Water photo created by wirestock – www.freepik.com

What are the most important things that you have learnt through your engagement in the ONL course? Why?

If asked whether or not to join the course my answer would definitely be that it is worth spending the time on. There are numerous benefits. First of all, it is a great opportunity to meet open and skillful people from all over the world. Thanks to the meetings we had a chance to share information about the latest teaching trends and methods. Secondly, I have learnt about cross-cultural openness and ideas how to collaborate synchronously and asynchronously. The third point is connected with the practical knowledge about using numerous tools and methods to implement into our daily teaching practice. Above all, the course gives time to reflect on routines and breaking them. In result changing teaching into more effective and inspiring practice.

How will your learning influence your practice?

 Development of blended learning will be my priority. I have learned about many tools and methods to be adopted and I wish to use them skillfully. I don’t have much time in class so remote teaching and learning can be the answer for me and my students. At the same time, it will be something that may change routine. I believe in intuitive teaching and adaptation to particular groups. There is a variety of characters, backgrounds and motivations. Ignoring them is a big mistake. Being organic not mechanic (as we defined that during our meetings) is definitely another aspect I have learnt during the course. Now I will concentrate more on collaborative work, sharing and openness.

 What are your thoughts about using technology to enhance learning/teaching in your own context?

In my opinion technology is not a key concern. We have to train our skills and develop abilities. Not knowing tools is a kind of disability in 21^st century teaching practice. However, I believe that the biggest values are ideas of collaboration and openness. Thanks to technology it is possible to implement peer to peer learning.

What are you going to do as a result of your involvement in ONL? Why?

Definitely I will reconsider my methods of teaching. Being intuitive, adapting to the group, curriculum or tasks is the only possibility to be effective. Being strict and only one method-oriented leads to boredom, lack of motivation and in result lack of effectiveness. I am sure I will study more teaching models and adopt useful aspects of them. I am thinking about throwing my students into the field of international collaboration, at least part time. I hope it can give the broader perspective.

What suggestions do you have (activities and/or in general) for development of eLearning in your own teaching or context? 

Suggestions to my institution colleagues will be to concentrate on methods and look for devices and tools to make them work. So far, we often were doing the other way round. I will present and advise to try to use a Learning Design model to develop our online courses, and to test some of the new tools I learned from my team. The structure in ONL has allowed for active interactions and the resources are well-organized and well-designed for on-going self-paced learning. I think we have to pay more attention to structuring and organizing what we present to our students.

To conclude: I found the process very refreshing and developing. There are still a lot of questions to be responded in my teaching process. This course answered quite a few of them.

The last but not the least point: I would like to thank the facilitators of our group Alastair and David. They were patient, inspiring and wise in supporting us.  Regards and appreciation to other members of our group: Sara, Fiona, Wei, Helene, Irshaad. Thank you so much! The course wouldn’t be the same without you.

Water photo created by wirestock – www.freepik.com

What are the most important things that you have learnt through your engagement in the ONL course? Why?

If asked whether or not to join the course my answer would definitely be that it is worth spending the time on. There are numerous benefits. First of all, it is a great opportunity to meet open and skillful people from all over the world. Thanks to the meetings we had a chance to share information about the latest teaching trends and methods. Secondly, I have learnt about cross-cultural openness and ideas how to collaborate synchronously and asynchronously. The third point is connected with the practical knowledge about using numerous tools and methods to implement into our daily teaching practice. Above all, the course gives time to reflect on routines and breaking them. In result changing teaching into more effective and inspiring practice.

How will your learning influence your practice?

 Development of blended learning will be my priority. I have learned about many tools and methods to be adopted and I wish to use them skillfully. I don’t have much time in class so remote teaching and learning can be the answer for me and my students. At the same time, it will be something that may change routine. I believe in intuitive teaching and adaptation to particular groups. There is a variety of characters, backgrounds and motivations. Ignoring them is a big mistake. Being organic not mechanic (as we defined that during our meetings) is definitely another aspect I have learnt during the course. Now I will concentrate more on collaborative work, sharing and openness.

 What are your thoughts about using technology to enhance learning/teaching in your own context?

In my opinion technology is not a key concern. We have to train our skills and develop abilities. Not knowing tools is a kind of disability in 21^st century teaching practice. However, I believe that the biggest values are ideas of collaboration and openness. Thanks to technology it is possible to implement peer to peer learning.

What are you going to do as a result of your involvement in ONL? Why?

Definitely I will reconsider my methods of teaching. Being intuitive, adapting to the group, curriculum or tasks is the only possibility to be effective. Being strict and only one method-oriented leads to boredom, lack of motivation and in result lack of effectiveness. I am sure I will study more teaching models and adopt useful aspects of them. I am thinking about throwing my students into the field of international collaboration, at least part time. I hope it can give the broader perspective.

What suggestions do you have (activities and/or in general) for development of eLearning in your own teaching or context? 

Suggestions to my institution colleagues will be to concentrate on methods and look for devices and tools to make them work. So far, we often were doing the other way round. I will present and advise to try to use a Learning Design model to develop our online courses, and to test some of the new tools I learned from my team. The structure in ONL has allowed for active interactions and the resources are well-organized and well-designed for on-going self-paced learning. I think we have to pay more attention to structuring and organizing what we present to our students.

To conclude: I found the process very refreshing and developing. There are still a lot of questions to be responded in my teaching process. This course answered quite a few of them.

The last but not the least point: I would like to thank the facilitators of our group Alastair and David. They were patient, inspiring and wise in supporting us.  Regards and appreciation to other members of our group: Sara, Fiona, Wei, Helene, Irshaad. Thank you so much! The course wouldn’t be the same without you.