In the end of one journey - in the beginning of another one

Every great journey ends some day. ONL181 course has been a more exciting trip than I ever thought. I have learned a lot about open networked learning. As I'm planning to design soon an oneline course for Finnish language students, the most valuable thing in participating such a good online course by myself was the experience of being a student on an online course. I had an opportunity to see many valuable things from the student's perspective.

One of the main things I learned, is the importance of scheduling and informing about the deadlines and criterias. On this course I really liked the clear timeteble and deadlines, and we even had checklists after each topic so everyone could ensure everything is done so far. All kinds of guidance and facilitation was excellent. For instance there were a lot of instruction videos in the beginning and the facilitator and co-fasilitator were available if any help was needed. I really hadn't thought earlier how much a teacher or course designer can do to avoid students getting frustrated or feeling unsure.

I think the most enlightening inspiration for me on the course was realising the meaning of true collaboration. I was lucky to have such a supporting and nice PBL (Problem Based Learning) group that really worked together. So far I had always thought that group work is all about chemistry and that can't work properly from distance. Now I understand it's much more than that. It's more about understanding the collaboration as constructioning knowledge together and utilizing the strenghts of each group member. We really have to go on from the school mode group work that meant dividing the tasks in smaller independently made parts and then glueing them onto the same board. I also found out that true collaboration makes people more committed to the course. The group or community also gives strenght and holds up when someone is too busy, tired, lost or whatever.

All the way, from the very first blog post I wrote, I have used the metaphora of hiking and exploring the nature that is my true passion. In every blog I have somehow underlined the importance of the company. I still do, I'm obviously a true lemming. This time it came to my mind that the group that holds you up on challenging course is as vital as the group that is connected to you with a rope on glacier. The group is your only hope if you happen to fall into a fault. You have to trust them. I think the most of the learners need the support a group can give, but it's not the only truth anyway. There are always those who rather go solo, both in adventuring and learning.

How everything I have learned will influense my practise in future? I hope I can keep on my mind these key things I just described. They are especially important when designing my first online course. The influence at this level is more pedagogic in general: What to do and why? On a more practical level I also learned some nice new tools I want to try on all of my courses. In language teaching/learning quite many applications (like Kahoot!) are already in common use but now I think I can see better when and why to use them. The nice tools and having some fun can't be the purpose itself, there has to be a pedagogic reason to use them.

So far in the Language Center of Aalto University there have been mostly traditional courses with contact lessons. The requirement of contact teaching has been quite obvious especially because of the need of speaking practise. Recently the mood has changed a bit. One of my colleagues created an online course Introductory Finnish and the idea was that foreign students and staff members could learn some Finnish even before arriving Finland and also everyone else interested in Finnish could access the course from distance. The type of the course is MOOC (Massive Open Online Course) and it has been a huge success. The accessibility seems to be the key even if Finnish is very small and rare language.

In my own teaching I have faced another kind of need for accessibility. I have taught many courses at the highest level of Finnish and the volume is nothing like on basic courses. It's always quite problematic to find enough so advanced students to the highest level courses. Quite often they are already at least partly working and they can't attend normal courses.The problem is exactly the same everywhere. The most advanced students can't find the suitable courses and where ever those courses are arranged, there still aren't enough students.

Right now I'm participating a national ministry-funded project called DIGIJOUJOU. The target is to create some digipedagogy and digimaterial for Finnish and Swedish (both official national languages in Finland) to be utilised both at universities and universities of applied sciences. As one result of the project I'm now designing a very advanced Finnish online course for professional needs with one of my colleagues. Even if we are now building the course at first for our own students, the idea is that after piloting the course we could also offer it for all the students in higher education over university boundaries. I'm really excited and looking forward to see how it will work.

So, even if my ONL181 journey is in the end, I think my journey in the world of e-learning has just begun. I'm just a rookie but one thing I know now for sure. My path to the mysterious world of e-learning isn't scary any more. It's only fascinating.

Look closer to see the whole

My journey on ONL181 course has turned towards it's end. It has been a great adventure. In the beginning I felt so unsure, like a was joining someone elses hike I hadn't planned at all. I had no idea what to expect, the terrain was unknown and I didn't have a map. Now I'm just enjoying the hike and a bit sad about the fact it will be soon over.

I have learned a lot on the course, especially from the perspective of being a student on a course. I know now, how it feels like to participate an online course. For me the latest topic was the most pedagogic one. It was about designing a course. It really doesn't matter, how nice activities, tools and ways of collaboration a course offers, if the whole doesn't support in learning the content that was meant to be learned.

Designing any course means that you, as a designer, have to see the big picture. What the learners should learn? How they can achieve that? How you can help them to do so? Even if we should look at the big picture, I think we actually have to look closer also the details to see the whole. Is there a purpose behind every task? Does it focus on the content that was meant to be learned? Are the activities supporting each others? Are different learning styles taken into account?

Designing a course is important but also quite time-consuming. Especially in online learning it might easily happen that for instance nice tools and apps steal the main role. The same risk of getting too fascinated by new technology lies in many other contexts as well, like in hiking and exploring the nature. I could equip myself with many nice new gears without thinking, would they really help me to get more out of my dear hobby. Before every journey I need to think first, what I want to see, hear and experience. Just then I can see, what I really need on my trip. And if I'm in good company, someone will lend me the toothpaste I forgot.

The collaboration means everything

Hiking is not just my passion, it's also my way to relax and charge my batteries. For me it just isn't possible without good company. I want to share the best experiences with someone special like the loved one or a good friend or few. I always have at least my German Shepherd with me.

What I have learned on my journeys so far is that when you push yourself to go to the limits, you really get to know better both yourself and your company. Sometimes not even words are needed.  I think it's the same in all collaboration. You really get to know people when doing some group work and the better you know them, the better the collaboration is. With the right group you don't hesitate to push each others to the limits and squeeze out everything you can.

The recent topic on ONL181 course has been learning in communities and collaboration on online courses. We have had very interested discussions in our PBL (Problem Based Learning) group. One of the most essential aspects has been how to go from group work mode from schools - dividing the tasks and glue them onto the same board. Even if the task was to think about what the real collaboration is and how to avoid the mode where learners would just split up the task and do their own share of it by themselves, we still ended up with this by ourselves. We had a nice shared document, a table about the different aspects we should investigate and I was just going to suggest that maybe we should divide the task so that everyone would just think about one or two of the questions. It was so lightening moment, when I suddenly realized it was excatly what we should not do in the name of collaboration. It made me smile and I think I will remember the lesson.

In true collaboration we should build up the knowledge by bringing together all the competencies we have. We should discuss and share what we know and find out what we need to investigate more. That's what our group then did. Even if we eventually had to divide a task a bit to prepare the presentation, we agreed that we had constructed the knowledge together. For the presentation we chose a very collaborative tools, Padlet with links to FlipGrid-videos, and decided to refer each others in our own videos.

Learning in groups and communities can be challenging but also very rewarding. Learned contents and the presentations or other kind of implementations of the results can be much bigger and greater when the group utilises all the strengths of group members and everyone can shine. It's also a choice, if the group just goes on just by utilising each ones expertises or if it recycles the tasks so that everyone would get familiar with the tools for instance. Especially on online courses it's important to make sure the work doesn't land just in the lap of the person most familiar with the tool.

When hiking, collaboration means everything. Even if someone is in charge of orienteering, everyone should read a map. You have to decide together, what to do and where to go. Especially in extreme conditions it's good to know all the strenghts of the group members. Someone is very handy in setting up the tent, someone lights the fire very easily. It's also good to know the weaknessies of your mates. Does someone become paralyzed by cold or hunger and needs some chocolate? Yes, that's me. So, the most important thing in all collaboration, no matter of the context: Take care of the group members and help them when needed.

The magic of open space

The ONL181-course, the reason why I'm blogging, is on the half way now. After the journey of first few weeks I was a bit confused. I wasn't sure if I was even on the map. The digi-world seemed to be too overwhelming. I was struggling at a swamp and going on only because of the duckboards and good company.

Now I have got back my peace of mind. It obviously just took some time to get used to the practise of online course and especially online collaboration. It was a very useful lesson to learn. Now I can feel the possible anxiousness of a student who attends an online course.

The previous topic we have been dealing with is openness. Fortunately it has meant many things in our own PBL (Problem Based Learning) group, including being open about the feelings and challenges on the course. In the larger picture we have talked a lot about openness in education. It actually covers much more than I ever thought. It's not just opening up your course online. It's not just sharing you materials with students and colleagues. Openness in education has so many aspects, like accessibility and flexibility.

So far openness has meant only few things for my own practise. It has been mostly the attitude and urge of sharing ideas and materials with colleagueas and students. Especially with co-workers one of the biggest reasons for sharing has been the idea of not inventing a wheel over and over again. As a Finnish language teacher I don't need to be too scared of someone stealing or abusing my materials or ideas. I'm not a researcher, I'm a teacher and learning tutor. On some other field the situation might be quite different.

As I'm going to build my first online course soon, it has been very useful to think about different open course and MOOC formats and learn some terms for them. The learning platform I'm going to use is open for the students of my university or open university. That way the course will be closed and one of the benefits in that is that the size of the group enables teacher's personal feedback. In future it would be great to open the course for larger target group but then also the management of the course should be planned differently, especially if it would be possible to get credits of it.

Even if I still have a way to go, now I feel I'm on the right path. I got through the swamps and dark forrests and I have climbed high enough to see everywhere. I can see open space all around me, also the higher tops I'm heading to. Right now I'll just keep going and enjoy the views.