As I start to slowly sift my way through the information coming at me through the screen from our lively ONL online community, I'm amazed to see the enthusiasm from my fellow participants. I'm particularly intrigued by the questions about expectations of the participants, and their biggest fears which is something that I've been thinking about lately related to my own attempt to complete my master's thesis in Education. My current theoretical interest is focused on something as obscure as 'personal epistemology', which can be explained as the ‘…individual’s cognitions about the nature of knowledge and the nature of knowing’ (Hofer & Pintrich, 2002, p. 390). This is related to the individual’s epistemic beliefs, or ‘the individual’s belief of the nature of truth and knowledge’ (Hofer & Pintrich, 2002, p. 191). I'd like to figure out how this can be understood in relation to theories about PBL and about how we work with online tools when interacting with each other as well as future students.
My expectations for this course is to learn more about how we can work with open tools for learning, and how to create learning spaces online that suits the needs of the learners. I'm also curious to find out more about how other university teachers work and learn more as higher education is my special area of academic interest. My concerns are that I might be a bit pressed for time, as I am quite busy with work and as I'm still working on my master's thesis on my spare time. Hopefully the joy of learning will make up for the increased screen time in the next few weeks though. :)
What about me? I'm a pedagogue, an (open access) publisher (together with my colleagues at Stockholm University Press), a library lover, a cat (and animal) lover, a vegetarian, a nature lover and a master procrastinator. It feels like I'm doing a hundred things at the same time (or am I just imagining I'm really doing all these things?), and I'm kind of liking it. The constant buzz of a busy inbox and a pile of post-it notes with great ideas, and a few others with to-do lists, is giving me a sense of importance that I think I need to motivate myself to continue the strive of constant self-improvement. It sounds tiring, I know, but I'm also at times lazier than an old cat and thoroughly enjoy spending weekends on the couch doing very little else than play Candy Crush on my phone and binge watch tv-series or winter sports on the telly. No one can enjoy nature as much as I can from indoors. And I've got the whole world before my keyboard, just there for me to explore.
Well, from this ONL experience, I hope to become more aware of my own view of online learning and my own knowledge about this phenomenon that is here to stay. I also hope to know more about what I don't know and to make a plan about what I should figure out that I should know. Or at least know enough about what I don't know in order to know what to do next.
See you in the learning cyber space!
Image by Denis Havlik permission to reuse via a CC-BY-SA 2.0 licence. Image source: https://www.flickr.com/photos/denishavlik/13324197455v
References
My expectations for this course is to learn more about how we can work with open tools for learning, and how to create learning spaces online that suits the needs of the learners. I'm also curious to find out more about how other university teachers work and learn more as higher education is my special area of academic interest. My concerns are that I might be a bit pressed for time, as I am quite busy with work and as I'm still working on my master's thesis on my spare time. Hopefully the joy of learning will make up for the increased screen time in the next few weeks though. :)
What about me? I'm a pedagogue, an (open access) publisher (together with my colleagues at Stockholm University Press), a library lover, a cat (and animal) lover, a vegetarian, a nature lover and a master procrastinator. It feels like I'm doing a hundred things at the same time (or am I just imagining I'm really doing all these things?), and I'm kind of liking it. The constant buzz of a busy inbox and a pile of post-it notes with great ideas, and a few others with to-do lists, is giving me a sense of importance that I think I need to motivate myself to continue the strive of constant self-improvement. It sounds tiring, I know, but I'm also at times lazier than an old cat and thoroughly enjoy spending weekends on the couch doing very little else than play Candy Crush on my phone and binge watch tv-series or winter sports on the telly. No one can enjoy nature as much as I can from indoors. And I've got the whole world before my keyboard, just there for me to explore.
Well, from this ONL experience, I hope to become more aware of my own view of online learning and my own knowledge about this phenomenon that is here to stay. I also hope to know more about what I don't know and to make a plan about what I should figure out that I should know. Or at least know enough about what I don't know in order to know what to do next.
See you in the learning cyber space!
References
Hofer, B. K., & Pintrich,
P. R. (Eds.). (2002). Personal epistemology: the psychology of beliefs
about knowledge and knowing. Mahwah, N.J.: L. Erlbaum Associates.
Hello Sofie and thank you for this first and personal post. I really like reading the blogs in ONL courses because I feel like I learn more about theories and the people writing about them at the same time. Any good tv series you can recommend? :)
ReplyDeleteHi Lotta,
DeletePersonally, I currently like the follwing tv-series: The Crown, Girls, #Skam and Homeland. Not particularly in that order. :)
Hi Sofie. Thanks for the interesting post about personal epistemology; sounds very interesting. Like you, I'm also interested in the nature of knowledge and how this changing due to such factors as technology and globalization, but also the increasing corporatisation and bureaucratization of the university. So often I find myself unable to think due to incessant demands, often because of email or other digital technologies, which is ironic given that I became an academic because I love thinking and reading! We have some or things in common too, among others being vegetarian, caring for non-human animals, and watching box sets! All the best, Johan. PS: When I try to post with my WordPress blog name, I get a credentials ....
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that the new digital discourse can be time-consuming if you let it take over. But, don't you think we can change that and make the tools work for us, if we gain more knowledge on how to adjust the tools to our mental capacities? And to dare to change with the power of that knowledge by means of dialogue (like for example to send feedback to creators of digital tools to encourage them to make the tools better)?
DeleteThank you for your post, Sofie. It was interesting to find that we have similar expectations for this course and that we have a few things in common: being vegetarian; loving nature, animals and libraries; and procrastination. :-)
ReplyDeleteYes, and great minds think alike? :)
Deletehttps://www.ted.com/talks/tim_urban_inside_the_mind_of_a_master_procrastinator
Hi Sofie!
ReplyDeleteHere comes a typical example of procrastination!
Enjoyed reading your blogpost and I do agree on libraries. One of the occupations on my list of choices back in the days was librarian. Have always had a library card wherever I have lived. Cats an tv series are nice too. Also really interesting this about what you know that you know and so on! Sounds like a labyrinth and it will probably twist your mind like a good piece of art does when you get into it!