Going back to school is primarily about the learning, but it is also about realigning your stars; at least it is for me.\u00a0 Since realigning my stars is a large part of my goals of being in the Master of Arts in Learning and Technology (MALAT) program, then this week started me on the right path.\u00a0 Before the program started, my only goal was to start teaching full time.\u00a0 While that does remain a goal, the presentations from this week have opened my eyes to a whole world of possibilities in working in academia and the domain of open learning.<\/p>\n
The session by Carolyn Levy highlighted the variety of projects and locations that Open Learning can take a career.\u00a0 She presented her current projects that take her to other countries and each project has unique elements yet hold true to the scope of open learning.\u00a0 The term Instructional Designer<\/em> was new to me and this week certainly introduced me to the field.\u00a0 Carolyn asked, \u201chow do you guide as oppose to impose?\u201d (Levy, 2019, 19:57) when working with clients who know the content very well, but maybe do not have the ability to structure content that is relevant and current.\u00a0 It is the instructional designer\u2019s role to understand where the client is in terms of the project and guide him or her towards the final goal without forcing the plan upon him or her.<\/p>\n Something that I deal with consistently is the existence of, figurative, silos between groups within one company.\u00a0 I found that this issue came up throughout the symposium sessions. \u00a0Elizabeth Childs talked about this in one of her sessions; the fact that open has the potential of reducing walls between groups who have either similar or identical goals (Childs, 2019, 9:07).\u00a0 This idea gave me both feelings of hope and despair.\u00a0 I believe strongly that an organization should work as a whole and not create a \u201cthem and us\u201d structure within, if open can help create a united environment and move us closer to working as a team then let\u2019s do it!\u00a0 The feeling of despair comes from the fact that many of these silos have been in place for decades and it seems that experience employees teach the new employees to keep them in place. \u00a0I fear that changes will take a long time to implement allowing the reinforcement of existing silos.<\/p>\n Dave Cormier linked the idea of rhizomes and open learning (Cormier, 2017, 14:31) and the effect on learners.\u00a0 At first glance it seems that a rhizome learner would be an ideal leaner, someone who is bound only by their environments (physical or emotional), but in an open learning environment learners can wander off and it may be difficult to get them back on track (Cormier, 2017, 14:58).\u00a0 As wonderful as open learning looks, it is important to remember that there are challenges as well.\u00a0 Dave tied this together very well.<\/p>\n Overall, I found the week every enlightening.\u00a0 I managed to attend all the sessions live, except for one.\u00a0 While the recordings offered a great way to listen to the session I missed and the sessions from previous years, I did find that I got more from the live sessions.\u00a0 I am an interactive learner and I find that if I can get my hands dirty and really dig into the topic, I retain more and have more fun in the process.\u00a0 As Dave Cormier says \u201copen gets messy, you get the learning all over you\u201d (Cormier, 2017, 26:54), I cannot think of a better way to learn!<\/p>\n References<\/p>\n Childs, E. (2019, April 15). Openness and Networked learning in a MA degree. Retrieve from http:\/\/ow.ly\/fFHu50qnns9<\/a><\/p>\n Cormier, D. (2017, April 18). Intentional messiness of online communities. Retrieved from https:\/\/ca-sas.bbcollab.com\/site\/external\/jwsdetect\/playback.jnlp?psid=2017-04-18.0934.M.260AD3030AD273255B9B9C087E6864.vcr&sid=2009211<\/a><\/p>\n Levy, C. (2019, April 15). Designing Learning Environments for a Global Context. Retrieved from http:\/\/ow.ly\/PSyN50qn5QV<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Going back to school is primarily about the learning, but it is also about realigning your stars; at least it is for me.\u00a0 Since realigning my stars is a large part of my goals of being in the Master of Arts in Learning and Technology (MALAT) program, then this week started me on the right … Continue reading Virtual Symposium 2019<\/span>