Distance period 3 and forward..

So much to do and so little time

Dear diary, I had to prioritise my tasks so I decided to leave learning diary as last thing..

There were three major tasks to do during the 3rd distance period: Familiarise the legislation concerning education, principles of learning and the first competence essay concerning learning community. The learning community essay I found the most hard. I had never been writing text this wide in English and about a topic that I knew almost nothing in beforehand! My topic was teacher's working community.

Essay 1: Learning community

The starting point was that I had to choose a topic that fits in learning community competence area and goes together with my group members topics. With that I did perfectly but in personal level it would've given me more if I could've invent a topic more concretely related to my teaching field. Of course working community is related to every field. Well I had to start with something since the time was running and I started to write 10 days before deadline. That was the first mistake but how was I supposed to know that this task should have been started in the beginning of the studies when I knew nothing? The second mistake was that I started to write without any plan or structure. And material for that matter. This made me feel a little bit of panic that I just have to write this no matter what. True, there is no other way to get things done then just do the hard work. And there's no better motivater then the final deadline Reading about the topic was interesting and now I know some basics about it but as a scientific work my essay didn't come out so professional. Well I plan the whole thing while I was writing it. The use of references was weak: I used the material that I found last minute, not the most new or reliable ones. I also defined my subject based on what material I could find. There was actually no time for reading the material through completely. But I passed. I got it finished before the deadline and we did a very traditional seminar presentation about it with my peer group. (boring talk blabla powerpoint).

It turned out that I have learned the competences of learning community at least ok. For the next competence essay I'll pick a topic much earlier and make a plan for the work and the material that I need. But now there's more time..

Principles of learning

The first task was to familiarise the main learning theories. We did this in group discussions in Mooodle and it went good. Then we had a group exam which I was a little bit scared of before. But it was very pleasant and I learned so much more that I ever would have if I had to do that alone. Luckily we had a summary about the theories made by Jari which we could use during the exam. This kind of groupwork I will use in teaching in the future.

So now is a time for Christmas brake, only one task to do before January. (exept that I should plan my PTT course) I'll get into that during Christmas days when there's nothing else to do.    

WEB-course

What did I learn?

Now we've finished the web-course. I found it useful, necessary even to me. Just to learn how to use the basic tools but also the final part of the legistlation and copyrights was needed. Well these things change so fast that it's probably impossible to keep up with new updates. I had never even heard about for example Creative Commons which seems a good service for teacher. Before I didn't use Skype or Adobe Connect, but now they seem easy way to contact people. So I learned the options that exist but I think I'll stick to basic stuff when doing PTT.

Distance period 2

Time flies

But I'm miraculously on schedule! I was almost devastated when I realized how much there was to do in this period. I still have to do one before wednesday. My peer group is so great. They give me ideas and it's much more easier to do the tasks as a group than all alone.

I'm glad that I took part on every presentation of WEB-course. Now I know at least what their talking about when I here the names of those web-tools!

I visited my PTT institute and I'll start to plan the course and my practice after the next contact days. I already have some ideas what I want to do.

Contact days2, PDP and so on..

The first distance period went fast by struggling with all the tasks and deadlines. But I made it, I think I got everything done in time.

I've learned that the contact days are very much essential in learning. I need that kind of support that comes from my classmates. It's always good to have face to face discussions with people and realize that they have the same problems as I have.

PDP-discussion with Katja

I was very confused before the PDP-discussion. I almost didn't even know what did all the parts in the PDP-form mean. But after the discussion it was more clear. I just have to think about it a little bit more before submitting the plan in Moodle.And start to think about the subject for the first essay. I have also talked with a teacher in Mustiala, Terhi Thuneberg. I'm going to be doing my PTT in Mustiala in spring time.

WEB-course 

I definitely need more routine to use Web-tools. I took part of Jukkas presentations about web-tools and I found it useful. Also this, just need to practise a lot on my own.

So I'm learning to teach

Wow.
I got into the teaching school. After first contact days I 'm still exited and still things don't seem too difficult.  The group is awesome. It will be very inspiring to study with different people with different backrounds. Everyone seem to be more experienced then me in the matter of education and teaching. Well maybe I can give something to them also, but I'm sure I'll be learning a lot from my "classmates".  That's how I thought after the first contact days.

Now the real work has started.
I allways thought that I'm good in english language and that I'll manage to study in english as well as in finnish. Yes I can, but reading scientific text in english about the field (education sciences) that I know nothing about whatsoever, is challenging. When I was studying in Mustiala 2001-2005, I was reading about topics that were already very familiar to me. Horses, to wich I've lived for my whole life. I started riding at the age of four.

I'm also very very bad at searching information. And I'm slow at using computer. Well I'm good at talking, telling stories and writing! Aren't they good skills at teaching too?

I'm a little bit worried if I can study enough without schedules in my day. I do everything in the last minute. That's how I managed before, did my homework in the bus on the way to school!

Examining world views and values   
 
So whole knew terms to learn and get in to my head. Ok, now I know the basics, at least what are they talking about. In our town library there was nothing in english about this section. But I read something in finnish and the rest from internet.

I've always thought that I'm open minded with cultural differences and stuff like that. I mean that I have friends from all over the world and so on.  My classmates seem to be really open minded and capable in communicating with different people. But where I was working before, there were people from various different countries. They weren't always so co-operative, for example if there was something to correct about in their work, they said the supervisor was a rasist. How can I be prepared if this happens to me in worklife later?