Photo by Gabriel Matula on Unsplash

My whole working life has centred around presence. Being present in the moment – and in the room. Therefore, the whole online concept is very challenging. I intend to learn as much as possible about the opportunities the different online tools might offer. 

Since the beginning of the century I have been working with computers, using several programs mainly for text handling and film editing. Social media (Facebook) was something that I started using only when we had to find a practical communication tool for the different study groups at my university. I still use it mainly as a professional tool – if I want to make comments to one person I send it as a message, never publish it as a post. Scrolling down the fb-flow is tedious and time-consuming, and I do not have the patience to do it for very long.

In my job as a lecturer I use our learning platform and Facebook. Sometimes What´s app for special communication needs. But that´s it. Should I use more? According to Melanie McBride (http://melaniemcbride.net/2008/04/26/creepy-treehouse-v-digital-literacies/)I use a corporately created creepy treehouse (Facebook) and a well-intentioned one for educational use (Itslearning). I do not want to use or create any creepy meeting spaces at all! OK, maybe I should focus on sharing my own experiences – by blogging. Tsisana Palmer reflects upon the necessity for teachers to blog (https://www.edutopia.org/discussion/9-reasons-why-teachers-should-blog)and her arguments seem worthwhile. Especially ”Become a Digital Citizen” and ”Be Ahead of Your Students” sound important and challenging. BUT – and here is my personal desperate feeling of having to many shortcomings – I do not have TIME! Being online is entering a myriad of links and posts and musts and keeping up and suddenly I have lost focus. Not to mention all the technical difficulties, slow uploading and lack of programming skills. (It seems to be a default set opinion that online technique is always compatible and never fails.)

In our PBL group we have encountered some technical problems – minor but still irritating. We explore new tools (like Padlet and Popplet) and hope that they will help us communicate our thoughts, structure the discussion in a clearer and more elaborate way.

We have all agreed upon using them. In my classes there always are students who do not want to use participate in the online activity (personal and integrity reasons). Melanie McBride states that the students should have the right not to take part, and that we should support them in making this decision (http://melaniemcbride.net/2008/04/26/creepy-treehouse-v-digital-literacies/). This adds on to the complexity: we have to give alternative options and use parallel tracks, which means more things to keep in mind and handle. 

For now, I will focus upon WHAT I NEED – regarding communication, reports, maybe competence evaluation – and then seek THE RIGHT TOOLS for this.