The last topic in the ONL202 course was focussed on reflecting on the journey in the course. The course provided an enriching experience of various aspects of online teaching as well as learning. As it was highlighted several times that ‘the course is the course’, the activities were highly student oriented with few lectures (more of discussion seminars) and mostly ‘self’ work working in a project group. The course provided a great opportunity to learn and familiarise oneself with new tools that can be utilised in teaching. These can be useful in both online and campus-based teaching. I think the best part of this course was that the online mode of teaching activities enabled participation from all around the world. The international perspectives about things are addressed in different continents gave new perspectives and provided the true feeling of an open global community. This would probably be impossible to achieve in a campus-based course. Even though allocating time for the project group activities planned in the course was a bit challenging because of all parallel tasks, the meetings were always fun and something I always looked forward to. Discussions during the group meetings, whether related to the project topic or off-topic, were always interesting.

The most important things I learnt from this course are the following:

• It is important to discuss with other teachers and share experiences about online teaching. This is necessary to develop the course in a good way.
• There are many tools and resources available on the internet, we just need to look for them.
• The change to open teaching and learning is happening faster than we think, it is time we start adapting.

The things I learnt from this course have already influenced my teaching activities. Since I had a course to teach during the couple of months, I had the opportunity to directly implement some of the teaching methods and tools I learnt during the course, which were very effective. The use of technology in teaching provides new ways of interacting with the students, enhance interaction among the students, and receive quick feedback. It is the teacher’s responsibility to use the best tools, practices, and methods available during the course, and therefore be accustomed to the technology and its benefits as much as possible in the available time.

I had been already thinking about a shorter version of my course I teach regularly targeted to professionals in my field, but it has been a bit challenging to find the right audience in Sweden since the subject is a bit specific. ONL202 inspired me to think open, thus making me realise that creating an open online course would actually be much more effective in my case, since then I can attract audience worldwide! I have already received a go ahead from my head of department, and the next step for me is to develop the course material. I think this wouldn’t have been possible if I had not attended this course.

As a final note, my suggestion to other teachers is that we should start thinking about online teaching as an opportunity and not as a hindrance that we are forced to adapt to. Only then we would be able to see the real benefits of online teaching.