Final Reflection - basicly my only "written" reflection, but reflections first happens in your mind, doesn´t it? 😇

Yesterday, on 4.12.2019, the ONL192 course ended. I was an institutional participant in the wonderful group PBL12 #GO12 To say it straight away, I would not have finished this course completely without my group. My meme suggestion for the final Topic 5 looked corresponding:

 

While sitting here thinking about my final reflections, I listen to the recording of our second last group meeting in Zoom, in which I unfortunately could not attend. I smile while hearing the voices of my group 😌  

Most recently, we talked a lot about what it takes to actively complete such a course to the end. That is where the key point of my reflection comes in, because I went to this course as someone who was relatively familiar with the topics themselves because of my own scientific work. Furthermore, I have been working as an online mentor myself for almost 8 years, so the change of perspective was the biggest challenge for me and the biggest increase in learning at the same time!

At the same time as the second phase of the ONL course, I started a blended learning program at my own institution, in which I was constantly challenged to change between these different roles. Simultaneously, this experience encouraged me to make full use of all the tools that I have known for a long time and that I usually use sporadically, because this was the only way I was able to cope with this double burden and at the same time not to sacrifice quality!

The scenarios and applications used in the ONL course also helped to keep the focus throughout the weeks. The Fish document gave a clear structure, everyone could easily leave ideas and suggestions there. Also the examples of the problems were always a good starting point for further discussions. Nevertheless, the regular meetings in the group proved to be critical for success. And this is also confirmed by my own professional experience: The dynamics of a group are at least as strong and important as the clear structuring of the learning contents, which were given in the ONL course by references in the topics. 

Given the needed time investment, it was not possible for me to carry out all the proposed activities. So I could not participate in any tweet chat and my blog was neglected as well: My work focus was completely on my group!

What turned out to be challenging was the underlying technology chosen in ONL. Instead of an LMS in which all tools and files are collected, basically everything was presented with the help of google drive and wordpress and supplemented by various "free" tools when the group results were presented (to the question of whether one still needs an LMS at all, here is a very interesting blog post by Tony Bates: https://www.tonybates.ca/2018/07/15/is-blackboard-dying-the-latest-instalment-in-lms-wars/  [05.12.2019]). It was not challenging in using them, but you constantly were browsing through varios sites, devices and applications 🤭

And although I haven't seen a tool that I haven't used myself before, my access to using these tools has changed a lot: Just use it! 

In that sense, the course has freed me from the "old shackles" which I have already left behind in my own practice. For this I would like to thank the organisers of the ONL course, my wonderful facilitators Lina and David and my group, to whom these two naturally belonged: THANK YOU!