Pictures of connections

Thursday morning I woke to one of those work anxiety dreams – the kind where you show up late and inappropriately dressed (for me I showed up in a college class prepared to teach horseback riding - a past occupation). However I was glad to tune into a dream like that again, because for a while after my stroke I was not able to dream so creatively.   And, perhaps because I had been forewarned I showed up early and on time - including remembering to email and check-in with the online class.  However, when I looked at the calendar I because aware I had missed an instructor’s meeting on Wednesday – Drats! One step backwards, two steps forwards.

I have been reading the blog posts on blog posts from the other connected courses participants http://connectedcourses.net/ and became intrigued by images and videos of connected learning here is my contribution:  

This image I took of the lighthouse  in St. Augustine Florida reminds me of  how I used to think about learning (I was a computer geek, before the web).  Now for connected learning  hmmm ...  how about having steps connected to other steps, similar to hyperlinks.

But I suspect Connections are even messier, because we also connect through our first order connections, and sometimes connections are stronger or weaker, or involve (gasp!) feelings so become  messy and don't follow straight lines.

This is beginning to look a lot like the art  my children produced when they were young.  However have a look at this learning analytic graph showing engagement in online courses from onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com

Boy I am looking forward to this course!

Courageous?

Claudia posed an interesting question -  asking if I left out the adjective courageous when I declared myself optimistic.

I think that we tend to collect adjectives as we gain mileage and I also believe adjectives fall into two categories: 1) Self-imposed adjectives  and 2) Adjectives awarded by others (often not-positive -  think of the last person that cut you off when driving). I think courage, which most people consider a positive trait, more often falls in the adjectives awarded by others category. 

The people that I know who are truly courageous tell me it that when the going is tough, courage feels a lot like just putting one metaphorical foot in front of the other until going gets easier. A lot like how we deal with speed bumps.

So Claudia, I would answer you by saying I don't consider myself courageous. However I am going back to teaching today. I'll keep you posted.

Me at Fifty-three - hey it Rhymes :)

I’m 53 years old and have hit more than a few speed bumps the wrong way. But I am an optimist. 

The most recent speed bump was having stroke in May. I could not talk except a few words and I lost my left hand and portions of my left side.  It is September now, and if you were meeting for the first time you could not tell anything was amiss (see - I am optimistic!). I don’t drool anymore, and I as long as I am not tired I speak with good voice infection. I am still having trouble inserting post-and stud earrings, but I am working on that and anyways dangle earrings are fashionable. 

So … I am starting a course this Fall (possible speed bump?) called Active Co-Learning in Higher Ed  (opens in new window). It is time for me to figure out how-to create an online presence for myself – and the act of blogging and ideally being creative while doing this activity will help exercise my brain. I also want to share some life’s speed bumps, because I imagine there are a lot of us that have speed bumps along the way.

Initially I will use this blog for course-work, but as I get better at blogging I expect to branch out. I will place a connect-course label on posts related to that course, so it should (in theory) be easy to view or not view those posts. 

Welcome to this blog!