International University Carnival on E-Learning 2018

IUCEL is an international university carnival on e-learning, organised by the Malaysian e-Learning Council for Public Universities (MEIPTA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Higher Education. In line with the role of IUCEL that is to promote best practices in e-Learning, this annual event provides a platform for researchers and practitioners from all over the country or even abroad to share their innovations and best practices. 

Even though I didn't take part in the IIDEL competition unlike in previous years, I still attended this year's event which took place in IIUM as a jury as well as a featured speaker. 

It has always been a great experience to see what other researchers had done in their field of areas. AR is still significant I would say, as there were many contestants presented their AR-based materials during the judging session. Apart from that, VR can also be seen in some booths. However, MOOCs still dominated the overall participation - from my quick glance at least. 

Fostering Students' Meaningful Learning through A Community of Practice Approach: Make USE of MOOCs - that was the title of my presentation. I wanted it to be a light and easy sharing session. No statistics, no bullets in the slides. Just few stories and examples that are closely related to our daily experiences dealing with members in online communities - be it in MOOCs, or WhatsApp or Telegram. 

I also touched a bit on the dimensions of CoP - mutual engagement, joint enterprise and shared repertoire. It wasn't just an 'accessory' to lengthen the presentation but in fact, I considered it as the core segment. Without understanding these dimensions, one can remain as a common, superficial online community.  

It was a very short presentation, but I do hope that it may give an impact on the way others see how learning should take place in MOOCs. It shouldn't be in in the form of  isolated learning - a student sits individually in front of the computer and go through the modules one by one, take all the quizzes and done. Rather, it should be in a collective form of learning - students should be able to interact with each other, share what they did and seek for help and at the same time help out those in need. Learning should take place in a community-based environment. 

The 2 day event was fruitful. 
I listened to most of the talk sessions - presented by other experts in the field. It was informative, and made me reflected on my own practice in teaching as well. Well done everybody! I learned a lot from all of you!