“What we call the beginning is often the end. And to make an end is to make a beginning. The end is where we start from.”
This quote is from T.S. Eliot’s Little Gidding, the last of his Four Quartets, poems I read at school and certain phrases have stuck with me.
In fact, in considering my ONL journey, at the beginning, I considered myself open, networked and digitally literate. The topics of ONL began with online participation and digital literacy. I had heard of and read Doug Belshaw’s work, but was unfamiliar with the visitor resident continuum of David White. I learnt that I was a hidden visitor who did not contribute to the networks which I joined, but did not participate in. In the next topic, I learnt I was far less open that I had believed. I used OER but did not contribute my own thought and ideas back. It was in the third topic, collaborative learning, that I began to move forward and become an active and involved participant. I found that COI, introduced in the fourth topic resonated with and gave me a framework to consider the nature of open and networked learning. I was social present with my group and cognitively present in engaging with the resources. I spent more time than the 80 hours but it was time well spent and has given me a greater and deeper understanding of open networked learning through experiencing it myself.
Throughout ONL192, the group’s facilitators took the time to help us develop and showed the value of the teaching presence. Participation, collaboration, engagement became my watchwords. Their example will inform my future facilitation.
Then suddenly the fifth and last topic arrived. Developing our memes showed we had developed a social presence as a group and our memes were fun, informative and co-developed. Although the formal course is over, there is far more available here than is apparent to a cursory gaze. I will make time to explore more deeply the work and blogs of other groups and engage critically with the literature to let its content soak in and become second nature. The archive of previous ONL iterations are also available for study and to learn from. My journey has only just begun. The end is where I will start from.
A member of my group, Judith Zwerver, PBL13 commented: “ONL has been a very adventurous trip! And like all great journeys, they keep their value because of the good memories they leave behind. I have learned a lot in a short time. Return on investment is definitely worth it!” These are sentiments I agree with and concur with.
Finally, I quote from the blog of another group member, Stina Helleberg, “I want to say thank you! To the organizers, my PBL group and our facilitators. This was a great experience and I am happy that I got to spend it with you!”
“Every end is a new beginning.” by deeplifequotes is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0
Readings:
Stina’s blog -ONL192
Homemade
Garrison, D. R. (2017) E-learning in the 21st century
Salmon, G. (2004) E-moderating
Vaughan, N., Cleveland-Innes, M., Garrison D. (2013) Teaching in blended learning environments
White, D. and Le Cornu, A. (2010) Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday.
