Yesterday, I was too tired to write, and I hadn't summarized my problem. I need a glossary of PLE vocabulary, and another of Internet.2 vocabulary. People are giving me good advice, and I am not comprehending it.
When I was little girl, my mother signed me up for ballet lessons. I liked the teacher, and enjoyed the dancing, but I was experiencing a culture-shock (not that I knew the term). From time to time, when Mr. Ballai gave an instruction, words would blank out (as demonstrated by the teacher's WHAA-WHAAs in Charlie Brown movies). I could not understand what he wanted. But I could see what the other girls did and do it, too. Still, it bothered me that I had suddenly become unable to understand something.
One day, my mother bought me a book about Ballet. It was called Places, Please. The first sentence explained my problem. It said, "The instructions in Ballet are in French." Aha! French. So I was trying to understand them in English, but they weren't English. The slim book showed all of the positions and gave their names. The next time I went to class, I understood the instructions. I was "in the know".
Every activity that we do gathers it's own vocabulary. If you know the vocabulary, you are assumed to know the subject. This is not entirely true. It is is quite possible to know some of the vocabulary and not be able to function as a practitioner. Con men use this trick all the time. By the end of this course, I want to know the words and be able to enter into the activities, too.
I think you are already doing a great job jumping in feet first. You are clearly reading some of the material, interacting with others, and writing about how you are feeling.
ReplyDeleteYou may not "know" the subject but you are functioning as an active participant.
The way I see it there are plenty of people in this course who are way beyond me in terms of how they see these topics. They are speaking about theory and practice and taking it to incomprehensible levels.
Then there are lots of people like you and me who probably had never heard the terms MOOC and PLN before a week ago. Who are all starting blogs for the very first time. And who all feel a little lost like we don't belong. We are still going to get a ton out of this course just the same! It will just be much more at our level.
Keep up the great work and know that you already have at least one person who thinks you are pretty awesome. :)