Sharing 2 Learn & Learning 2 Share

hi,

I am Cristina – a Portuguese living in the UK.  I am currently working at the University of Salford as a Learning Technologies Development Officer – whatever that means! . I work with academic staff, helping them to develop learning strategies with the help of the web. Blogging is definitely one of the approaches I hope to influence more staff to engage with. Right now I am also a big twitter and have become a fan of edu-webcasts!

I am really excited about being part of this programme, as it means to connect to people from all around Europe (and hopefully beyond ) ,  get to know more about what is being done in your part of the world, and collaboratively learn to excel.  I am sure we will learn a lot with each other.

Hopefully I will be able to contribute with some useful ideas too.  Using to web to teach and to learn may seem a little bit overwhelming at the beginning, but after we start to get to grips with it, we will enjoy what it has to offer us. I come from a non-technical background (languages and literatures) and still I have been able to use the web to communicate, share and even create in a non technical way. It has helped me immensely in my training as an educator. I must confess that I have even learned more from my online connections/networks/communities than I have from the formal training I have undertaken. When I have questions I ask, and I always find at least one soul who is willing to help me. Hence, the title of my space here: Sharing to learn and Learning to share – I not only share what I know; I also share what I don’t yet know. We all benefit from others’ questions and answers, I guess!

And that’s the beauty of the connected world! Online I have learned a lot in many ways and from different sources. Consequently I have been able to mentor my students and staff to do the same. Reaching out to others who share similar interests has made this easier. However, I feel I still have a long way to go. Don’t we always?!

I look forward to starting communicating and learning with you all. I am sure that together we will be able to work on the issues that interest us in a more relevant and supportive way.

So, let’s get started!