When I registered for the ONL course, it was with some apprehension. I was stepping out of my comfort zone into a “new” learning space with a group of “new” people. On top it, from the course outline, I knew that I had to face another challenge: learning to use new communication tools! As anticipated,Continue reading “Final Blog: Lesson Learnt-Future Practice”

As an educator, for a considerable period, most of my teaching methods have been face-to-face delivery of content. However, the technological rise of the 21st-century, widespread adoption of technology into our lives and the combined access to the internet has integrally changed how education is and can be delivered. The world that we are livingContinue reading “Topic 4: Design for Online and Blended Learning: Gaining Insight”

It was in this topic that I felt that we had really collaborated as a group. For previous topics what we were doing would better be described as group work – we participated by individually contributing articles, weblinks, or personal anecdotes, but there was not much collaborative discussion going on. Don’t get me wrong –Continue reading “Evolving from group work to collaboration (Topic 3)”

Collaborative learning (CL) as an educational approach to teaching and learning, is not a new concept. In my current practice, I have used CL in several modules as a teaching/learning approach as it allows for learners to converse with peers, listen to different perspectives, articulate and defend their ideas (Laal & Laal, 2012). With CL,Continue reading “Topic 3: Learning in Communities: An Experience with Collaborative Learning”

The second topic in ONL was dedicated to openness in ones courses and materials. Inthis post, I will focus on openness on sharing educational materials, and not on being open (approachable) as on a personal level.Many people are generally open in sharing material, but many of the materials do not have a clear source andContinue reading “Topic 2: To be or not to be… open”

Openness. Open learning is something not foreign to me. Having been in education for many years, I’ve benefited from open learning thanks to the free online resources available within my fingertips. There is a myriad of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC’s) on the web, and only my circadian rhythm seems to be the physical limitContinue reading “Am I Really Ready For Open Learning?”

This was the first time that I had come face-to-face with a topic about exploring openness as an educator. Thanks to a few MOOCs and podcasts that I had attended in recent years, I was very much on the receiving end of things, benefitting as a student from the openness of other educators. But IContinue reading “What do I need to know to be an open educator (Topic 2)?”

The second topic in the ONL course was very insightful and had me thinking what “OPENNESS” means in my practice of NURSING EDUCATION.  Openness, to me means sharing my teaching materials, research findings, ideas and thoughts with my peers, colleagues and students. Personally, I have no issues sharing. The openness of education somewhere in theContinue reading “Topic 2: Open Learning – Sharing and Openness”

After discussing this topic with my group, I have a few reflections related to three major topics. Firstly, the technical difficulties of using tools in teaching do not seem to be a huge issue once you go through a short initial training period (this is my bias computer scientist’s opinion). The more challenging part would […]

This is my first online course. In the beginning, it was rather daunting, learning how to navigate through the course materials and learning new tools, having to deal with internet connection dropping, and so forth. Nonetheless, I gained insight to a new learning experience as well as an opportunity to connect with fellow participants from […]

Reading “Visitors and residents: A new typology for online engagement” by David White and Alison Le Cornu made me reflect on a recent experience. When I introduced blended learning into one of my courses last year, I thought that my students would enjoy the online learning activities because it would be very different from the […]