In reflecting on week 1 I found a few aspects of e-learning that were important so that students could develop a learning community. I think that by creating a community, students feel safe to share, reflect, and learn. In developing that community, I found it important that an ice-breaker allows students to find commonalities not just socially, but intellectually as well. The typical ice-breaker of 'tell me about yourself' seems to be a useless way to learn information about others as the responses are fairly generic and do not lend themselves essential to the community process. I typically do not like generic ice-breakers, and I find myself having a great deal of anxiety over ice-breakers. In the online setting, it's difficult to know to share. In my earlier online classes, I would share that I have a 17 year old and I've been teaching for 16 years. I found that alienated me from my online classmates as most of them were college aged students. With the more unique, sharing a favorite movie and explaining why that movie was important, gave us all a glimpse into the type of person with whom we were interacting. It would be more difficult to alienate students based on favorite movies, so I jumped in to this activity. Even though I did share that I have a 17 year old, this ice-breaker created a safety zone for me. It was also neat to see who liked humor, who enjoyed history, or who had younger or older children, or even grandchildren. This ice-breaker gave us a fun and social way to connect with each other.
Not only was was the ice-breaker a great community building activity, but so was the simple request to add our location to each posting. I felt like adding the location gave us another chance to open conversations with each other. Not only could we connect based on location and experiences with those locations, but knowing where my classmates are located gives me a good idea of when they may be available for work due to time zones.
I found the ice-breaker and location request to be two tools that I would utilize in my e-learning environment. I think it is essential to build a community for learning to take place, and these two opportunities help in building that learning community. I would be interested in other ideas for ice-breakers that connect students.
Not only was was the ice-breaker a great community building activity, but so was the simple request to add our location to each posting. I felt like adding the location gave us another chance to open conversations with each other. Not only could we connect based on location and experiences with those locations, but knowing where my classmates are located gives me a good idea of when they may be available for work due to time zones.
I found the ice-breaker and location request to be two tools that I would utilize in my e-learning environment. I think it is essential to build a community for learning to take place, and these two opportunities help in building that learning community. I would be interested in other ideas for ice-breakers that connect students.