“Knowledge is useless if you don’t share it,” 

Michio Kaku

What an enlightening journey ONL has been. From the concepts explored and the topics debated to the incredible PBL group I was so fortunate to be a part of. I was forced to reflect on my own role as an educator and my approach to teaching. I was challenged to reflect on concepts I have not yet delved into. I was encouraged to level up personally and professionally alongside very capable participants and facilitators. I was enlightened and inspired to create a better learning and teaching experience in every aspect of my educator journey.

I find it difficult to summarise everything that I have come to learn trough ONL, so I will let their prescribed questions guide my final reflection.

What are the most important things that you have learnt through your engagement in the ONL course? Why?

Never stagnate. There is so much to learn about education and its future. There are so many people and resources to learn from. My educator toolbelt will never by complete and will forever be evolving. WE, as educators, should stay ever-evolving. Never lose your sense of curiosity and wonder. Never lose sight of who we serve – our students.

Being in a learner role again reminded me of the types of challenges students face, such as confusion, motivation, confidence and self-discipline. All of which are aspects we also need to tend to as educators. Soft skills, even though they can get messy and difficult to assess, still need to be tended to and developed in an educational setting. We can sometimes get lost in our own worlds that we sometimes forget that we are there to guide and support students through their education journey on more levels than just content. We should be talking WITH them, not AT them.

How will your learning influence your practice?

When presented with Elmore’s 4 learning modes, ei. Hierarchical individual, Hierarchical collective, Distributed individual and Distributed collective, I realised that I linger too much in certain quadrants. I need to practice more distributed teachings and favour collaborative activities more. In essence, I also need to trust my student’s capabilities more. I get caught up in wanting to guide them every step of the way that I sometimes forget to take the training wheels off. In the structure of my graphic design course and the small sizes of my classes, groupwork activities can be a challenge to set up. These will not be excuses, however, but rather they will drive me to come up with creative solutions to these problems as I feel my students deserve a more diverse learning experience and can also benefit from exploring other modes of learning. I am excited for my students and I to grow together in this regard.

What are your thoughts about using technology to enhance learning/teaching in your own context?

I love using technology in my teachings. I think it adds a levevl of relatability to my classes. I use Kahoot a lot for revision, both online and on campus. I treat it like a gameshow and enthusiastically narrate and commentate on the whole session. I enjoy it immensely and, as result of my positive energy, the students tend to get excited about it too. Overall, Kahoot has made revision very fun in my classes.

I love using Menti for word clouds and revision of medium-length questions. It’s also a great tool to introduce concepts like colour and shape psychology as I can set up a ranking polls to gauge what the students’ perceptions are before revealing the right answers.

I have, through ONL, had the opportunity to interact with other useful online tools as well. I didn’t quite relate to all of them, but I am keen to discover new tools that can help enhance my class experiences even more. Students are used to using technology. It is part of their daily frame of reference. So bringing it into the classroom to further develop their education makes perfect sense to me.

What are you going to do as a result of your involvement in ONL? Why?

Level up even more! ONL has re-awoken my sense of curiosity and love to learn. I have been neglecting my own professional growth on the levels that ONL encouraged us to grow. I want to continue that growth.

I found myself wishing I had enough time to fully immerse myself in the course. I would’ve loved to be more of a full-time student. Due to my crazy year-end schedule, I was more of a part-time student and felt like I missed out on a lot. So I want to spend time going back and going through all the readings and all the academic research journeys they inspire.

Being involved in ONL made me want to be involved even more. I would be a participant in every iteration if I could. The engagement and interactions and people all make it such an incredible experience that is difficult to part with. So, I would like to be involved again. To learn more. To meet more amazing people. To level up even more.

What suggestions do you have (activities and/or in general) for development of eLearning in your own teaching or context?

Remember who your audience is. Creating and designing content is not just about slapping some information into a study guide or LMS. Tone, formatting, structuring, pacing and studying should all be kept in mind during the process. We need to remember what it is like being a students and look at our learning and content design through their eyes. They are the target audience of our product. It needs to be tailored to them. Time needs to be dedicated to tailoring learning experiences and content to them and their needs. It’s not about us, the educators. It’s about the students.

Finally, I would like to thank team SPLACE – Anita, Martha, Robert, Jeffrey, Charlotta, Bozena, Lars and Elisabeth. My team has made my ONL experience so special and enriching. We didn’t always agree and we didn’t always know what to say, but damn, did we learn a lot from each other. I learned something from each and every team member, and I consider our facilitators team members too. They were just as invaluable to this experience. We agreed to meet up again in the future and write some blogs together. I am excited to have these incredible people as part of my personal learning network.

A final thanks to the organisers of ONL and my institution for letting me be part of this wonderful program. Please continue enriching and enlightening educators. ONL will surely create a butterfly effect as each participant will serve as a ripple to your amazing drop of influence in the pool of education and academia.