My Profiles reflections - was it Wiki'd?

At the beginning of our course, we had to complete a personal profile template about ourselves, and post it on a wiki.  The profiles were to be used to enable us to get to know the 100-odd (and believe me, some of us are odd) other students on our course, with a particular view to working with them on a Learning Theories task (more of which later).  Straight in with real "show and tell" connectivism learning task.

I was pleased that there was a template.  It's often difficult to know how much to write about yourself (if you haven't noticed yet, I talk a lot); what to say; what might be interesting or relevant.  I'm sure some learners did not like the template - scaffold might mean supportive structure to some, but a public execution to others.  If there hadn't been explicit permission to lie about your age, I'm sure some of my cohorts would have been even less comfortable.


The template was useful in that it had room for some personal information not related to our educational backgrounds or our experience of ICTs.  It appeared a good deal of thought had gone into the design so as not to alienate the more shy learners out there.

It was interesting to notice what sort of profiles I was 'attracted to', on a purely professional basis of course (there were no photographs ;o).  It was a bit like RSVP for class mates, rather than life partners.  Was I turned on by someone's writing style, or humour, or turned off by someone's poor spelling (attention to detail) or apparent lack of technical know-how?  Did I want to partner someone who appeared to know more than me, or less than me?  How had I made such decisions previously, and how had those decisions panned out?  Behaviourism?  Cognitive construction?

In and of themselves, whilst the profiles were a good start, they were not as useful alone as when viewed alongside people's blogs and first postings.  The blogs gave much more of an idea of personality and technical ability.  They also detailed how far a learner had progressed with the week's tasks and, in some cases, showed their preferred learning styles or Multiple Intelligences (see my early posts below).  I found myself attracted to those who chose not to answer the set course questions, but rather to discuss them more generally, those who analysed, reflected and evaluated the materials they'd been pointed to, rather than just listing and summarising.  Little did I know, I was being attracted to the HOTties out there - the Higher Order Thinkers (Bloom's Taxidermy ;o).

There was a real diversity out there.  Some learners had not progressed much at all, whether down to time or computer availability, speed of learning, or their reflective nature.  Others were galloping ahead.  All of these factors enabled me to make informed choices of potential study partners, to form a short list.  Should I call the HOTtie first, or wait to see if they contact me?  Should I get my friend to pass them a note saying I'd be interested in partnering them?  It was like being back at school, more particularly, like being back at the school disco (see the tongue in cheek related blog below).  What if I asked someone to dance and they said no?!  It happened back then, and it happened again (metaphorically speaking - she wasn't really washing her hair) during this exercise.  I'm proud to say I coped with it better 30 years on.  That's progress.