#FDOL141 ‘s final day today and a new start @openfdol

new adventures image source: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/33699488.jpg

Dear FDOL friends,

The course is coming to an end. It is actually our last day today after 6 weeks. We really hope that the journey has been an exciting adventure for you and helped you learn more about Flexible, Distance and Online Learning while also experimenting and experiencing learning in an open course. 

Our FDOL141 webinar: Lessons learned and the way forward, was organised by Neil, Alastair and Stephan and took place on the 28th of March at 14:00 UK/15: CET 

The recording can be accessed at http://meet92084261.adobeconnect.com/p4kvqfh1dbq/

FDOL is now available as a stand alone open course and open educational resource. Feel free to use and re-purpose the course, parts of the course or the design. Remember that it is good practice to add the full creative commons attribution displayed on this course site and acknowledge the course designers.  

A BIG thank you to the whole team Maria Kvarnström, Neil Withnell, Alastair Creelman, Carol Haigh, David Bevington, Ebba Ossiannilsson, Mina Sotiriou, Paul Booth, Rachel Forsyth, Rebecca Strachan, Bernard Lisewski and Stephan Haas for all their hard work and commitment throughout the course as well as Sue Beckingham and David Hopkins who organised our weekly FDOL tweetchats and created additional opportunities for engagement and exchange. We wouldn’t have been able to do FDOL141 without any of them.

Thanks again for joining us open educators. We wish you all the very best for the future and keep in touch, ok?

Chrissi and Lars

#fdol141 topic 6: open educational practice @openfdol

opening up: what does this mean for learning?
image source http://www.flickr.com/photos/drriss/8115711646/

Dear friends,

We hope you are all well and have used topic 5 to learn more about supporting learners  and identified opportunities to enhance your practice in this area.

As we are now entering our last topic please reflect on what you have learnt so far and how this relates to your practice. Feel free to do this in our Google+ community and/or your portfolio or personal learning space.

In topic 6 we will discuss open educational practice and you will have the opportunity to reflect and perhaps identify opportunities to open-up your courses.

Some of you have enjoyed the last few Tweetchats and we are really pleased about this. We will be offering the final Tweetchat this Wednesday at 8pm UK time, with Sue Beckingham and David Hopkins. As this is the last Tweetchat it wouldbe great if you can all join in,  for further information please see fdolchat.

Finally, we hope that you can join us for a final course discussion in a webinar where we invite you to share your reflections, lessons learned and ideas for future development. This interactive webinar will use a variety of interactive tools (polls, shared whiteboard, chat and voice) to discuss what we have learned in FDOL141 and serve as a nice wrap-up session for everyone involved.
So book the time in your diaries and join us

FDOL141: Lessons learned and the way forward?

Friday 28 March, 14.00 UK 15.00 CET
Adobe Connect https://meet92084261.adobeconnect.com/fdol/

Let’s continue the conversation in our FDOL community!

See you all online.

The FDOL team

#fdol141 topic 5: supporting learners @openfdol

Helping others grow? What works?
image source http://www.flickr.com/photos/visualarts/2742331102/

Dear friends,

We hope you are all well and have used topic 4 to learn more about collaborative learning and communities but also identified how this all links to your own practice.

We are already entering topic 5 which is all about supporting learners and learning. It is amazing how time flies. We hope you have found FDOL useful so far. Further details and proposed activities for this week can be found here. Please share your experiences with others and explore effective support strategies that do or could work in your professional context. Remember our readings as well.

This week is Open Education Week! Please use this opportunity to share your thoughts around being an open educator and learner. Perhaps we could discuss this? Would you like to capture your thoughts around open education in a mini video clip and share with us? This would be wonderful! Feel free to come up with other creative ways!

Also, why not deposit an open educational resource to JORUM! The process is really simple. Give a little something back to the community and check out if there is anything useful there for you.

Some of you have enjoyed the last few Tweetchats and we are really pleased about this. We will be offering another Tweetchat this Wednesday at 8pm UK time. Join us for an hour of speed tweeting and find out what this is all about! For more info please have a look at fdolchat. This week we will be combining Tweetchats from the FDOL course and a 5-Day Open Education Week event. So there will be even more traffic than usual! This Wedneday’s Tweetchat will be led by Carol Yeager and Betty Hurley-Dasgupta – and the  hashtag will be #nwoer – please remember this when joining the chat on Wednesday.

There is also a surprise for you on the 28th of March. Our FDOL facilitators Neil, Alastair and Stephan are organising a giant hangout that day at 2pm (UK time) to celebrate our learning on the course. Remember to add this event to your calendar. More information regarding this will follow soon. We really look forward to seeing you then. 

For now, we wish you all a creative start into the Open Education Week and our FDOL topic 5. Speak again very soon.

The FDOL team

#fdol141 topic 4: collaborative learning & communities @openfdol

We can do this together!
image source http://farm4.staticflickr.com/3099/3210887316_daf8aa6c07_z.jpg

Dear friends,

We hope you are all well and have used topic 3 to learn more about flexible learning and pedagogies but also identify opportunities and challenges these present for your students and your practice more generally.

It is really lovely that there is so much activity in the main community space and that so many of you capture their learning in a portfolio. Groups are also making good progress and it is fantastic to see how their learning relationships are growing every day.  We would encourage you all to engage further in conversations and debates about some of the ideas and observations you share with others so that we can capitalise on each other’s presence and enable a rich exchange that will help us learn and develop further.

This brings us nicely to topic 4 which starts on Monday the 3 March during which we will have the opportunity to discuss collaborative learning & communities. We think you will find this topic very valuable as this is at the heart of the FDOL philosophy if you like. Please access further details about this topic through the above link and pick some of the activities that are of value to you and your practice. Remember that there are some suggested readings too which can form the basis of your explorations into the world of collaborative learning and communities, help you link theory and practice and inform your thinking and actions.  

Our next Tweetchat is this Wednesday with Sue Beckingham and David Hopkins at 8pm UK time/9pm Swedish time. The last 3 Tweetchats have given us the opportunity to be together synchronously via Twitter for 1 hour and have a focused conversation around a specific topic linked to the course. Join the fun this Wednesday! For further information, please click here.

The course presents a good opportunity to play with pedagogical ideas in a supportive environment but also to reflect on your own and with others on your learning and development. Be playful and try something new and share with us! 

Do you have an idea for an FDOL activity for this week? No need to wait! Act. Please see this course as a playground for active experimentation.

We wish you all another exciting week and see you online.

The FDOL team

#fdol141 topic 3: flexible learning in the digital age @openfdol

connecting
image source http://www.flickr.com/photos/pgcap/8004040989/

Dear friends,

We hope you are all well and have used topic 2 to learn more about digital literacies and identify how these relate to your current practice. Wonderful that many of you have reflected on your ‘Digital me’ and that there is some activity in the groups. Remember to reach out if something is unclear or you need help.

In topic 3 we will discuss Flexible pedagogies in the digital age and how these link to our own practices. How flexible are we and why is flexibility needed? What are the challenges? We have selected a small number of very interesting readings, some of them are literally hot off the press, so to speak. Please check these out as they will give you a rich flavour of where we are and where we might be heading.

Let’s continue the conversation! Remember to reflect on your learning and practice and share with the FDOL community so that we can develop our understanding further. 

Remember Sue’s and David’s Twitter chat on Wednesday at 8pm UK time. This is a great opportunity for focused and speedy conversation for 1 hour. If you haven’t tried this yet, consider giving it a go this week. More info about the tweet chats can be found here.

If you have any ideas or suggestions on how we could perhaps help you to enhance your time with us, please get in touch, ok? For example, you might like to organise a hangout or learn with a study buddy. All possible. Just make an announcement in the community area or let us know if you would like a facilitator to help you arranging something. We are just a message away and here to help. 

See you all online.

The FDOL team

#fdol141 topic 2 digital literacies @openfdol

What?
image source http://www.flickr.com/photos/tf28/6612293519/

Dear friends,

We hope you are all well and have used topic 1 to familiarise yourself with the FDOL course, the different spaces and started making first connections with peers and facilitators. We are pleased that many of you have started using the Google+ community space to introduce yourselves and started sharing current practices and experiences. 

As we are now entering topic 2, it will be useful to reflect on what you have learnt so far and how this relates to your practice. Feel free to do this in our Google+ community and/or your portfolio or personal learning space. Please also feel free to share your group work and portfolios in the Googe+ community and support each other with comments on each others posts.

In topic 2 we will discuss Digital Literacies and how these link to our own practices. Check this out for suggested activities. Remember you can fully contextualise and personalise your learning at any stage of this course.

Please remember, if you learn within a facilitated PBL group, to access your group space in Google + regularly and participate in related activities. If you no longer wish to be part of this group, let the group members and the facilitator know as soon as possible. Your facilitators will have already been in touch regarding group activities and you might have had your first Google hangout already. Let us know if you need further help, ok?

Let’s continue the conversation and start exploring opportunities to learn together!

Remember also our participants’ led Tweetchat brought to you by Sue Beckingham and David Hopkins, this Wednesday from 8-9pm UK time. Further info regarding this please click here.

Google+ is available as an app for iPhone and Android devices so you can participate in conversations on-the-go. Would you like to try this? 

We wish you a lovely week and see you online,

The FDOL team

#fdol141 topic 1 connecting @openfdol

together
image source http://www.flickr.com/photos/pgcap/8004078800/

Dear friends,

FDOL141 starts on Monday the 10th of February 2014. This is very exciting and it will be the third iteration of FDOL, an informal cross-institutional collaboration between academic developers working at Manchester Metropolitan Univesity in the UK and the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden. Additional facilitators from other institutions have also joined us and we are extremely grateful for this.

We would like to take this opportunity to welcome you to this open course and hope that you will find your time with us fruitful and engaging.

The course focuses on fostering opportunities for collaborative learning. Please check out the design page to get a flavour of how we would like to work with you. We are experimenting with different pedagogical approaches and know that there might be challenges but we are here to learn from this experience and value your feedback and suggestions. Please get in touch if you would like to share some of your thoughts linked to the design and how this works for you.

The first topic is connecting and it will give us all the opportunity to connect with each other, get to know each other a bit better and familiarise with the different tools we are suggesting. Please don’t feel under pressure to use all of them and be in all spaces. Take it easy. We would recommend to capture your reflections somewhere. Consider doing this in a digital portfolio which you can share with others. This will help you turn monologues into dialogues and conversations. Please have a look around the course site. The space where we will discuss and share ideas is the FDOL community. You will need a Google + account to fully participate there. The FDOL comunity can be accessed via the FDOL course site. The direct link is included here so that you can straight get there and say hello 😉

For further information about topic 1 and learning activities can be accessed here.

If you would like to join one of the available facilitated Problem-Based Learning (PBL) groups, please do this through the FDOL community. Remember, more commitment will be required to engage in a PBL group. Please think carefully before deciding. Our facilitators will also be present in the discussions and via Twitter, and support all participants, so please don’t feel that you will  be on your own (unless you want to).

And here are some very exciting news!!! We have two FDOL participants, Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) and David Hopkins (@hopkinsdavid) who will be organising a weekly FDOL141 Tweetchat, more details to follow soon. We really look forward to additional participant organised and led opportunities to engage beyond what the FDOL team has set up.

We look forward to learning together. See you all online 😉

The FDOL team

#fdol141 starts on the 10th of February @openfdol

Are you ready?
image source http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5052/5524669257_c5eefe7205_o.jpg

Hello dear friends,

Would you like to find out more about the pedagogy of flexible, distance and online learning? Are you interested in continuing professional development and would like to connect and learn with educators from around the world?

Register for FDOL141 the open course offered by educational developers from the UK and Sweden starting on the 10 February 2014 to experience open collaborative learning over 6 weeks.

FDOL141 is a great opportunity to explore the pedagogies of flexible, distance and online learning with colleagues from around the world in multidisciplinary and cross-cultural contexts. FDOL141 uses collaborative learning practices, an open problem-based learning approach and focuses on building personal learning networks.

The course will assist you in understanding and evaluating the benefits and challenges students and tutors face in learning and teaching in the digital age. It will help you develop effective strategies for designing and implementing collaborative learning offers in various contexts, support learners and create stimulating learning opportunities.

Participation is open to everyone and there are no fees or subscriptions required.

What are you waiting for! If you would like to participate, please register at https://fdol.wordpress.com/registration/

Feel free to share this invite with colleagues who might also be interested.

We look forward to learning with you!

Chrissi Nerantzi @chrissinerantzi & Lars Uhlin @laruhl
FDOL organisers

#fdol141 under re-development, date for your diary: 10 Feb 14 @openfdol

new journeys
image source http://farm6.staticflickr.com/5214/5387698880_1e49cd3b51_z.jpg

Hi,

Thank you for stopping by. We are very excited!!! We will be offering the next version of FDOL very soon. FDOL141 is an  informal collaboration between the Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching at Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) and the Unit for Medical Education at Karolinska Institutet (KI) in Sweden. Colleagues from both institutions will facilitate this course together with colleagues from other institutions. FDOL141 will be offered as a Flex CPD opportunity for MMU teachers and a continuation course in higher education pedagogy for KI teachers.

Teachers at KI who are interested to know more about FDOL as a continuation course please access the announcement on the Karolinska home page.

The starting date of #FDOL141 is the 10th of February 2014 and the course  will be offered over 6 weeks. The registration will be open soon. Feel free to subscribe to the FDOL site to keep up-to-date.

We are currently making modifications based on participants’ feedback, our own reflections and observations and recent research findings. The FDOL132 is preserved and made available here too for individuals or groups who would like to use this course format. The plan is to make FDOL141 a course that has a longer life as such it will be more flexible and could be used in a variety of ways.

We are looking at the moment for further developers and groups of participants from different institutions who would like to join us for FDOL141 and become volunteer facilitators.  These could be FDOL131/FDOL132 participants but also others who are experienced developers/academics and feel comfortable and confident in open online courses and have experience in such environments. FDOL141 facilitators would participate in the online discussions, comment on portfolio work, organise weekly Google hangouts and provide support to individuals and groups when needed throughout the course.

A webinar with all facilitators will be organised in advance of FDOL141 and you will also be invited to join the facilitators’ community which we will be using to co-ordinate activities and support each other during FDOL141.

Please add a comment below if you would like to discuss this with us or send us an email at openfdol @ gmail.com (without the spaces). You can also tweet us at @openfdol using the hashtag #fdol141.

Speak again soon.

The FDOL team

#fdol141 course site under re-development @openfdol

and a creative year to you all!

Please note, this site will be changing over the next few weeks as we will be working on developing #fdol141 which will start in February 2014. The current #fdol132 version will be moved to a specific page as we have done with #fdol131.

Thank you for your patience. We hope that some of you will join us in the New Year.

Chrissi and Lars