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Topic 5: Most important things that I have learnt through my engagement in the ONL221 course…

  I admit, I did not exactly know what I was signing up for in this course. The title “Open networked learning” sounded somehow different and useful to prepare me a bit better for online teaching…and it would give me the credit I needed in my teaching CV. Even though I felt a bit lost and totally out of my comfort zone the first few weeks, the goal became clearer later. This course and especially my PBL5 group was growing on me! I knew the PBL concept from previous teaching, and how vital the interaction in the group between students (and their tutor) is to ensure deep learning and successful outcomes.   I realized the importance here in the beginning was to bond and build a relationship within your PBL group which would set the pace and quality of collaboration for the following weeks.   What came a bit as a surprise to me is that 6 “random” people 😏 from different backgrounds (technically speaking with different professional languages) put together in a virtual room were functio
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Reflection on topic 4: ... the challange was not to get used to online learning, but to reach a good level of collaboration

  Online learning carries a stigma of being lower quality than face-to-face learning (Hodges C et al. 2020 https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning ). And I must admit, that before entering this course I naively thought likewise. I like many others grew up with face-to-face learning which makes me feel comfortable, before as student (not that I remember much of my biology studies 😉 ) and now as teacher, because that’s what we knew. Through participating in that course I gladly realized that I have been able to think outside the standard box being exposed to various possible solutions that help meet the new needs for our learners and communities trying to provide more flexibility and individualization. And this as I learned can be realized through the use of new technologies and implemented in online or blended learning designs . Difficult to believe for me at first….Research shows that despite a reduction in
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Striving for collaborative community in Science (reflection on topic 3)

  In this weeks topic 3 we have been trying to understand values and differences of learning networks and communities. I like the simple explanation of Henry Mintzberg when he says:  ”If you want to understand the difference between a network and a community, ask your Facebook friends to help paint your house.”  ( https://hbr.org/2015/10/we-need-both-networks-and-communities ). This is very fitting for social media and I agree we need both networks and communities , but how does it relate to my professional (scientific) life and which do I belong to? Past years have shown, that collaboration and international mobility make science stronger. Collaborations bring together researchers with diverse scientific backgrounds and perspectives to address perplexing questions and solve complex problems that benefit from an interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary approach. The most important ingredients for me to make collaborations work is trust and commitment , to produce research that is
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