Topic 1- Online Participation and Digital Literacies

I have joined the ONL course because pedagogical training is a tenure track requirement at my school. Since I teach topics related to digital marketing to MsC and PhD students, I was intrigued by what this course has to offer. Just before starting my ONL journey, I finished teaching a Digital Marketing course in which I’ve experimented with quite some online resources this year ranging from videos to an online certification offered by Google. According to the feedback I received, my students’ experience was positive, but in my view some aspects (that I discuss later) need improvement. Hence, I came into this course to get inspiration to improve my teaching in general and my Digital Marketing course in particular as it seems most topical. Nevertheless, we all know what happened worldwide in the meanwhile, so now I am benefiting from this course more than I would have ever expected. As I was fortunate enough to not have to teach until September, I can reflect on how to apply many of the things we discuss while not being in the eye of the storm.

I was pleasantly surprised to see the course employs Problem-Based Learning (PBL), a teaching method I am very familiar with. I taught various courses using PBL for close to 7 years and it was very interesting to be on the student side of PBL again after all this time. It was also very interesting to attempt PBL sessions via Zoom. I have to admit, I had absolutely no idea what Zoom was before I started the ONL course and it was quite exciting to see their growth in popularity and all the security and privacy challenges that appeared along the way. It was very refreshing to step away from the teams of people I am used to working with for years, into a completely new group comprised of people with different backgrounds. Getting to know each-other, developing team-work guidelines and building rapport online was a novel experience to me. In my course, I randomly assign students to teams and they have to work on two assignments together. I provide them some tips on how to work together and build team spirit, but I think next year I will have to pay more attention to that aspect. Padlet is a tool that I became aware of in the ONL course and I would like to use it for team-building in my own course next year. Before, I was unhappy with the fact that students don’t really meet up face-to-face, but now I have shifted my view: irrespective of the pandemic, if students want to collaborate remotely, then I need to do my best to facilitate that.

Finally, I have to admit, I was very weary of having to write a blog for this course. I do have an online persona, but mostly for professional reasons. I usually don’t post anything on social media and usually keep my reflections to myself. Nevertheless, here I am finally writing and thinking about asking my students to write a reflection blog after each course topic next week. I will most likely first try doing that via my course’s electronic learning environment and then consider opening it up.