Tuesday, September 03, 2013

How To Teach Online - MOOC - Week 1

The MOOC for How To Teach Online (#tomooc) has begun. Naturally, the 1st week’s activities are pretty general. They have questions for learners to answer on their blog, so I’ll do it below:
  1. What is your intention for this course (why are you here)?
  2. What issues do you think are important?
  3. How will you contribute?
  4. How would you like to see community develop among participants?
  5. These types of courses are new for most people. In fact about 90% don’t even participate. How will you overcome the fear of learning in the open and the frustration of using new technology? How do you plan to courageously work through any setbacks, and not give up?
1&2: I just started a new job as an Educational Developer for the Faculty of Applied Science and Engineering at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada. Anytime you start a new job, it’s a very unique time where you can re-evaluate yourself and start fresh. My mandate will be to help move more courses online. So when I saw this MOOC advertised it was a perfect fit. I really hope to find some gold nuggets of wisdom in this course than can compliment my current knowledge and skills.

3: I will contribute largely by authoring posts on this blog and tagging them with the required #tomooc tag. I will do my best to try to keep up with the weekly asynchronous activities, as well as synchronous activities. I am curious how the synchronous activity will go given the (I assume) large number of students in this MOOC. Note: if you are curious about some of the blog posts, you can visit this page and scroll down to see them: http://blogs.leeward.hawaii.edu/teachonline/

4: I hope that the community can develop not only by interlinking blogs but also on Twitter. I am trying to grow my Personal Learning Network using my Twitter account (@elearn4u) so scanning the #tomooc tag on twitter will be a way for me to connect with like-minded individuals. I also really hope to find people working in the higher education field who specialize in Engineering – that would be a bonus.

5: I’m not afraid. Learning is fun. Bring it on ;-)

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Congratulations on your new job as an Educational Developer! So true - the opportunity to take a fresh look at your ideas and what you are bringing to the new job. I think the timing for this MOOC couldn't have been more perfect. Looking forward to connecting and learning from you as you share your gold nuggest of wisdom. #tomooc13