Learning by doing and reflection

ONL201 is ending, hence this blog post will summarize and reflect upon my experiences, learning and development. “Learning by doing and reflection” is a phrase I usually return to, when thinking about or discussing different aspects of education. This ONL-course has very much lived up to that phrase, and by that advanced my understanding and learning of blended education.

The course has offered several opportunities to know more about and apply different “IT-tools and -approaches”, such as Google drive, Coogle, blog and webinars. In the beginning of the course, I thought that apply and test different tools was the man aim. However, most rewarding have the discussions in the PBL-group (8) been, listening to and argument for different viewpoints with the team members, and the facilitators. Those discussions have made me rethink and reflect, and to learn more about different aspects of blended education.   

Due to the corona pandemic, the learning generated in the course could naturally be put into practice. Realizing the possibilities and advantages of designing online course activities is one major impact from the course into my own practice. For example, how to think and structure webinars with many participants. To communicate before (and after) a webinar, by means of a digital padlet, is an interesting way to involve participants. Another aspects of learning concerning webinars, is that some of the arranged webinars in the course did not live up to my expectations, even if organizer's aim and intentions with the webinars were very. I still learned from them, from a student perspective, i.e. how could it be arranged in another way, to make participants more involved and committed (in the breakout rooms for example)?     

The many opportunities with online education is great, but is not in itself a design mean to all kind of educational activities. I think many of us are more pro the “traditional off-line learning” or more pro “new ways of going online”. A guideline here should be: Always keep the intended learning outcomes in mind and always have the learning in focus (preferably in according to constructive alignment). From that, we will probably come up with a wide variety of blended education.

From the course I have extend my knowledge and apprehension of online education, and sees almost an endless road ahead of possibilities. Together with the “guideline”, I will strive in my teacher role to continuously improve and innovate my educational practice – I.e. doing, reflect, learn and improve.

To summit up: This ONL-course has been very valuable to me in the continuous journey of educational development. Moreover, thanks members and facilitators of group 8, for a pleasant and learning collaboration.