Assessed Activity 8.2: Reflections on DLT

This is the final post for this blog where I will give my reflections on the course, what I learnt and liked about it and some thoughts on improvements that could be considered.

In my opinion, this was a highly practical course which will benefit me greatly in the future.  The course covered many useful digital tools which are helpful to create engaging online content and these tools are indispensable for any IT professional as he/she would have to generate some digital learning content at some point in his/her career.  The course also helps to bring someone out of his/her IT "shell" and to create an online presence through e-portfolios.  This too is crucial for careers in the 21st century where e-portfolios often lead to new business or career opportunities.  Also the course adopts a very "hands-on" approach to learning, where students are to put into practice what was taught by actually using the DLT tools.  One of the highlights for me was doing the course assessments via a blog (this one) and posting comments in my classmates blogs (example here).  It certainly was a unique way of designing an assessment!

 

I felt that the topics were well covered, content was relevant and current and I would definitely recommend this course to others.

 

Assessed Activity 8.1: Online Courseware

One of my favourite online courseware sites is that of MIT's Open Courseware. Currently ranked the top university in the world, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has made available almost all of its courseware materials free on the web.  Topics range from business to engineering and the social sciences.  Courseware materials are available as video lectures, lecture notes and online assessments.  Check it out!

Assessed Activity 6.1: My E-Portfolio

E-portfolios often contains a person's professional background, education and might showcase some work samples that have been done.  Through an e-portfolio, one is able to connect to other professionals in similar areas of interest or research worldwide.  This could ideally lead to opportunities for work, business and the like.  It is becoming increasingly common for employers to request a prospective employee's LinkedIn profile and a modern job-seeker would do well to at least have one before applying for jobs.

And here is my LinkedIn profile and online CV:

• LinkedIn
• CV

Assessed Activity 5.1: Personal Learning Networks

The internet is chock-full of sources for information, but one must be mindful of the reliability of these sources.  With the ease of setting up websites and blogs, anyone can claim to be an expert in a particular area and dish out information that the masses lap up being none the wiser.

Bearing this in mind, I ensure that all information obtained from the internet come from reliable sources before deciding to act on them.  The credentials of the author, readership of the site and comments made by the public are important factors to consider.  Otherwise it'll just make for leisure reading.

There are some online sources that I use on a regular basis and have mapped these in my personal learning network:  

Facebook serves as my resident portal to note interesting things I have come across whilst on Wikipedia or Youtube and depending on the usefulness of the information, it might be shared with others on my Facebook list.  Otherwise I would just keep it private to be revisited later.

As per Joyce's recommendation, I am also exploring Evernote as a tool to store and share information.  On the cloud and available as a mobile app, it seems promising to consider using it for the long-term.