Why did I sign up for EmTechMOOC?

Exploring Emerging Technologies for Lifelong Learning and Success is MOOC run by the State University of New York. The focus of this course is to develop habits as well as to obtain skills for lifelong learning.

I enrolled into this course mostly because I believe that knowing stuff is cool, but I have never learned how to learn.

How did it go?

Week one

Week one was mostly about introduction to the course and instructions on how to use it. From actual course content the one thing I found most interesting were 7½ habits for learning.

  1. Focus on the goal
  2. Accept responsibility for your learning
  3. View problems as challenges
  4. Have confidence
  5. Build your toolkit
  6. Use technology
  7. Teach others
  8. (7½) Play

Week two

Second week was all about importance of communication and collaboration. It was OK, but I have heard all of it before and despite knowing how important it is, I am still really bad at both of these things. One recommendation included in this chapter was to get e-portfolio, which I had to do anyway, so I finally got one 🎉

Week three

Third week was supposed to be about creativity, but in my opinion it was mostly about creative platforms and how to choose the right one.

This got me thinking about how I approach this choise. While choosing tool, or creative platform, it is always important to proceed with clear vision of desired outcome and workflow. Tools give us ability to create but at the same time they also impose restrictions. For example I might prefer one tool over the other but if the first tool doesn’t have support for collaborative editing I cannot use it for collaborative project. This might sound obvious, because it is. Let’s take a look at different kind of restriction. Sometimes tools license limits how you can use the artifact you created with it and it is always better to consider this kind of restriction before spending hours on project you cannot release.

Week four

Fourth week was about critical thinking, digital literacy, media literacy and detecting fake news. The whole module heavily emphasizes importance of self-actualization and broadening your worldview in order to be able to properly analyze news articles and to develop habit to approach news as critically as any other media.

This module also mentions CRAAP test as a way to determine trustworthiness of tests message. The course materials don’t really explain what CRAAP test is, or how to use it. Instead there is link to article on Buffalo University Library website. The article is well written and while it is short, it breaks down CRAAP test in a way which makes this resource sufficient for application.

Week five

Fifth week was titled “summarize your learning” and as such it didn’t bring any new material. Overall I would say I didn’t learn anything new in this MOOC, not because the course is bad, but mostly because I have already encountered everything that was included in it in my previous studies at KISK. As always, at the end this lesson there was short quiz, this time on growth mindset and as always it was fairly easy.