Centro Comercial La Gran Estación, Bogotá, Colombia- Photo by Jonathan
Acuña-Solano
2nd
Week of the BlendIt Course:
Some of my module
reflections
By Prof. Jonathan
Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
School of English
Faculty of Social Sciences
Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Saturday, May 19,
2018
Post 321
There is no doubt that after having
gotten my Hybrid, Blended, and Online Education certificate some four years ago
left some long-lasting imprint on my professional profile. Now that I am back
in the virtual classroom with Prof. Janet Bianchini from the Consultants-E, I
see that I am still current on the area I was working last year with faculty
members from many universities through online courses. And now that I am
venturing into the teaching of English through VCs (virtual classrooms), I am
not out of date.
Through the second Module of the
BlendIt course facilitated by Prof. Bianchini, several tasks needed to be
performed, and here I have some of my ideas/reflections in black and white to
see what is going on in my mind.
The eModeration
Terminology Quiz
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One of our first tasks was to take a
quiz on eModeration terminology used in online education. Taking this
self-assessment prepared at this point of the course allowed me to verify how
much I keep myself current with my usual Feedly page, which has been a great addition to
my professional learning network. And based on this, it is my idea that all
online instructors, or any other teaching professional interested in being up
to date, must keep themselves updated with new ideas or trends in online
education or any other area one is interested. And if one is not able to
attend conferences or courses or to participate in webinars, Feedly can help us a lot. One has to take
advantage of these opportunities to continue growing professionally in one’s
field.
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Online Quizzes for
One’s Class
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Online quizzes as an effective resource
for our teaching was also ventilated on this second module of the BlendIt
course. From my very personal point of view, even though a teacher may not be
necessarily teaching online, it is advisable to run some online quizzes even
for a F2F class. Why do I state this? Well, it is simple: We all need to
start “updating” our assessment approaches when it comes to grade/evaluate
learners and what they have grasped in our classes and how they are using the
newly-acquired knowledge. As a personal anecdote, after using several quizzes
with my learners at the university, they have become more curious about their
mistakes or wrong answers, and this practice has made them become aware of
what they are not doing correctly and why. The amount of discussion among
peers due to reports generated by the system I have used is gratifying in
terms of how much they can advance in their learning autonomously.
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Becoming an eModerator
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Becoming a tutor does require eModerator
skills that are not developed overnight, and I bet Prof. Janet Bianchini
would agree with me on this statement. Being a successful eModerator is a
process that takes time when one thinks of the skills that are needed for
this job. It is not just about common sense or to have an instructor “preach”
for us on what the wrongdoings of online education are and how our sinful
acts on a VC can be amended. Mindfulness becomes an element that helps us
discover the kind of leader one needs to be for learners to scaffold them
through their knowledge construction process. The creation of a social/human
bond with students is transcendentally important for the success of a course.
And these are just a few of the things needed to eModerate a group of
learners online.
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I hope that many teaching
professionals interested in online education can find good opportunities to
grow professionally. With several MOOCs available on the web, I highly
recommend that anyone wanting to further comprehend the process(es) involved in
online education register one of these courses. These courses are not about one
getting a diploma but getting knowledge to be ready to teach beyond the F2F
classroom.
Journal Entry 04 BlendIt Course
Saturday, May 19, 2018
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