In this short paragraph I will try to summarize and share my thoughts about the first weeks at ONL211 experience.
In my life that is probably not the longest nor shortest (I’m just 32), I’ve never thought about writing any blog post. Probably not since I’m shy, nor cover person – just an opposite. I consider myself really open and talkative, social and outgoing. Internet blogging was just never enough appealing enough for starting – I’d rather compose some song or record some ‘webinar’ type of video for sharing my thoughts. Nonetheless, as part of ONL211 experience I was asked to do that, being a compulsory part of our learning process, therefore I am doing so. Firstly, I thought – oh my God, how am I supposed to do that, I will never write anything interesting informally, I am only used to writing and publishing some serious academic or professional texts! But then, I thought about my Facebook or LinkedIn posts that I used to write quite a few and on that I am to build.!
Isn’t the learning all about it? Isn’t it about constantly challenging ourselves and trying to figure out some solutions/response to the problem or inconvenience? In my opinion, we learned the best when we need to leave our comfort zone and deal with a situation that is very new and hard to face in some way. It triggers our creativity and ‘survival instinct’ that allow us to build on our past experiences and knowledge (even my old Facebook posts) to apply them in some altered way in the new reality to finally solve the puzzle or fit the requirement.
And what is most importantly- we learn the best with others around us. For the best learning, we need our colleagues, partners, or even enemies and competitors, but some other actors are able to facilitate and make our learning process better. For being a good teacher, we also need to stay open to novelties and try learn every time we share our experience and knowledge with the others. And in fact, it can be fun in many cases, just as it has been in the last week with our Group Number 10 at ONL211 we named “Strange Crochet”. For me it means the way some strange persons learn from each other how to be a better learner and in the same time become better teacher, where despite the unusual situation and means, our motivation and drive will make us succeed it one way or another, but our way! And I think that learning is not only about the result- it’s also about the process we change ourselves with the experience we are given. Let me elaborate more on that in my forthcoming posts!
