Back again

Just beginning to get into gear again for the next run of the Reflective Learning Course for Oxford Brookes. This is a favourite course for me.

We have 12 participants this time and I notice we have another Jenny, so that's going to be three Jennys which might end up very confusing. The first time I did this course, Jenny Moon agreed to be Jenianne (Anne is her middle name), to lesson confusion. I think I'd better become Jennymac this time.

So what has been significant for my learning since the last run of this course? I remember Jenny Moon telling us how important it is to keep revisiting your journal/blog to check whether your learning/understanding has changed. I have just done that. I can see now that being away in the middle of the last course wasn't very helpful. I think my earlier posts on that course were better than my later ones. I also also see how heavily influenced I was by the research paper I was writing at the time, which just goes to show how context dependent reflection is - no surprises there, but it's worth remembering when you look back through prior posts and think 'Why on earth did I write that?'

Since tutoring on the last course, a significant influence on my learning has been Stephen Downes' and George Siemens' 12 week online course on Connectivism and Connective Knowledge. This is what launched me into the blogosphere, which in turn has helped me to keep reflecting and writing, which in turn is helpful for other aspects of my work, such as research.

I have recently been discussing with fellow bloggers, whether we only blog for an audience. Many of us have agreed that although we welcome comments on our blogs, that is not our main purpose for blogging. A blogging colleague Mike Bogle explained it wonderfully well:

I blog because it helps me explore, self-assess, reflect and document my current intellectual state. This includes concepts I’m grappling with, ideas that I’m exploring, research I’m conducting, or support I’m attempting to lend to others. As wierd as it sounds, when time passes and I’m not able to do this I start to grow out of touch with my own intellectual state. Ideas start to fade, continuity becomes disrupted, concepts to explore rise and then disappear unresolved. The end result is I feel less on the ball, more reactionary, and more cognitively disquiet. Effectively I blog because it helps me think, work, and remember.

So here I am blogging again, but this time with no expectation that anyone will be reading, listening or responding. It will just help me to keep focussed and find a space for the course when there's so much else going on in my life at the moment.

Source of image: http://www.chromasia.com/images/there_and_back_again_b.jpg