Topic 3 - Learning in communities

Topic 3: Learning in communities – networked collaborative learning

This post is intended as a reflection of my own experience as a learner dealing with technologies and finding a way to work collaboratively. For this reason, instead of referring to known articles, I will use material from the #ONL181 course, blog posts from fellow ONLers, and my own PBL group work.

Let’s start with my PBL group’s attempt in trying to work topic 3 out. Have we succeeded? Mostly yes, I would say. We have all have tried to work towards one goal – complete an assignment while gathering information and constructing collective knowledge. I could then argue that we have managed to achieve networked collaborative learning as we worked online. Now I wonder if this assumption is correct.

Next point is an example of a source of frustration. When I finally found time to look at what Sonja, Gizeh and Francisca’s webinar was - since I had missed it - I found out that I needed the new Adobe Connect 10 software. As I use my work computer and I am not allowed to download any programs, I got really put off by this message:

This was then a real failure factor. I never managed to watch the webinar and I hoped I had not missed a whole lot in order to accomplish topic 3.

From frustration, I move on to what I describe as a puzzling experience – my first go at joining a Tweet chat. I suppose I only have myself to blame here as I never watched Alastair’s film about tweet chats. Had I done that, I might have avoided some of the confusion, but I really wanted to act as an average learner here. And the outcome of the experience: it did not give me any positive insight into how learning takes place.

I would like to finish on a more positive note than my own disappointment of technology not working to my advantage. This brings me to my fellow ONLers' blogs. I found a good source of thoughts and reflections that are valuable. I went to ONL181, topic 3 and looked at all the blog posts up at the time I sat down and write this. To my surprise, I only saw three of them. So here’s what I like about them.

What caught my attention in Rodrigo’s blog was his highlight on the level of commitment as a source of frustration in collaborative learning. He argues that outcomes are often correlated to individuals instead of groups. Aqilah brings up the value of meaningful conversations for retention of content instead of the more traditional way of acquiring knowledge. Gideon’s blog post on topic 3 brought up a number of interesting points, from a clear definition of cooperation and collaboration to the punchline on forming groups with the right people. Well done all of you!

I sat down thinking on how I would reflect on using technologies to enable my own networks for learning processes. However, this post ended up as a journey of how I went through this module in the course. You, my dear readers (if any), may not gain much from this but I can say that I will do some things differently next time. For me, this is a simple definition of learning. I am working towards a growth mindset.

Links to ONL181 blogs on topic 3:

Rodrigo’s blog

https://rodrigosblogonl181.wordpress.com/

Aqilah Khan’s blog:

https://onl181aqilahkhan.wordpress.com/2018/11/06/as-the-saying-goes-two-heads-are-better-than-one/

Gideon’s blog:

https://gideonmek.blogspot.com/2018/11/collaborative-learning-what-is-it-and.html