Watching “The Saylor Foundation: Connecting the Dots” and how they add learning design to #OER. via #ocTEL https://t.co/1OrXLf8NN7— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) June 17, 2014

#ocTEL this week, “The goal of many instructional systems is to facilitate the transition from feedback to self-monitoring.” – Royce Sadler— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) June 03, 2014

#ocTEL Week 4: Reading “Effective Assessment in a Digital Age” from JISC. http://t.co/CdUV6wn4Td— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) June 03, 2014

@gotanda I stayed in the box! Next time, I’ll push the boundaries a bit. #octel— damon_tokyo (@damon_tokyo) May 20, 2014

@damon_tokyo Right! 20 minutes isn’t much time to get something done, but can also be hard to find. Think students with doz classes. #ocTEL— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 20, 2014

. @Kerr63 Just signed up at plot.ly. Looks very cool. Learning new stuff like this is why I like #ocTEL so much. cc #coetail visual literacy— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 20, 2014

30 people checked in for #ocTEL Week 3 “Materials & Platforms for Learning Technology” so far. http://t.co/tnW90ftISR— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 20, 2014

Books suggested by Panos Vlachopoulos for approaching student directed learning in #ocTEL Week 2 Webinar. http://t.co/jwbD3C5Zjw— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 19, 2014

Watching #ocTEL Week 2 Webinar recording. “Learning design for student-directed learning” https://t.co/oMRmfRcuO9— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 19, 2014

This I like. Papers online from Edinburgh Napier Uni. Some Open Access. http://t.co/ovkGgHLqBk Found via #ocTEL.— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 19, 2014

#ocTEL Week 2-Understatement of the Year: “the notion of ‘learning styles’ is a contentious one” but what about “approaches to learning”?— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 18, 2014

@gotanda I agree. And there is not the distraction of the live chat. #ocTEL— Moira Sarsfield (@msars) May 13, 2014

Much prefer the YT recording of #ocTEL webinars. Can pause, read, think, return. Break up chunks over a busy week.— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 13, 2014

Still watching #ocTEL Week 1 Webinar: https://t.co/f3DaiRvRTx Prompted thought: Need students on next elearning/tech cmte I join.— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 13, 2014

Finally starting #ocTEL. But @gotanda Webinar Week 0: “There is no such thing as being *behind*.” Informal learning and autonomous PD.— Tharindu (@Tharindu__) May 10, 2014

@gotanda @Bali_Maha @S_J_Lancaster LinkedIn is used by some employers as a search engine to locate graduates as the sole tool. #ocTEL— Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) May 07, 2014

@gotanda @Bali_Maha @S_J_Lancaster I received an invite to present in Denmark through a recommendation of a LinkedIn connection #ocTEL— Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) May 07, 2014

Actor-Network Theory in Plain English http://t.co/dq59U1YmSG So, each of us is a net of techs, social interactions, & environments? #ocTEL— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 06, 2014

#ocTEL Week 1 Skipping fwd to Activity 1.3 “Champions and critics of teaching machines” http://t.co/xj7wNktKoY Player piano that plays you.— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 06, 2014

RT @damon_tokyo: #ocTEL Week1 down! Motivation still high. Here is my reflections post on the various activities we were given http://t.co/…— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 05, 2014

RT @gotanda: Watch @mhawksey @cogdog @twoodwar @boone talk Word/Buddy/FeedWordPress workings of open courses like #ocTEL & #ds106 http://t.…— yahaya Abdullahi (@mallpotiskum) May 05, 2014

RT @Kerr63: Download #ocTEL Week 0 readings as an eBook “ocTEL 2014 Week 0” http://t.co/3DhLzbsZqx via @readlists— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 04, 2014

RT @gotanda: Watch @mhawksey @cogdog @twoodwar @boone talk Word/Buddy/FeedWordPress workings of open courses like #ocTEL & #ds106 http://t.…— Martin Lugton (@martinlugton) May 03, 2014

Watch @mhawksey @cogdog @twoodwar @boone talk Word/Buddy/FeedWordPress workings of open courses like #ocTEL & #ds106 http://t.co/VmKnb7YpJH— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 03, 2014

During Wednesday’s webinar, someone asked asked about a recommended technique for identifying and forming groups of like-minded participants. The gist of my reply was that we don’t have a ‘silver bullet’ for managing this process online, any more than we do offline. Imagine turning up at the opening reception of a conference with 900 delegates. There isn’t a method for finding just the right people to talk to in the first 90 minutes. You have to go through an initial period of randomness and multiplicity of options, and then, maybe, at the end of three days, you’ve found a handful or two of people with whom you’ve made connections and learning strides. Probably you’ll also have a vague awareness that, if you had the time again, you’d have found a quite different set of people to talk to, sessions to attend, and lessons to learn. That’s life.

Starting a collaborative Open Online Course is a bit like that, but worse. In a conference reception, the laws of physics mean you can only deal with the people and conversations immediately around you; it takes time and effort to break off and start anew with someone else. Online, all the conversations feel close to you, and they can start to drown each other out, Babel-like. Other options are only a click away.

While the bumble bees and butterflies among us enjoy this buzz and the cross-pollination it affords, most of us find it a bit daunting. This is natural. Part of the advice is the same as if in a large conference reception: start with the people and issues in front of you, and work from there. More advice like this is in the guidance in the handbook (we may keep reminding your about this throughout the course).

If you feel a little overwhelmed at this stage of the course, don’t worry. Most of us do. It’s definitely not you that’s at fault, and I’d argue it’s not the course design that’s at fault either. I hope you take away the lesson that Emma Coles did from the webinar, “Seems I don’t have as many issues as I thought I did”. And remember the mantra that emerged from last year’s ocTEL (quoted here by Ted O’Neill, who is one of several people we welcome back, doing the course a second time):

Webinar Week 0: “There is no such thing as being *behind* on #ocTEL.” Informal learning and autonomous PD. #edtech cc #coetail

— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 1, 2014

Similarly, Steven writes from experience, “ocTEL is not my first MOOC, so I kind of know what to expect in terms of overwhelming experiences, getting lost, and finding interesting people to network with.” And Glenn’s take leads me on to the thinking behind the My Big and Little TEL Questions activity

MOOCS offer a great wealth of information, I think it’s important to think offline before diving in too deep, becoming overwhelmed or bogged down, what it is that I want to take from my participation in this course and focus on those topics. As too much information or reading too many topic threads causes me personally to overload. My phrase for this would be “break it down or break-down!”

Making it personal

Not quite break down, I hope. But the idea of using goals to break down and filter the course material chimes with what I was trying to say on Tuesday about using the Big or Little Questions as a guide to the rest of the course.  I’ve kept banging on about the value of refining the questions down to specifics — for example in comments to Hellie, Mark and Rose — but I’ve also come to realise that many people are using this opening week of the course as a way of browsing around and trying to decide what matters to them most. That’s fine. It’s probably best not to rush into detail. If you’re new to the area and just want to get a feel for it, Week 1 (coming up on Monday) will also help you do that. Also spend some time reviewing the resources we’ve provided (and which the super-helpful Jim Kerr has collected in a reading list).

Do keep honing your questions though. Last year we called the activity “My Big Question” and the emphasis there is on the My rather than the Big – if you focus on the big TEL questions for the world, you could take forever; focusing on the big questions for you will help keep your grounded and focused.

With that in mind, I liked Grant’s questions and Tim’s. In ocTEL 2013, some kind souls did an analysis of everyone’s questions. If you’re struggling for direction or inspiration, you may find it useful to have a look through these. Once again Jim has helped out with a preliminary analysis from all the questions posed in the forums. On a slightly different tack, have a look at Tim Leonard’s participation plan and consider whether something similar might work for you.

Blogs and other channels

We give you lots of discussion spaces in ocTEL and let you choose which to frequent. Don’t try and keep up with them all (you wouldn’t try and keep up with all the conversations at a conference). While others of volunteer tutors have been chipping in to the forums, I’ve been mostly reading what people have been writing on their blogs (here’s the full set so far). The reasons we most encourage you to post on your own blog are that

it can give you a sense of greater ownership,
it means the course comes to you rather than you coming to the course,
it helps embed what you pick up from the course in the rest of your professional life and development,
it leaves you with a portfolio of evidence that you control (the forums here will persist, possibly for years, but not forever).

So well done especially to those, like Julie, Grant, Russell, Meg and Glenn who’ve recently started new blogs to record and reflect their experiences on the course. Well done, too, to those who’ve take the opportunity to revive old blogs that (like mine) have fallen into disuse, and to those who have started their own online social spaces to exchange ideas about the course, including the Scoop.it collection and the LinkedIn group. If you have created anything ocTEL-related that you’d like to draw to others’ attention, please post in the comments below (as well as on Twitter with #iocTEL and so on).

@gotanda @damon_tokyo @raetzelo …you can get a sense of the complexity in http://t.co/6TF5OropGd 😉 #ocTEL— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) May 02, 2014

@gotanda @damon_tokyo @raetzelo comments on participant blogs in connectivist courses is the $1m question. @Gordon_L is 1 to watch #ocTEL— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) May 02, 2014

. @damon_tokyo OK! Now we have 2 different predictions. Data will tell. #ocTEL @raetzelo cc @mhawksey Break out posts vs comments on blogs?— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 02, 2014

RT @mhawksey: @gotanda @damon_tokyo @raetzelo comments on participant blogs in connectivist courses is the $1m question. @Gordon_L is 1 to …— Elizabeth E Charles (@ElizabethECharl) May 02, 2014

RT @MarenDeepwell: The open course you cannot fail – unless you fail to find something interesting: #ocTEL @A_L_T register at http://t.co/1…— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 02, 2014

@gotanda @damon_tokyo agreed. I’ll see if I can pull out some datasets for people to play with #ocTEL— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) May 02, 2014

@gotanda @damon_tokyo FB is a closed garden – there will be activity in there but we can’t access it from the #octel site— Martin Hawksey (@mhawksey) May 02, 2014

RT @gotanda: RT @KellyHinesDE: Love this sign hanging up in Guilford Co C Lab! http://t.co/jb6obZovQE #blendkit2014 #ocTEL cc #coetail— Paul Britton (@pbritty78) May 02, 2014

RT @gotanda: RT @KellyHinesDE: Love this sign hanging up in Guilford Co C Lab! http://t.co/jb6obZovQE #blendkit2014 #ocTEL cc #coetail— Scott Roy Douglas (@scottroydouglas) May 02, 2014

RT @gotanda: RT @KellyHinesDE: Love this sign hanging up in Guilford Co C Lab! http://t.co/jb6obZovQE #blendkit2014 #ocTEL cc #coetail— James Kerr (@Kerr63) May 02, 2014

RT @gotanda: . @damon_tokyo OK! Now we have 2 different predictions. Data will tell. #ocTEL @raetzelo cc @mhawksey Break out posts vs comme…— damon_tokyo (@damon_tokyo) May 02, 2014

@gdoug122 Try either atmark or hashtag. They don’t work in combination. So @ocTEL to get their attention / reply. #ocTEL to join the stream.— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 02, 2014

@gdoug122 You’re getting there. Just keep adding that #ocTEL tag to any relevant ideas or links you tweet.— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 02, 2014

RT @KellyHinesDE: Love this sign hanging up in Guilford Co C Lab! http://t.co/jb6obZovQE #blendkit2014 #ocTEL cc #coetail— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 02, 2014

RT @mhawksey: @gotanda @damon_tokyo @raetzelo comments on participant blogs in connectivist courses is the $1m question. @Gordon_L is 1 to …— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 02, 2014

RT @damon_tokyo: This is how the message is getting through at #ocTEL 2014 – chart of Course Reader. http://t.co/MtkJB4BAHx— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 02, 2014

“No rest for the wicked: Starting #ocTEL Week 0” First post-COETAIL post up at http://t.co/jh2tkFOQxh Big and little questions.— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 02, 2014

RT @gotanda: One point of badges in #ocTEL is to find peers pursuing/completing similar activities in the course. Discovery system, not re…— Matt Smith (@mattsmeeth) May 01, 2014

@gotanda Thanks to your tweets I’ve checked out #ocTEL MOOC–looks good. Second time around for you–great!— Holly Thompson (@hatbooks) May 01, 2014

@jswann @gotanda time zone differences do make it tricky but hopefully not a barrier to making new connections! #ocTEL— Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) May 01, 2014

RT @gotanda: Webinar Week 0: “There is no such thing as being *behind* on #ocTEL.” Informal learning and autonomous PD. #edtech cc #coetail— damon_tokyo (@damon_tokyo) May 01, 2014

One point of badges in #ocTEL is to find peers pursuing/completing similar activities in the course. Discovery system, not reward system.— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 01, 2014

Webinar Week 0: “There is no such thing as being *behind* on #ocTEL.” Informal learning and autonomous PD. #edtech cc #coetail— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 01, 2014

The #ocTEL course reader aggregates *everything* http://t.co/G0bi7dVStp— Ted O’Neill (@gotanda) May 01, 2014

@gotanda Watching #octel Week 0 webinar on YT too. Because, well, time zone #NewZealand— Dr Jennie Swann (@jswann) May 01, 2014