Starting Point
Relevant experience
Formal:
- Twenty years experience working in the education/elearning sector
- MA in Online and Distance Education
- Helping eLearners Learn Online (HeLLO) – learndirect course
- Three years experience as an online learndirect tutor
- BA(Hons) History
- B/TEC HND Graphic Design
- Work experience as a graphic designer, illustrator and web designer
Informal:
- Long time interest and involvement with Free and Open Source Software community
- Experience of web design and development
General Interests:
- Politics
- Creative writing
- Illustration
Voluntary work:
- School governor
What are the learning steps my path requires?
Content and skills to master:
- Research skills
- Academic writing
People or organizations that may become a part of my quest:
Courses I want to take
- This course
- An other P2PU course (for the experience of DIYU)
Groups to join
- Social Learning Centre
- DIYU/Open Education forums and discussion boards
- SocialLearn
Specific books, etc.
- DIYU by Anya Kamenetz
- The Edupunk’s Guide to a DIY Credential by Anya Kamenetz
- Communities of Practice by Etienne Wenger
- Digital Habitats by Wenger, White and Smith
- Doing a Literature Review by Chris Hart
- Social Learning Centre
- Open Ph.D
- battlecat.net
- Pippa Buchanan: Learning Learning
- Better learning & teaching projects
- M. P. Staton
- Stephen Downes
- Weezie Yancel-Siegel
- Wendy Dunst
- Devin Fraze
- Open Learning Initiative
- SocialLearn
- Zero Tuition College
- cloudworks
Set milestones and be specific
This will be a long-term project lasting a few years and these milestones will no doubt change as I progress and become immerse in the subject.
- Literature review
- Broad areas of research:
- Communities of practice
- Theories of online learning
- Mutual aid and cooperation
- Free Software development and their communities
- Post grad research methods
- Complete a P2PU course
- Research existing or comparable schemes
- Extrapolate a model for sustainable open education from the research
- Put into practice model for sustainable open education
- Dissertation
What are the experiences I want to pursue as part of my learning?
I think the most important thing I want to experience is to be part of a rich and active community.
I have been involved in eLearning for a long time, both in a teaching and learning capacity, but only very rarely felt part of a rich and active community.
I think the reason for this is that I am usually only involved in quite short term projects with specific ends rather than long term open ended projects.
Of course, I also want to learn new skills and acquire new knowledge, and hopefully create new knowledge.
If nothing else, I want some intelligent conversations with interesting people.