And so it begins

Welcome to my addled thoughts! This blog begins as a course requirement for my PhD. It starts as a learning journal where I record my musings, confusions, and learnings as I progress through a course with Clare Brett that "examines the theory and research that underlies constructivist learning and its historical and philosophical roots through exploring concepts connected broadly with the Learning Sciences like situated and distributed cognition and sociocultural learning theories along with other theories that have informed distance education and online learning in particular."

Whether this blog blossoms into anything else remains to be seen. I was a disciplined diarist from the time I could write until just over ten years ago. I see value in journaling  but am still rather uncomfortable with the idea of public journaling. It seems rather narcissistic behaviour. However, one can only grow through challenge and so I begin the challenge. 

On January 24, I scribbled down these notes as a contemplated what to write about in my Learning Journal:

quick thoughts that need to be flushed out

- if knowledge is constructed, where do facts belong? 

- Truth is relative, but 1 + 1 does equal 2 regardless of my biases, my previous knowledge, or whether I agree with that fact

- Does a teacher need to be a content expert? What role does discipline knowledge play in the method by which knowledge is constructed?

- pedagodgy vs. androgogy

Like my classmate Chris, I am struggling with the workload on my first online course. I am used to doing my PhD work on the bus between London and Toronto on class nights and then for a chunk of time on Sunday afternoon. The interactive nature of a discussion based online course requires that I log on frequently and write thoughtful responses to my peer's thoughts. I am spending four and five times more time in this course than any of the four previous ones I've taken. I am not sure I can keep up!

Perhaps that is just an excuse.....I have learned more in three weeks than I learned all last semester, so there is definitely a plus side to all of the work. 

And so, I begin with this post. A half start, tentative step, a pocket of intention....the kids want to go tobogganing, so I'll end here and hope I am inspired while on the GT racer and can come up with a coherent composition when the house is once again quite!