Experiential Learning meets Digital Cultures

or What does Paul Daniels say about my learning choices?

In juxtaposition to the E-learning and Digital Cultures MOOC #edcmooc course (which I understand is now 260,000 students strong), I am also undertaking a Postgraduate Certificate in the Delivery of Soft Skills and Experiential Learning #unipgcert with just 11 other students.

I have often not enjoyed my experiences of "Experiential Learning", and I have used the technique even less in my own classroom-based training.  To some extent I object to the name - as someone who teaches Twitter on Twitter, I think you can't get more experiential than that!  But this is about mowing down my pre-conceptions, ignoring the bad practice and poor training I have experienced, and focussing on how to get real "aha!" moments of self-awareness to occur in a pre-planned environment.  That's got to be a good thing :)

At the moment I feel that the two courses relate to each other like this:

or in the words of Paul Daniels "not a lot". 

I'm looking forward to mixing and matching my learning in the pursuit of creating a learning curriculum that develops social media business skills, whilst at a meta-level ensures experiential opportunities to develop the qualities and skills expected of 21st century employees.

The buzz has started early

If this course never starts, and the only thing I get from it is what's happened so far, it's already been worth it.  I've met so many people who do what I do for a living, who "get" learning, and of course, who are constant learners themselves.

I was as surprised as Kyle Bettley to receive my welcome email a good two months plus in advance of the course starting, but it does make sense.  Especially when we all need to make ourselves familiar with so many platforms, and I know that the online amplification may well introduce others to the course in good time to plan it in to their diaries, so it makes sense on many levels.  And of course we all want to talk about learning!  We can't wait to get stuck in.  So we're being encouraged to do so.  Fab!

I've set up a Twitter list of all early contributors here: although simply searching on #edcmooc will allow you to see the conversation, looking at all the members of a list on one page is like going to a party where you know you want to speak to *everyone*!

And my learning experience has already started:

I have offered technical support to a fellow #edcmoocer in Spanish (thanks to Google translate):

I have learned about Synchtube for watching videos and commenting, which was new to me.  And of course there is this, my first Blogger blog.  I'm teaching Wordpress tomorrow, so in the spirit of learning have abandoned the comfort zone of WP for the strange climate of Blogger.  Here's to new learning experiences, to new colleagues and friends, and to #edcmooc !