Jumping In

When I got an email about the MOOC called DigiFoot12: Exploring our digital footprints together, I decided to sign up. For me this was a plunge into something completely different, (Yes, I am a Monty Python fan!) I had never used Blackboard, where the weekly sessions are taking place, I do not understand Twitter, though I have an account, and quite a few of the things to be explored were new to me. But, it's summer and I have time to try things out, "get messy," as Detective Roberts says, and just play around.

Blackboard worked perfectly for me at the first session! I still have to get used to more than one thing happening -- the main presentation and chat going on at the same time. I feel like I missed some things. I like how open-ended the activities are. There are many choices, all with the same main goal of exploring the whats, whys, and wheres of interacting on the web and creating a PLN.

We have assignments each week. One of the first is to create a home base for my PLN: this blog is it. We are also to introduce ourselves to the class using a Google doc and to lurk amongst the information posted by our classmates. Lurking is an activity that I am good at and through my poking around so far I can see my classmates are an interesting group of people, many of them already very knowledgeable about digital footprints.

So, the experience so far is a bit overwhelming, definitely nonlinear, and fun as I dip my toe in. Isn't there a famous quote about the importance of trying things that scare us?