In the past weeks, I have begun dipping my toes into digital learning and collaboration. It’s still murky but I must say that it is less daunting now. The effort by the group (PBL13) – and the many people behind the scene tirelessly supporting us makes a world of difference. David White’s videos on digital literacies hit the nail for me. It provided a framework to think and rethink my commitment to the digital space, both personally and professionally. I have been happy just being a visitor, never quite wanting to invest myself in these spaces. It also gave me a language to understand how some of my colleagues and friends could be so comfortable there.
Well, adversity is the mother of invention, or so the old saying goes. The evolving situation with Covid-19 everywhere on the planet had made this tentative adventure into ONL a timely blessing. My collaborators at PBL13 have been openly sharing their resources, experiences and thoughts. At one point, when we were settling on the format of how the group would collectively present their work for the topic, it appeared so easy to me to appoint one person to transfer everyone’s material from the working document to the slides en masse. But no, the group wouldn’t have it – simply because it would undermine the spirit of collaboration. True enough, it took us another couple of meetings to finalize the slides but … in which time, the original material had morphed into quite something else. And better, i daresay. For me, it was a lesson that collaboration is not just about getting the task completed – but also going with the process itself. Digital collaboration makes this so apparent