Quote-A-Day: Day 177

Regular paradigm shifts are necessary to help us realize that there is always more than one way to see something. #QuoteADay #Day177 #edchat

I’m sitting in a training right now for Obaworld, a new course development system that we’ll be using for our Online Courses for the 21^st Century program.  We’re moving to this platform from a number of years of using Blackboard. 

I used Blackboard for many years as both a teacher and an administrator.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the tool, but I got used to the structure and the design.  It wasn’t the best for students or teachers, but like so many things in life, we get used to them and just “do” them.

Moving into next year, we’re looking to change portals, because it is time, and it stands to be able to benefit everyone.

We decided to move to ObaWorld, a service that combines open source design with social media functioning.  In the first two hours of the training so far today, I’ve learned quite a bit, and already tend to like this tool a lot better than Blackboard.

An interesting piece about this process is that if we don’t put ourselves into situations where our paradigms change, and change regularly, we tend to get stuck in a rut, doing the same thing over and over again, without really understanding why.

In order for us to become stronger at reflecting, we need to have different experiences to compare to each other.  By shifting our paradigms, we can make sure that we are always learning and (hopefully) always getting better.  And, by always experiencing change, we can make sure that we never settle for the status quo.