I have finished the Open Network Learning (ONL) course in this May. This course starts at March and lasts for two months. During the two months, I feel quite comfortable of this learning style, as it breaks the ice of communicating with strangers. This type of learning could be helpful on my future course design if I would like to encourage my students to discuss and reflect. In addition to the learning style, the ONL course also provides me plenty knowledge and tools that are useful in education.
The use of MEME, Padlet, Menti, Miro, ThingLink, Blog, and Twitter, makes it easy for me to develop my own course. Especially the Miro, it could also be used as a poster to demonstrate the idea. I will recommend my students to try Miro in the future.
On the knowledge, I would say I have broadened my horizon through the course. It is not only about education theory, such as blended learning, learning in community, digital literacy, and so on, but also about the application of education theory in the class. I did some literature reading regarding the theory and its application by myself. My PBL group was helpful on improving and enriching my knowledge. Each of the PBL group member could contribute to pieces of the task and finally we make a big picture.
Some unexpected benefits are also generated through team discussion. For example, one of the group members is from Brazil and she metioned that the shortage of electricity during raining season could impair the online learning of students. While for me from China, the students usualy have limitation on the communication software they could use. Twitter, whatsapp, Facebook, and google are not allowed to use. Since the ONL is targeting on different participants from different countries, it is worth to think about the culture difference in ONL.
Another benefits are that I could meet with teachers from different background and know how they teach. One of the group members have experience of giving MOOC course, she shared her experience of running MOOC, and she told us that it was time consuming to mark assignments of MOOC class students, as there were so many students.
In summary, I would like to thank for the organizer and my team members to give my such a good experience on learning. I enjoy the ONL and would like to recommend it to my colleagues in the future.