The ONL experience was a great opportunity to learn the PBL approach. It now comes to an end, but it shapes the beginning of many things in my professional experience. I was very glad to be part of the group 10, where we spend almost 3 months discussing interesting topics, learning many tools to produce our work at the end of each topic.
To summarize what I learnt:
- I learnt how to communicate and work with colleagues from different cultural background. It was a good opportunity to widen my network. Although that some of the participants have different educational backgrounds from mine, it is always good to know people with different mindsets and ways of thinking.
- I learnt how to collaborate with my teammates by setting targets and deadlines for each topic, dividing the work, and producing a work that involves the contribution of each member.
- For some phases of the course, it was a bit challenging to manage my teaching duties along with the deadlines of the course and the course activities such as attending webinars, reading each topic references, etc.
- I learnt many new tools to present the work at the end of every topic such moovly, artsteps and many other we came across when we were deciding the tool we should go with.
- I learnt the use of FISH model, which was new for me. It is good tool that I might adopt in my future practices
- I learnt how to facilitate a group. The facilitator and the cofacilitator of the group were extremely professional, and I liked their way to manage the group. This is extremely beneficial for me as I am facilitating virtual exchanges. Attending ONL course will allow me to enhance my performance of facilitation for future iterations of virtual exchanges.
- I learnt many concepts through attending webinars and reading materials. For example, I never thought about the difference between being resident and visitor, and native and immigrants to technology, to name but a few.
I am very glad that I became a student for a while so I could experience the problems experienced by my students who are participating in virtual exchanges. This certainly will allow me to enhance the quality of the exchanges.
I would like to thank the wonderful facilitator and cofacilitator Alastair and Silvana for their great job and dedication. Anna, Lejla, Chris, and Georgios, we were a wonderful team! Thank you for your great work.