Over the past couple of months, I have seriously been rethinking my openness. I was principally in favor openness before this autumn, but I have not been too open myself. Over the years I have tried to be as open as possible to my students, gradually questioning why we keep things hidden and increase my clarity with aim and purpose. On the other hand, I have kept my material looked up, away from the eyes of my colleagues. My plan now is to make all my material open to my colleagues, as a first step at my university. After that I hope that I dare go totally open and publish under creative commons. Using open resources in my teaching, I now feel I should give something back.

I have struggled over the past month with the question: What is the difference between online education and campus-based face to face? In all the articles, books and videos on online education I used, I did not find anything that is specific to the online learning (Brindley et al., 2009; Capdeferro & Romero, 2012; Anderson, 2008; Vaughan et al., 2013). All problems and things to consider in these resources are issues that I have been working with in facilitating collaborative learning in problem-based learning on campus for many years. As the digital tools has become more and more sophisticated and meetings over internet feels almost as being in the same room, the difference is now minimal.  Finally, I realized what the difference is, to me at least. It is harder to spot early signs of irritation and frustration among the participants for a facilitator. The emotional presence is harder to manage. The guides for good facilitation become even more important for a successful learning experience.  

Talking about emotions. One important part of taking the open network learning course (#ONL192) is to participate in a PBL group. After being a facilitator in PBL groups for over 20 years, trying to promote good group climate and handling irritation, frustrations and conflicts, I was now part of the group. This was a very interesting experience to first hand as a learner feeling the joy, frustration and irritation. Attempting to handle these feelings as a part of a group was a powerful learning experience.Now I think that I am better equipped to organize my first online course for university teacher entitles Scholarship of teaching and learning. I would like to finish by thanking first and foremost my PBL group taking on my course as an example and contributing to a joyful learning experience, but also organizers, facilitators and all participants in ONL 192.