My reflection blog for ONL221

Ride on a Roller Coaster

Uphill on a Roller Coaster

Whole experience with ONL has for me been like a ride an a Roller Coaster. First I was hesitating to get along – concerned about talking English and participate for me a new way of collaborating, and at the same time excited to meet new people and learn.

I decided to get along on the ride. First weeks where the first uphill. You know – you’re getting somewhere but you don’t see much more than the Roller Coaster, you’re thrilled (or maybe anxious) over where you’re going, what is going to happen next and who are the other persons on the ride. I’m quite new in teaching and particularly in online teaching and learning, so many things along the way has been new to me.

But then you got up on the top of the first uphill, you’re high above the ground ang you can see all the way to the horizon. I got so overwhelmed of this new landscape called Openness – it’s huge, with lot of opportunities and challenge! According to Cronin (2017) there is several aspects such as economic, political, technic and social aspects that makes openness complex. I haven’t thought openness from these perspectives before this ONL course, I’ve been mostly thinking openness as the same as open courses or open education. Bali et al (2020) means that OEP has multipel forms of openness and that openness is not only OER, which I’m starting to understand now.

I was listening Maha Bali on the webinar on 30th of March and she compared openness and knowledge with water – it flows, it get it’s way past obstacles and it should be free. I agree that knowledge should be available for all to get more equal world. Cronin (2017) means that we need to engage with the complexity and contextuality of openness to enable hope, equality and justice beyond openness.

Next part of the Roller Coaster is long downhill. I just hope it won’t go way too fast!

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Sources:

Cronin, C. (2017). Open Education, Open Questions. EDUCAUSE Review 52, no. 6 (November/December 2017)

Bali, M., Cronin, C., & Jhangiani, R. S. (2020).Framing Open Educational Practices from a Social Justice Perspective. Journal of Interactive Media in Education.

Bali, M. Webinair 30th March 2022, ONL221 course

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