WK0: GETTING MYSELF PREPARED

1. What is your intention for this course (why are you here)? I'm here to learn about this approach to learning so that I can be more effective teaching online for my students. As I am by nature more constructivist leaning, the philosophical orientation of the cMOOC really resonates for me.
2. What issues do you think are important? Collaboration, community, personalization, self-directed learning, creativity, challenging paradigms
3. How will you contribute? Share any additional materials that I find, and, when I feel I have perspective to offer, share any thoughts that might contribute to the discussion. On a personal level, I am committed to making connections & documenting/reflecting on my experience through my blog.
4. How would you like to see community develop among participants? Not sure. I'm thinking it will evolve organically, but guess I would like to see respectful interactions, constructive feedback so that we all feel encouraged/comfortable enough to participate, as well as, concise thoughtful postings as there will be so much material to engage.
5. These types of courses are new for most people. In fact about 90% don’t even participate. How will you overcome the fear of learning in the open and the frustration of using new technology? How do you plan to courageously work through any setbacks, and not give up? I've been teaching technology for several years and so by now am fully used to the frustration it brings - I'm still here :0) I see this as a chance to play with some tools that I just havent had time to explore. My challenge is figuring out what tool or combination of tools work best for me in terms of capturing, organizing resources and documenting my learning process. I already feel that my fear of the open environment is subsiding - I just created an open public diigo group, About MOOCs, for this course. I'm challenged by the recognition of how stuck I am in a linear learning approach but open to confronting that. I'm intuitively drawn to the Chaotic domain, as described in Cormier's reference to Snowden's model, and agree this exploration of MOOCs fits best in this dimension, but am not yet used to working comfortably in it.