#ocTEL - Week 0 – Expectations, Familiarisation & Practice

OK, so sitting here in Melbourne, Australia, I am not going to attend many (any?) live Webinars run in sensible UK times that would have me bleary eyed despite any good intentions to join in. So I aim to watch the recordings. The first one watched, and available as Blackboard Collaborate session or via YouTube:

     Learning the Ropes - ocTEL 2014 Week 0 Webinar

The tips I picked up to help towards answering my question of the previous post follow.

From facilitators and previous students or both:

Quote/paraphrase	My notes
Sue
No way can you even get through half the content	So no content curation?
Encourages engagement with others as more important	Therefore, connectivism?
Sue moderates Yammer for ocTEL	Link into this with my Yammer account.
Martin
Important to update your personal spaces online – which are pushed back to ocTEL community	Doing now.
If no blog, can join up with a group to discuss different topics, or use Google+, or bookmarking sites like Delicious, Scoop.it, etc.	Start a separate blog – i.e. this.
Points to the ocTEL ‘Reader’	Found it; it lists all linked up blogs, etc.
Elizabeth
Limit to ‘if I only do one thing’ activity to get some traction, and lurking is OK until find your feet	Good. Sounds achievable.
Groups this year look geographical, c/- last year which were job related	Hmmm; geographical I understand re time zones, but …
Have a big question, which may change/evolve from week to week, to help focus your pathway (and not get overwhelmed)	OK
E visited frequently, but in small time spans, 2-3 times per week after completing the ‘one thing’, to read, reflect, respond.	Good again. Sounds achievable.
Jim
Make a plan, a participation pathway, with own key questions	OK.
Example, do 30 minutes/day in ocTEL – no such thing as being behind	Sounds achievable.
Sandra
Got through ocTEL 2013 by mainly working  engaging on Sundays
Found what ‘everybody’ was saying was very interesting
Used forum on site (had no blog of own) and downloaded all (own?) work to reflect on post course	Handy, but I’ve purpose created this blog, so I’ll be able to access my stuff…
Found Twitter helpful	I’ve linked my Twitter; I better start using it for ocTEL instead of always doing political or movie Tweets…
David
Why does ocTEL encourage own blog? So you keep your record.	Good advice.
Badges – new feature this year
Martin
5 Badges within each week; different badges, some for credit just for turning up, another for completing the “one thing”, and more	Look out for and claim badges (I got 1 badge from early in the OLDS MOOC for completing Week 1 activities  & it gave me at least a tiny sense that I’d achieved something)
Benefits of badges include looking to see who else is active
Looking at providing ‘open’ badges, that can be used on own sites, etc.

Cool - I believe there is a badge to get now that I've watched to Webinar... quickly I go to retrieve now...