Who am I, where have I been, what am I up to and what do I think about it

10/02/2008 by nicola.

If you already know me you may well want to skip this post.

Have just started an online course and having posted a link to my blog, thought it was an opportunity for a re-introduction. I started my career as a primary teacher at a college at Southampton University with my very first lesson that I taught about capacity, which turned into a hands-on measurement of how much water I could fill the classroom with, having knocked over the various kettles, buckets and various other objects which I had provided as visual aids, in the first 5 minutes

I taught in London near Wimbledon for a couple of years which was lovely. They used to film The Bill on the road outside the school, which made day trips with 35 excited 4/5 yr olds even more adventurous, with cameras on those tracks/trolley things rolling up and down the street. In terms of learning, we had a flexible day with the children opting to choose the order in which they completed 3 core activities relating to maths, writing, reading and then whatever else we could squeeze in.

For some of them, it was the first time they had spent a significant amount of time away from their home and/or their first major social experiences, so understanding how to play and work together, strategies for co-operating whether in pairs, small or large groups; as well as the more practical discovery of picking things up and finding out how they worked. Even then as a teacher, the role was that of a guided facilitator, setting up an environment of exploration and investigation, facilitator of behaviour manipulation/management through agreed strategies in order to improve learning experiences.

Then went to Turkey and did some private EFL teaching and travelling. Met Mustafa and we moved to Bodrum on the Aegean coast and set up a partnership in clothes/gift shop. It was very informal and I spent most of the day talking to people on the street, which was great, mostly tourists from Europe and UK who used to tell me about how they were enjoying their holidays but felt that Turkish hotels had not got the hang of both ‘towels’ and ‘laundry’ (can verify this having often received socks back in my laundry and I didn’t own a pair but I digress).It was a great learning experience - summer / tourist businesses operating very differently to the UK, e.g. if you wanted to get someone to work in the shop, you don’t recruit/advertise - you could just go and have a tea with someone and mention it. Mustafa used to say, there are a lot of walking radios in Bodrum

Also did some EFL in the UK, but I never really took to it too much, after doing primary, I found it harder to get inspired about teaching a language,I enjoyed the actual teaching sessions but it took a lot of thinking to try and prepare for them. I taught sessions using things like - chocolate - and adults seemed to respond in the same way as when I had taught primary. I started working in the ‘eWorld’. EFL seemed to be leading the way in terms of learning technology, where listening to, pronouncing, practising the language e.g Auralog as well as some of the first communities (that I noticed) to be using discussion forums across different countries. I worked in a hospital - training medical staff how to use the internet and online databases. Some of these were surgeons and they used to come along and say,I haven’t got time to do this, I need to go and save lives - but when they saw that they could access more articles with in-depth detals or operating procedures, up to the minute information about the latest clinical trials and new medicines, they realised the benefits.

I continued down the e route for several years including eHR rollouts, some more eLearning and eGovernment, I also completed a web design qualification which covered basic computing, site design/development and eCommerce. I originally decided to do this qualification because having done some eLearning work,I felt that on projects there were significant gaps in my understanding of why things were working / not working and I thought that focusing on the technical aspects would help. I returned to eLearning in a learning technology role, seeing differences in how technology is being used at global or territory level and how in a large corporation, it is very easy for ‘knowledge’ to disappear down black holes, but social media has started to change that. As of 2008, with discussion forums extending into online communities, wikis, blogs, learners are no longer inside one closed area or ‘room’ and they can find, ask, contribute ideas and information across communities and sites.

Having now worked for a month at Surrey, it is interesting trying to discover the various motivations for online learning whether in research or teaching. There are a lot of parallels with my previous role , universities need to justify their existence on a commercial level too. Very interested in discovering how, where, if an online tutor role will fit in. I think it will also be guided facilitation.One interesting thing about experimentation with virtual worlds is even though there are huge opportunities for informal learning, the concept of islands is not really that much different to rooms, you are inviting people to discuss/ collaborate in one area and potentially limiting their experience as a result (Security, privacy issues for younger learners etc). Same for businesses operating in them, if you either build or rent your own world, or build/rent a specific area of another world, how realistic can you develop/design the conditions (if you even have that choice) so that someone can learn about e.g. how to address a significant client issue.

Just as a practical note, you can also find me on Twitter, various communities on Ning including InternetTime, and I like to see and save news onDel.icio.us and Pageflakes

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