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Floating Dreams, by Ik-Joong Kang
London, September 2016

A cup of coffee, rain falling on my window, let’s get started! It has been almost a month since the Open Networked Learning course started and admittedly, I have learnt a lot more than I expected. Apart from all the new tools that can improve and advance my teaching and presentation skills online that my PBL group and I have been introduced to, I feel somewhat more prepared and ready to acknowledge potential difficulties that could arise If I use my learning blog for teaching. That is due to the two-week discussion that we had about teaching and learning via blogs. The idea of using such a learning tool is still maturing in my mind; within my group we all agreed that this blog could be created to assist learning and be part of the teaching process, however it is tricky enough to consider it an examination tool. What concerns me the most, and probably stops me (at the moment..) from creating one for my students, are the time that I will need to dedicate to create it and maintain it, as well as this fine line between sharing a more personal touch, rather than keeping it on a strictly professional level. I guess since I truly enjoy the subjects that I am teaching (yes, I am referring to immunology), time won’t be an obstacle.. When it comes to how much one shall share in their blog, I would opt for the option of keeping it as professional as it gets, with evidence-based facts and data presented. I want my students to critically review all the info they are presented through the internet on a day to day basis; with the avalanche of fake news out there, it’s important to be able to distinguish what’s true and what not. It will probably take a little longer to create a learning blog and perfect it to my standards till I can actually use it for my teaching, but let’s see.. maybe next year, same time-same month?

Dear blog,