Topic 2- Open Networks
A Blistering Blunder
The scenario for this week is about sharing information on open course and what are the implications of sharing information open network. There was quiet a lot of questions that our group had to tackle when it came to this particular topic but I felt there were three were three main questions that came up in our first webinar. We discussed the following what should we be sharing online, what shouldn't be sharing and what should be restricted. However, there was a consensus that as academics there is a worry of copyright that if there is too much accessibility to academic research how accurate or credible could this information be? There was very strong opinions about how can academics express their ideas in a safe environment. The group concluded that there are some technological platforms that allows for academics or individuals to express their opinions in a safe space.
The group decided on technological platforms that they considered safe to and analysed them in regards to a SWOT analysis.
I was quiet surprised with the group because I came up with this idea and the group agreed to tackle the scenario with this idea. This boosted my confidence because I was finding myself doubting my contribution to the group as my group members are much older then me and have been in the academic space for quiet a long time. It was interesting to me that none of the group members were familiar with what a SWOT analysis was. A SWOT analysis is normally used by business analysts to rate a business or to get an idea of the potential of a new business. Although I come from an educational background I have used a SWOT analysis before as a reflective tool for lessons. This tool assisted me to reflect effectively in my lessons because I had to think about the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats in my lesson. I had to explain to the group what a SWOT analysis was all about. I thought it was quiet interesting that strategies from a completely different field to mine can be just as effective. I believe that I am behaving like a digital student because not only am I problem solving I also was made to think outside the box.
I was quiet surprised with the group because I came up with this idea and the group agreed to tackle the scenario with this idea. This boosted my confidence because I was finding myself doubting my contribution to the group as my group members are much older then me and have been in the academic space for quiet a long time. It was interesting to me that none of the group members were familiar with what a SWOT analysis was. A SWOT analysis is normally used by business analysts to rate a business or to get an idea of the potential of a new business. Although I come from an educational background I have used a SWOT analysis before as a reflective tool for lessons. This tool assisted me to reflect effectively in my lessons because I had to think about the strengths, weakness, opportunities and threats in my lesson. I had to explain to the group what a SWOT analysis was all about. I thought it was quiet interesting that strategies from a completely different field to mine can be just as effective. I believe that I am behaving like a digital student because not only am I problem solving I also was made to think outside the box.
The next step we needed to take as a group is that we needed to come up with how will we present this data. In the webinar the group decided on the following platforms that they regularly broadcast information to their own online community. The group decided on four platforms which was blogs, open online course and twitter. Topic 1 we tackled by sharing ideas through a live mentimeter, where group members were asked three questions based on the scenario. The questions that were asked were discussed as a group before hand. One person then volunteered to construct the mentimeter and asked us to join immediately. Since this went so smoothly the last time the group decided that this was a good idea to use the same process. Since I had this new found confidence within the group I volunteered to do the mentimeter. The leader at the time posted the relevant questions on the group chat which I did not see. I continued creating the mentimeter but my network was so slow it took longer then expected. There was silence in the group which made me feel quiet uncomfortable as the whole group was waiting on me for the survey. I felt I was under quiet a lot of pressure to get the survey done but the network was not on my side. Once I was done with my mentimeter oblivious to the question posted in the group chat I distributed the questionnaire. To my surprise the group leader had said that these were not the questions that they were expecting. I was quiet embarrassed that I misunderstood what the group had said. I felt like I had let the group down because we had quiet limited time. Some of the group members also found the questions that I had created quiet vague and some of the questions were not as clear as I thought. Even though this was the case I was quiet flustered creating the survey because my network was quiet slow and I wanted to get the survey out as quickly as possible. Even though the survey was targeting the wrong insights the group leader still chose to use these insights into our final presentation. This ended up given the presentation another dynamic and perspective of the scenario.
This got me to thinking....I was once a teacher and now I am lecturer.. How many times do I tell students that they giving a wrong answer or they approaching a situation in the wrong way? How does it make those students feel when their ideas or their efforts get shut down? How can I approach this differently in my teaching practice? I believe that if the survey that I created was not used in some way or form within the topic I would of been less confident to volunteer my efforts within the next webinar or the next topic. I would of limited my contributions towards the group. The simple notion of just using the survey even though it did not get to the groups final objectives made me feel that my voice was being heard and I do have valuable contributions and skills to add to the group. This made me weary of how I treat my students in the classroom and not just to shut those ideas down and encourage them to either think further or guide them in a different direction. For instance ask them more questions which will lead them onto a path that reaches the same objectives. After this experience I would like to think of my classroom dynamic differently and the analogy I would like to use is a body of water on land which is known as watershed. Water always starts at the source and always ends up at the mouth of the river but how the water ends up at the mouth it takes different paths. I need to understand that when an individual thinks of a body of knowledge it is the same as that body of water, it might take different paths but it still ends up at the same objective. Even though this was not the case in my experience I should consider this the next time when doing group work activities within my lecturers.