What are the most important things that you have learnt through your engagement in the ONL course? Why? I have learnt planning and tolerance. Things do not always work the way you want them to, and may end up taking longer than expected. The key is to keep your spirits high and try to plan better for next time. When working as a group, keeping a sense of humour is helpful to improve attitude.
How will your learning influence your practice? Armed with the theoretical knowledge at the back of my mind, I can try to apply it where I see fit. The ONL course has equipped us with valuable theoretical models and I have learnt a lot. I can carry over what I have learnt so that when confronted with a situation in future, I will be able to find better ways of dealing with it.
What are your thoughts about using technology to enhance learning/teaching in your own context? Technology comes with its own challenges, but can be an exciting and fun tool to use to enhance teaching and learning. I am in favour of trying out new things. That being said, a word of caution when using purely digital platforms…one loses the element of “human interaction” as you cannot read people’s body language properly over a video or conference call.
What are you going to do as a result of your involvement in ONL? Why? Put more thought and effort into how I portray myself to the students that enter the library or attend information literacy workshops. If I think about the topics covered in the ONL course and the people I have interacted with along the way, I feel that my interpersonal and group work skills have improved…especially in an online space. This will be valuable if I ever have to do referencing courses online (one step closer to becoming an Online Librarian).
What suggestions do you have (activities and/or in general) for development of eLearning in your own teaching or context? I would like to create a video/blog that covers the basics of referencing techniques. The key is to try new platforms and applications so that you keep the students interested in what you are doing or saying.
I believe that as lifelong-learners, we must take each new opportunity for self-development and not be afraid to step out of our comfort zones once in a while. We may not master all the skills straight away, but we can learn from others through collaboration.
Digital literacies (topic 1) and learning in communities (topic 3) were two of my favourite sections of the ONL course. I feel that the PBL Group 7 members came together and made things work, even if not all of us could attend the meetings. We made a plan in the end.
The End