For me, the most surprising, most heartening, and most frightening realization I’ve had through my participation in ONL, is online collaboration and learning is not that bad. This is probably a realization that many people have come to during the Corona Virus pandemic. I was getting there and then ONL really put the final nail in the coffin.

My attitude re: online learning and collaboration, coming into ONL, was that it was ok, but that all of the nuance and detail that separates a “mess” from a “polished final product” gets lost. To really get somewhere with a difficult concept you need to meet in in person and sit together in the same room. I still believe in person is superior but now I think online is not far behind.

The PBL group work was a real eye opener. Each topic was kind of broadly defined, details were sort of arbitrary, tasks arbitrary, discussion somewhat random. Every time we started a new topic, I couldn’t help thinking that there was no way we were going to deliver. Yet, somehow, at the end of two weeks, our group had made something that was responsive to the topic prompt.

Credit is due, of course, to the moderators who made sure that the discussions didn’t stall too much. However, without technology we wouldn’t have had moderators to begin

My real take away from ONL is that I can/should give technology a chance. Moreover, I should embrace the roll of technology in my teaching as opposed to resist it. If technology can turn nothing into something in the PBL group, then it can definitely be an asset in a planned and structured course setting.

The frightening part about this realization is that it strengthens the arguments that “COVID has changed everything” and there is “no going back.” There are, of course, aspects of in person learning and collaboration that cannot be replicated with remote interaction. However, I can now see reasonable cost benefit analyses for many aspects that favor online modes. This is equal parts exciting and sad. Overall, the key result of my ONL participation is I will start to embrace technology in learning as opposed to reject it.

A more practical lesson from my time in ONL is the continued realization that I cannot just be a content creator, I must also be a content publisher. Digital tools are too accessible now to excuse quality content that looks like crap.