Catching up

Being away at the start of a course doesn't suit my learning style - I feel as though I have been running to catch up today - but the advantage of an online course is that it does offer this type of flexibility.

Looking back over the blog that I kept to accompany the course when I was a participant last year, I can see that my posts reflect what you would expect of a participant at the beginning of an online course. The two main areas of concern in the initial stages were, for me, using the technology and wondering how I was perceived by other course participants and by the facilitators. This will be the same in face-to-face courses, but there is no personal contact with all its associated visual cues to give you any clues as to what people might think of you in an online course.

As a tutor these concerns are not very different. When the online environment is new to me I might still have concerns about whether I will be able to handle it and I almost always learn something new about technology every time I work on a course. Inevitably I also always wonder about how I am perceived. This is not something unique to students.

I remember last year feeling that my posts were not as reflective as those of some of the other participants. At the beginning of the course it seemed that I could recognise reflective writing when I saw it, but not so easily produce it myself. However, the course did help me to clarify my understanding of what we mean by deeper reflection, and helped me to recognise that I won't always be reflecting at a deep level.

For now, I am still in catching up mode - not so much physically, but in my head.


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