Dear
Reader,
Our third topic on our ONL-course was Learning in Communities – networked collaborative learning. In other words, this topic is also the embodiment of our work in action during this course. While investigating this topic, I have thus also spent a lot of time navel-gazing and trying to observe our working methods from within the shared collaborative space, this very method under scrutiny. This has been both interesting and fruitful, but also quite stressful as other commitments take up so much time at the moment. But, not to worry – this topic has nonetheless inspired me and given me energy in the greyness of our Finnish November.
One of the suggested themes for reflection this week was the Personal Learning Networks or PLNs (a helpful summary of the concept is provided by Kay Oddone in her two videos (2019a, 2019b)), and I chose the PLN as my initial main angle for this blog post. I think that in the past, my PLNs have mainly developed organically, without much conscious attempt as to widening them, as such. This has just happened somehow – either out of necessity during studies and work, out of curiosity and a desire to learn and acquire knowledge, or, not least of all, out of desire to survive in a constantly changing (professional) world. In addition to the obvious sources of knowledge found via libraries, in the past I have sought answers, support and inspiration from peers, colleagues, friends, family members, and even discussion fora. I have probably forgotten to mention something here, as was the case with my visitor-resident digital environments- post of our first week. Having said that, I am nonetheless keen on revisiting and revitalising my PLNs, even if I may have forgotten to mention something here.
I recognize the benefits of searching for ways to develop the learning networks that I have, and ONL is a good start. However, I find myself a bit lost here when it comes to seeking and finding connections – what if my attempts at developing such networks too overtly could be misinterpreted by the people at the other end? How to actually do this? Would I be imposing myself, somehow, or demanding too much of somebody or their time? If I am too eager about something would I just put people off? The obvious answer is that I think I would need to start with baby steps and with people who are already familiar with the type of learning that collaborative learning entails, and motivated also themselves to broaden their horizons in this way. But this would perhaps limit the possibilities. In addition, I would also need to decide what would interest me, at this point, and what I would choose to try to learn. A related question arises – where will I find such likeminded people? This type of learning should feel natural and not forced, or otherwise, it will not work. I would not begin by actively reaching out to expert-strangers with questions – that would maybe be too straightforward and frowned upon in my Northern, private culture, and I would need a lot of encouragement. There would first have to be something shared, and a motivation to participate – for all parties. Reciprocity is important, as with all social relations, so I would need to have something to offer in return. Would others be interested in what I have to offer them? What do I have to offer in the first place? Would they share a goal with me – which is one of the pre-requisites for successful learning and collaboration as we have seen during these weeks. I hope that I can find ways to widen my PLN in the future, but I am not sure at this point about the ways to arrange that outside of our current ONL-community and the matrix that we have become parts of during this course. I can see the goal but I do not immediately see a path that would suit me.
It seems to me, then, that developing a PLN requires a shared context or a set of shared goals. Without motivation, any learning that may take place will remain superficial, and the connections may feel less natural as opposed to a locally formed community. Professionally, not since my days as a graduate student in a group of about 10-15 others have I experienced the feeling of each of us having the same, shared goals and the intensive wish to complete assignments, and of being on the same level as my peers at the start. Obviously, I have learned a lot in other contexts since those days, but not quite in a similar way. The ONL-course has provided a way for that now, however, and one of my learning goals or wishes entering this course has indeed come true – the wish I had to become a student once more, just learning, without an agenda as such, participating in the meaning-making of the materials and themes to learn something from them together. When I was a graduate student, our close-knit student group was our PLN – we could ask each other questions and ask for help and support without guilt or shame or without feeling stupid. Somebody had always read something helpful that the others could also benefit from, and someone was always ready to point you to a direction that could prove fruitful. We collaborated although each of us wrote their own work – we collaborated in the meaning-making of the process itself, and the personal and professional growth that it necessitated. The threshold for learning and for asking was much lower when the necessity to learn was shared with peers with common goals: to learn to improve the writing, learn about conducting research, learn about argumentation techniques, learn about the practices, theories and texts of our field and related fields. I have come to realize that I miss that part of being a graduate student – however horrible the feelings of inadequacy were at the time for many of us, myself included. That may have been one flip side of the coin of our PLN back then – there was always somebody who seemed to know more, who seemed to have had more time to read more, who seemed to be able to write more in less time than you did. However it may be, I still miss the feeling of a shared search for personal and professional development as our goals were the same and we were each other’s resources.
Since my days as a graduate student, I have of course been learning a lot in different ways and contexts. While working, this learning has not, however, most often happened as a peer together with my colleagues but as somebody mostly learning from them. Examples include new courses that my teacher colleagues have taught before me, or new teaching technologies that I was not familiar with before. Sometimes, we do jointly participate in a workshop on something that is new to most if not all of us, such as trying to learn about the intricacies of Adobe Premiere to be able to edit our teaching videos, but those are just short occasions. Now, as it happens, many of us are on the same ONL-course together, but in different PBL-groups. As is natural for a PLN-community or a group of colleagues, we have been sharing our experiences locally when we meet each other in the lunch room or during a coffee break. This way, I have had the opportunity to both learn from my own PBL-group as well as from my colleagues’ experiences on the same course, as peers, and it has been fun to compare our experiences and learning.
Our third topic began with the Webinar on Nov 5th, and for my part, as interested and inspired as I have since become, this topic did not begin well. During this Webinar, I learned something very valuable about online learning which I want to share here. Contrary to my expectations on the Webinars during this ONL-course, I was faced with one of the frustrating characteristics of collaborating online which could have been avoided. I experienced a scenario somewhat similar to those that I had just read about in the article by Capdeferro et al (2012), who discuss reasons behind the frustration of students learning online. Although the initial information provided by the lecturers was interesting and I could relate to the way they represented the context of our world – the VUCA-model (Wikipedia) and the Partnership for 21st Century and the learning skills (P21 Network) were particularly interesting – I left the Webinar annoyed. I was faced with the performative emanation of one of the drawbacks of online collaboration: that of being inconsiderate of the group members in an online learning environment. This problem I experienced was also closely related to the other problem we faced during our Webinar: that of everything being presented for us and expected of all of us in a mad rush. To get to the point: once it was time for us to be divided into our small groups in the breakout rooms, I found myself in a group where although initially, we were all asked to say something and I too got to say something, things quickly changed. Once the discussion and the solving of the problem really got going, I could not get a word in edgewise but got instead interrupted time and again, always midway through the first three or four words of my sentence, by various members of our freshly formed group. The facilitator could have and should have seen this and made sure that the floor would have been more evenly divided, and the other participants could also have had a look round and remembered civility, but instead our facilitator let it continue as the focus was solely on quickly adding something to the three notes on the Padlet, so that as a group, we would have something to show. I was disappointed that everybody’s voices were not heard and that everybody’s wish to contribute was not fully respected. At first, I thought about the chat-function in Zoom, but quickly dismissed it as an option as they would probably not have had the time or patience to check that anyway. In the end I got so annoyed that I waved and gesticulated with both my hands in the air, but to no avail.
The next step for me in the performative irony during this very topic was to turn what had been initial excitement about a new topic into blasé observation. I mentally detached myself from the “collaborative” space of our breakout-room and the work on our Padlet notes well before the system kicked all of us back to the main webinar space. I do not know whether this was another learning outcome during this course gone awry, or whether it may have been somehow intentional – I know now, at least, firsthand, what it feels like for students or participants in an online learning environment not to have room to speak. This was not due to lack of trying on my part, technology failing, language barrier, or reflective of biases and power structures across gender binaries, cultural or age differences. This was just anonymous people flung together, all in a mad hurry, strangers inconsiderate of others, too focused on trying to add at least something to the blank notes on the Padlet so that the group would have something to show. The goal-oriented group in my breakout room was only focused on adding something, anything on the notes; so much so that they forgot or did not even stop to think about the road thither, and whether the journey itself and not just the end product should also have been meaningful and constructive. Nonetheless, dear reader, learning did once again take place in my end – just perhaps not the kind intended in projected learning outcomes for our course or for this particular Webinar.
Dominating participants leave less room for others to speak or contribute, and this underscores the important role of the facilitator or leader during online collaborative work. In retrospect, I am actually glad that I was exposed to this experience, as it has actually helped me during our PBL-work. The third topic has been mine to lead in our small PBL-group, and it has been both fun and challenging to try to keep the work going in a shared and balanced manner. Luckily, our small group is motivated. This week as it was my turn, I have tried to make sure that everybody will get a say during our discussions, and that everybody will also get to contribute to the group work. This will promote learning for all involved. In my view we embody the idea of diversity (Palloff & Prat, 2005, qtd in Brindley et al, 2009) within the notion of networked collaborative learning and, I would dare to say already, have during the ONL-experience become parts of the PLNs of each other. Our backgrounds are different, we come from different places, we share ideas and we practice together, we discuss our past experiences in relation to the work, and we support each other towards the common goal. I think we have all learned a lot about this type of online working: first from the facilitators, then from the past topic leaders in our group, and most of all, from each other, without perhaps all the time consciously realizing it or thinking about it, and it seems to me that our collaboration is smoother now that we are performing the collaborative learning of this particular topic in our own, very real online collaborative network. I hope that we can continue in a similar, fruitful way even during the remaining two topics, and perhaps share the aspiration of widening our PLNs as well as tips on how to continue doing that in the future.
Thank you for reading. Please protect our planet.
References:
Brindley, J., Blaschke, L. M. & Walti, C. (2009). Creating effective collaborative learning groups in an online environment. The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 10(3). http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/675/1271
Capdeferro, N. & Romero, M. (2012). Are online learners frustrated with collaborative learning experiences?. The International review of research in open and distance learning, 13(2), 26-44. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/1127/2129
Oddone, Kay. (2019a, Feb 26). PLNs Theory and Practice, part 1 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8mJX5n3IEg&feature=youtu.be
Oddone, Kay. (2019b, Feb 26). PLNs Theory and Practice, part 2 [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqSBTr9DPH8&feature=youtu.be
P21 Network (Battelleforkids). Partnership for 21st Century Learning. http://www.battelleforkids.org/networks/p21
VUCA model https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volatility,_uncertainty,_complexity_and_ambiguity
