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Signals of Success and Self-directed Learning
Penny Bentley, Helen Crump, Paige Cuffe, Iwona Gniadek,
Briar Jamieson, Sheila MacNeill and Yishay Mor
Being confident doesn’t mean believing you’re the best,
that you know and can do everything, will finish first and
create the best artefacts. (One of my concerns was being
perceived as overly confident. Building into Learning
Design an official role/task for mentoring would alleviate
this feeling and potential for pulling back). OLDS MOOC
wasn’t a competitive course to “finish” and get the best
mark for. I couldn’t “fail” the MOOC nor were people
there “judging” my ability to succeed. There was feedback
offered by various means, one of which was badges, fun
to collect and useful as evidence of professional development.
I was comfortable, enjoying the ride and happy to
help others.
As an introvert, participating in an intellectually challenging,
online learning experience was liberating. I’m
often reluctant to express my opinions in busy, face to
face learning environments as my thinking is slow, considered
and easily discouraged. My confidence as an OLDS
MOOC participant was enabled by the very nature of
MOOCS, being online. I observed and contemplated before
making contributions and worked at my own pace in
a non-competitive yet productive way. I had control over
when to participate and how much to contribute. (Bentley,
2013). Adapting to the connectivist pedagogy of open
learning in OLDS MOOC had its challenges which I overcame
with perseverance, support and the luxury of sufficient
time.
So, did my confidence as an OLDS MOOC participant
fulfil my measure of success Yes, I have a richer Personal
Learning Network (PLN) with connections made, have
been extended and pushed in my thinking, learnt how
to describe my professional practice in an explicit way,
helped others, received positive feedback, gained and created
new knowledge. Above all, I have found my voice as
an online learner and educator.”
Briar and Iwona’s Reflection on Context and Success
(Briar Jamieson (@mbjamieson) is the Executive Director
and Iwona Gniadek (@yvetteinmb) the Lead of Learner
Services at English Online Inc. in Canada.)
“Success comes in many shapes, forms and sizes - 140
characters to be exact. It was OLDS MOOC trending on
Twitter that brought the MOOC to our attention (@mbjamieson.
January 7, 2013). Partnering with a colleague was
one of the highlights of participation in OLDS MOOC. Although
we did not engage the same way with the course
activities, we complemented each other, one delving into
theory and the other working out the activities.
The weekly Google Hangouts drew us in to see experts
discuss the content of the week. Every week we waited
for the rapid fire chats and tested our understanding
of the weekly content. Serendipity was being noticed
amongst the hundreds of learners: “I tweeted: “#oldsmooc
is a learning space where participants can create
their own social learning gardens. (@yvetteinmb. January
22, 2013).” My tweet got mentioned live! I was out
of my chair fisting the air. (I. Gniadek, personal reflection,
February, 2013). The draw of the OLDS MOOC Twitter
community exemplified how this tool could be used more
effectively to build a learner community.
Our organisation’s summer course was inspired by
OLDS MOOC (English Online Inc, 2013). The course incorporated
elements of OLDS MOOC that resonated
with us as learners. Modelled after the OLDS MOOC converge
hangouts we incorporated a synchronous weekly
Language Rendezvous and accompanying weekly blog encapsulating
learning highlights. We curated OERs for the
content of the course on an open wiki, incorporated a persona
activity for learners, and included a Twitter hashtag
for stakeholders to continue the conversation. It was exciting
when learners shared their learning plans, videos,
summer photos and blog posts.
Ongoing participation in OLDS MOOC resulted in our
successful integration of a number of the learning design
processes and resources into our workplace context. The
activities that were incorporated into our work environment
include: force maps (Jamieson, 2013), personas
(Gniadek, 2013), and OULDI cards (@mbjamieson. September
23, 2013). The OULDI cards helped us to zoom
out on our practice and learner support mechanisms. After
using the cards with staff, we saw ways that the cards
could be adapted to fit our language learning context. As a
result of our experience in OLDS MOOC we will share our
adaptation of the OULDI cards.
As informal learners outside of academia it is often
difficult to find useful resources to support our practice.
We have a small library of popular books on e-Learning,
links to resources shared by colleagues, but ineffective
Google searches and paid-only access to research form
a significant barrier to adding to our knowledge on learning
design. OLDS MOOC provided us with a plethora of
activities and open access materials. A huge benefit was
discovering open access journals, online tools, and adding
more trusted sources to follow. The personal significance
of having access to peer reviewed research is captured in
this tweet: “@roughbounds Immersion in readings feels
decadent, doesn’t it Some like chocolate...I crave...bibsonomy
:) #oldsmooc” (@mbjamieson. January 30, 2013). The
learning provided in OLDS MOOC initiated our application
for further formal higher education.
Successful learning in OLDS MOOC is measured by
our integration of various tools into our professional development
practices and work context. We expanded our
personal learning networks, were able to frame our work
practices academically and enhance them by implementing
some of the suggested tools and processes. Finally, we
saw how our newly acquired learning positively affected
our end-user.”
Research Track | 20