Archive for June, 2008
Monday, June 30th, 2008
Getting Started
Where to start? That is always my first question and most times also the most difficult one to answer. The CMALT experience hasn’t been different. It is never easy until we find our feet in the new challenge. It took me a while to understand how I had to prepare to this task. I read the papers, I did some online research about what had already been done, but still I wasn’t sure where to start. I was already keeping a blog as a reflection of my learning trajectory – I have been writing in the blogsphere since 2004 when I started my Master’s in Portugal- but somehow CMALT required something more. I just had to find out what.
After giving it some thought I decided I needed to develop a more complete online presence. So the first thing I did for CMALT – as especially for me as a learner and a learning Technologist – was to develop a more tangible online presence – of what I am and what I do. I decided to develop my own Personal Space - you could even say I have been trying to collect the coordinates of many of the places in which my learning occurs and takes shape in one single site. Is that what they call a Personal Learning Environment? I am not sure, but it looks personal to me, and it links to many of the venues in which I learn/ take part to learn.
Anyway, in first few months of the year, I made this site available on the web and it is where bits of me and of my learning journey come together. There you can actually find links to places where I am actively engaged as a content producer or a network/community/group member. I have also provided bits and bytes of personal information (just enough to make that space a little bit more “me”) and I hope in the future to be able to update it with other relevant links and information as I progress in my journey. What kind of links and information I am going to add to it in the future, I still don’t know. They will probably arise from my needs as an Educator and a Learning Technologist, as a PhD candidate, as a life long learner, as someone who is curious about the world and has the need to constantly look for new things, new ideas, and new connections.
So that was where I got my CMALT started: I got myself a Personalized spot where I present myself to the (cyber)world. Hopefully it will also represent well who I am, what I do and also where am heading to in my professional field.
And you, how did you start your CMALT? What it hard to get started? Or did you find it rather easy?
The next Step: was to start actually preparing my reflections based on he CMALT questions. I am currently working on the two first sections of the CMALT accreditation. Things are still a bit into draft mode. I will post about it sometime soon.
