What?
In early June, our Digital Education and Design for Learning cohort was asked to generate ideas for the final course project. This Module 3 culminating project asked us the draw upon knowledge and skills from the first two modules:
Module 1 - Design for Learning & Learning Theories which explored basics of learning design and key learning theories'.
Module 2 - Learning Technologies that technologies that are commonly used in contemporary e-learning
Three areas that I expressed interest were:
Open Resources for Online Learning
Digital Citizenship (primary & secondary)
Study skills for online learning
Out of the three, I was most comfortable with Digital Citizenship (DC) because of my involvement DC over the last decade at various schools and my familiarity with the Common Sense Media Digital Citizenship Curriculum. Ironically, the one that I was allocated, and currently personally struggling with the most through these uncertain times is online study skills. During this year's study, I have found it increasingly difficult to get on top of things to find a balance between my study, work and family & personal well being.
In reflection, I would say that at present I am failing with my online learning so I really wouldn't be the best to create a course to help someone effectively learn online. Then again, I thought, maybe I would. After all, having gone through various struggles I have an appreciation of where some of the online challenges could be. Using this background experience alongside what I learned from Modules 1 & 2, hopefully I could collaborate with my peers to design something that connects and engages the learner at their level so that they can leverage various technologies to enhance their online study skills.
A particular area where I have struggled was collaborating to socially construct meaning. In one group project that I was involved in I felt that I did not engage and contribute synchronously and/or asynchronous as effectively as I could have. For this task, we used Google Docs to assign work, ask and answer questions and organize our task. However, I never really felt that I made a connection with any of the other members, and therefore, we missed an opportunity to learn from each other. In this blog post, Wenger-Trayner, (2015) provided an introduction into the concept of Communities of Practice (CoP). Looking over this introduction I see that through this course, I have not organized myself to utilize the technological tools available to me so that I can contribute to, and benefit from those in my course. In reflection, this also links to my previous blog post where I uncover a lack of social connection that I once had.
So What?
In knowing what I now know, I believe that this Module 3 group project will afford me the chance to work with others to dive deep into the complexities and challenges of learning online. In doing so, I hope to better understand myself and to be in a strong experiential and theoretical position to accurately advise fellow educators and students about how can enhance their ability to learn online.
Now What?
Bottom line, for me to be successful in this project, I need to learn from past mistakes and not be overwhelmed by the product and zero-in on the process.
Organizational
Plan out the project with the end in mind by working backwards
Plan out the week with the end in mind by working backwards
When applicable, create simple weekly plan about what I aim to achieve
Write a short daily digest (in past tense) of what I aim to achieve in that day.
Share my weekly plan with a critical friend/colleague so that I am accountable
Share my daily digest with a friend so that I am accountable
Review and rate the success of my daily goal(s)
Connection to text and podcast
The idea of breaking down larger items into smaller is so that I can use the concept of marginal gains to build positive sustainable habits that improve my life. In his book, Atomic Habits, Clear (2018) explores how transformation results can come from tiny changes. Also, recently on the Tim Ferris podcast, two of his guests mentioned habits and approaches that stuck with me.
Tim Ferris on Hugh Jackman's practices - '"What strikes me about that is, number one, the consistency, the daily practice. The second is the accountability, like you said, texting Lauren, which is something that I now want to do."'
John Paul De Joria on getting out of a rut - '“Okay, how do I get a job? What do I do here? How do I create something there,” like one step at a time. It’s kind of like, it’s a cinch by the inch and it’s hard by the yard.'
References
Clear, J. (2018). Atomic habits: an easy & proven way to build good habits & break bad ones. New York: Avery, an imprint of Penguin Random House.
Wenger-Trayner, B., & Wenger-Trayner, E. (2015). Introduction to communities of practice. Wenger-trayner. https://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/.
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