would appreciate it if all those who are in this community to go to my thread in the General Discussion under Rude and Offensive comments and share a few ideas about MOOC’s. My basic gist  is that the general culture of a MOOC should not be one of a corporate hostile takeover but more akin to some people hanging around the table, shooting the breeze and playing Mahjong. I agree there should be standards and I agree that it should be rigorous but it is like we are partners climbing up Mt Everest and the challenge is not each other but the mountain. We can point out shortcomings but I do not think we should be hostile to each other and even those less than agile ones need some encouragement not our chastisement.

In my former post I spoke about excellent new culture which is growing in massive open online courses. Students from different countries, languages and ages meet and inspire each other. It is great and I want to show that there are more and more 60+ people as participants. We are Grey panthers and take our place in the web as we have already done in so many areas. See you!

 

 

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Posted in network, online learning, online pedagogy | 7 Comments »

Learning outcomes for #edcmooc

Mar 4th, 2013 by

The course edcmooc is ending: we have assessed each other and  got the feedback. It is good to ponder the assessment issues, I always do when a course is over. There are numerous ways to assess learning but no simple ways. I deal with following three ways:

1. The facilitators evaluation in their blog and the two hangouts.

I took my heading from Christine Sinclair, her blog post, . I have appreciated the team blog “Teaching E-Learning and Digital Cultures” – it gave a connection to our facilitators thoughts and feelings. I liked to compare their view to my own and usually I agreed with the writers. So happened this time: Christine was pondering how complex are the outcomes, not easy to define. The creativity is fantastic and enjoyable, it has no limits. Only some outcomes can be recognized immediately and it would be fine to check the outcomes after a year.

The team blog also gave facts and quantified information about the happenings during the course. It helped participants to reflect.

2. The peer grading was planned to be rather simple. We had to assess these five components: The artefact

  1. - addresses one or more themes for the course
  2. - suggests that the author understands at least one key concept from the course
  3. - has something to say about digital education.
  4. The choice of media is appropriate for the message.
  5. The artefact stimulates a reaction in you, as its audience, e.g. emotion, thinking, action.

This seems to work when we had only 0-1-2 points to give. The descriptions and arguments were more important than grades and showed how the co-learner had understood the artefact. They are the real feedback.

On this course participants begun to publish their artefacts in different forums and got much feedback in FB group and their blogs’ comments. The assessment was rather public, and it was considered natural. Only the three *official’ evaluators were anonymous.

3. Self assessment goes through the course and the other reflections only mirror it.

Here I try to describe three levels of reflection. I have tried to reflect after many courses, look for instance Oct 2011 “Three years blogging, learning journey” . This time I have a hunch that  I’ve really learned better than ever,  and I want to show it.

I have basic skills and motivations and many meta-skills for learning. It is possible to participate, I don’t frustrate too much about the amount of knowledge and different devices , I know that so it must be. I do not believe that clear rules were a good way to help students, the disorientation must be experienced and a new way must be built up from choice to another. You cannot find yourself by obeying other people and following clear rules. Everyone has feelings of loneliness on massive open courses.

But how could I describe the new and broader  perspective of e-learning and digital cultures. Gardner Campbell had a lecture about real vs fake changes. I have the feeling of real change just now, how wonderful it is to open eyes and understand more deeply  what is going on and see own limits. I have believed that humanity is true and simple goal. No, we have never been human said Steve Fuller. I didn’t know the many possibilities of posthuman and transhuman worlds. I have learned some new content and attitudes, no doubt.

I have learned participation too. This course has many excellent students who built FB group, Twitter chats and wikis. It seems that the idea of MOOC has developed a new generation who really is self directive and uses the technological possibilities. There were models to follow, friends to ask help. For instance Chris at the beginning and Fran Monaghan in the forums, she followed new questions there and answered to many co-learners. The facilitators are not alone, every student can be a facilitator.

This edcmooc was a great experience, the facilitators were excellent models and so were the peers. I learned a lot, time will tell how much. I am not sure anymore what should be the object of assessment: individual student or the course at a whole? Perhaps I should describe the new networked learner?

 

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Transhumanism: knowledge and practice #edcmooc

Mar 3rd, 2013 by

I cannot stop enjoying the creative digital artefacts which students on ELearning and Digital Cultures have created. There are no limits in human minds when the atmosphere is supportive and curious to new things. You can see numerous fantastic artefacts here.

I present this time one assignment which offers much knowledge, many excellent sources about transhumanism. It is a TingLink made by Ligia Toutain, Transhuman Technology and Disablity.  There is a lot to read and listen, transhumanist music too, a place to come back again and again.

Humanity’s potential is still mostly realized, I have understood during these edcmooc studies. I want to link another artefact, which gives life to transahumanistic ideas. It is made by Luis Poza Garcia and could be our mascot. I fell in love with that lovely robot and should like to discuss more with him.. or her?

 

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Posted in change | 2 Comments »

Are we learning any more?

Mar 1st, 2013 by

#edcmooc is going to its end and I am enjoying other students’ fine artefacts. I want to present here one of the most touching artefact in my mind. The questions of learning and evolving are serious. I have written about the same theme in my own language earlier, but here the question touched me deeply. My personal memory is my best property and it cannot be outsourced, it means mental death.

Here it comes, thanks to Madhura Pradhan who made this video.

The link to Madhura’s own post is here and her Twitter name is @maddiekp

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My final digital artefact #edcmooc

Feb 27th, 2013 by

This is the last Wednesday to post your artefact. I did it at the moment “Submission due on Wed 27 Feb 4:00 pm (11 hours, 19 minutes)”. I am tired and happy. My work seems like a child’s homework if I compare it to others, so I do not compare. If you check this vimeo in JuBo’s blog, you understand what I mean. I am at the very beginning of digital expression. I write and combine some photos of my one, but I am interested in metaphors and visualizations.

My theme is Empowering in virtual context and I use myself as a case. I have lived through this empowering process about twenty years, not easy but enjoyable. I am glad that I found edcmooc and I wanted to participate until the end. No doubt that many discussions continue after this course.

There is neither voice not music in my presentation and I do not dare to add them. I am afraid to break all down. There is a link to “We are the Vikings” in YouTube, which I found during this course. It makes me empowered, the idea of digital viking is great.

Identity empowered

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Posted in me, online learning | 6 Comments »

Blog story – practicing Prezi #edcmooc

Feb 25th, 2013 by

I have never used Prezi and wanted to practice it. It was not easy at all, but I did this story of this blog.

There was an active period at the beginning of the course edcmooc. I wrote a blog post gathering interesting blogs and a new network began to live. Digital viking -concept inspired me greatly and – again – I found new friends. I was happy about my post emergent learning and the comments I received. Other blog posts are more ordinary stories, I was not so enthusiastic myself .

The visits come all over the world, USA and UK come after my own country Finland. The list of cities is interesting. Australian people are active in two cities. The sources, ways to find my blog, are Twitter, Facebook and the course news etc.

This prezi is funny but I have to leave this and begin to plan my final assignment, a digital artefact. I think I’ll not use Prezi :) I copied the code for embedding but it was only a link address. I am not sure if here is any sense in my doings.

another try to embed the story

 

 

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Posted in me, network, online learning | 4 Comments »

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