I had a nice experience over the past a couple of weeks since the ONL242 course started. Though initially it took sometime for me to sync with the online platform, later it has become a free flow. In the first place, it is a nice experience to collaborate with people with different backgrounds and region.

The scenario provided for the first topic on online participation and digital literacies was interesting to look at the online course and challenges learners face. The collaborative team work enabled each of us to define focus area and investigate further on the topic. The focus area we defined are insecurity, safety and trust. I further investigated the trust factor that how do we create trust in an online environment? I found an interesting article on “Building student trust in online learning environment” Wang (2014). This article discusses the challenges in building and sustaining student trust in online learning environments, social and technological factors that influence students’ perception of trustworthiness in online course and proposed socio-technical factors of trust-inducing factors. The frame work consists of three dimensions: Credibility, Design, Instructor socio-communicative style, and Privacy and security. The weekly team meetings provided an opportunity to share and reflect on these aspects and provided more clarity on the topic. Also helped to reflect upon our own online teaching practices. Similarly, other team members shared their investigation and reflection on insecurity and trust factors. Finally, the collaborative exercise helped us to share our thoughts and reflection to the ONL community through padlet. Overall, very good learning experience. One thing notable is I myself gone through the challenges of online participation.