After discussing this topic with my group, I have a few reflections related to three major topics. Firstly, the technical difficulties of using tools in teaching do not seem to be a huge issue once you go through a short initial training period (this is my bias computer scientist’s opinion). The more challenging part would be to decide on a few really useful tools that would complement your teaching in the best way. Also, too many tools might be misleading to students, and might waste a lot of useful time during the class time.
Secondly, in an online class, you have to be willing to publicly share your views, knowledge, and misunderstandings. This may come easier to some of the people than to others. Over time, I analyzed the activity of my friends and colleagues, and observed a few types of online contributors:
- Random contributions
- Carefully chosen contributions, not too often (less than once per week)
- Often and not structured contributions – different topics
- Often and structured contributions – with curated topics.
People who want to achieve an online presence, follow a schedule for their online contributions. These people tend to post regularly (once per day/once per week) carefully chosen and well documented topics. Such models apply to professional blogging, but not only.
When discussing online activities dedicated to improving teaching and learning, practicing one of the above mentioned styles on a regular basis might help in easing the start of the journey into this world. I am a person that has minimal online public presence, and the presence that I have is mostly professional. Hence, being required to share more often and on a regular basis for a specific class that I am teaching might be too demanding.
Thirdly, the benefits of share some personal information together with the professional aspects helps in making the online connection more “real”. Hence many people choose to reveal some personal details to help in creating authentic interactions. However, it is not clear what is acceptable and allowed, and every person and professional field has different bounds. Making yourself available to answer questions at any time of the day/any day of the week is just first step into allowing your professional life into your personal life. The students, the younger generation, seems to have this issue figured out: they do not seem to mind that professional and personal is not separated nowadays.
[1] http://www.connectsafely.org/wp-content/uploads/eduguide.pdf
[2] https://education.cu-portland.edu/blog/leaders-link/educational-social-media-use/
[3] Developing digital literacies (2014) JISC guide
