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Is this the end?

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My view on ONL192 During the past twelve weeks, I have been taking an online course, ONL 192 [1] “Online Networked Learning, a course, a community, an approach”. The reason for taking this course was to get a deeper understanding of online teaching and learning. It was an intense and fascinating journey, that made me dive into tools for online cooperation, openness and content sharing, networked collaborative learning and methods and strategies to design online courses. I reached the end of the course and what have I learned? Well, twelve weeks ago, I was rather reticent and reserved about online courses. I thought they were only an option for motivated students that were interested in self-learning new subjects that would be otherwise not available in face to face environments. I also used to think that online teachers had a more passive role than classroom teachers. Twelve weeks later, my expectations for this course were totally met and my perspective towards onlin
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Online learning - What is the importance of social engagement?

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During my first years at the university I used to perceive teachers as unsocial and always busy working on their important research work. Making questions during lectures or even during the hour they specifically created to answer students´ questions, would not cross my mind. I remember feeling that my questions were never smart or relevant enough to be asked. My first two years were therefore a struggle in terms of building my cognitive knowledge and my grades were a mirror of my emotions reflecting the state of merely coping with the academic environment. Fortunately for me, by the end of my second year, things started to change. The turning point was when I started studying with a group of about eight to ten people. We would give each other the required support to make us feel socially engaged and comfortable with academic interactions. Even approaching teachers would not be as intimidating as it used to be, and I started to realize that academic teachers were actually happy t
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How can students cooperate in online classes?

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The role of a teacher Several scientific studies [1] have shown that group work in education can develop students’ communication skills and aid in the process of knowledge acquisition. I personally always enjoyed group work throughout my education. I saw it as a fun and creative experience as well as a way to get a break from the passive learning of listening to a teacher in a classroom. However, I also remember that many colleagues disliked working in groups, and their concerns match well the disadvantages of group work stated by Beede and Masterson[2]: Pressure from the group to conform to the majority opinion. Discussions being dominated by an individual. Members relying heavily on others to do the work. Working in a group is more time-consuming than working alone. Figure 1: Disadvantages of group work [3] But in fact, people are changing, and a study made by in the UK [4] that collected students’ feedback on group work have shown that students recogni
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Let’s go open?

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Opportunities and challenges of open online courses As a researcher, starting to give my first steps in online teaching, I felt the need to dig into the various types of online courses and how they work. Apparently, there are many different formats of online courses [1, 2], but the prevalent one is where you register as a student at a university to get access to a web-based platform where you can find lectures and other learning material, submit your assignments and contact and receive feedback from the teachers/other students. They could be either self-passed or have specific deadlines for tests and assignments [3]. Another format of web-based courses that are gaining popularity are the so-called MOOCs, short for Massive Open Online Courses. Today, MOOCs are reaching massive numbers of students. The first MOOC was launched in 2008 by Stephen Downes and George Siemens and it was called “Connectivism and Connective Knowledge” [4]. Their intention was to “exploit the possibili
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What´s the fun in that?

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My perceptions on online teaching As a researcher starting a new position at a University, I was quite exited with the idea of taking the role as a teacher. In my mind, being a teacher was to provide education to students in physical classrooms. I immediately started thinking about strategies to motivate students while creating a friendly, fun and engaging environment. Beyond furthering their knowledge of engineering, I wanted to embrace their creativity and develop their critical thinking. After a couple of months on the job, I found out that the courses offered at our department were mainly given online. My initial though was “What is the fun in that?” How can I connect and engage with the students without a physical classroom and without being able to read their reactions or interact directly?  I therefore did some research on online teaching and learned that other teachers shared my concerns. How can we replicate  the pedagogy of face-to-face teaching in a digital envi
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