HANG's

ORIGIN POST

Topic 2 readings are suitable for me to read due to the current pandemic. And also, the learning resources we could find on the internet are really opening my eyes. the frequent use of the online platform on teaching convinced me that open and distributed learning is the future trend.

Students like me are hard to resist the convenience of online education platforms such as zoom and brightspace. These type of platform creates a relatively flexible timetable for students. To me, online learning is a gift from the internet, I remember the time when I have to ask classmates or run into the library to search for homework answers, now, I just need to tap on my phone and google for the answers I need, there are tons of youtube videos showing me how to get my answer. Platforms like Youtube, are so useful for students as they could post their learning videos, teaching videos or a video essay to share their learning with others. For example, Khan Academy on Youtube, almost every time I encounter homework difficulty, I go on youtube and search for him, his videos are made by many instructors, and all of them are free to watch again and again until I am finally clear with the topic I am learning. Therefore, although these types of platforms were not made for educational purposes, I find them very effective and have a high value for educational purposes.

According to Major (2015), a good approach is important to open and distributed learning. Major use an example of using social media to teach online. I find that example (Howard Rheingold) very interesting and effective for students and instructors. In this example, Howard used a hybrid approach, which is a mix of face-to-face and online interaction, to teach his students as it allows his students to easily access their more natural as they use the social media they use in their everyday lives. To me, it is quite an effective approach as I feel more casual to communicate with my professor through social media. I have taken many courses online since the pandemic, most of the professors of those courses used tools such as zoom to try to reconstruct face-to-face lectures and use brightspace to post courses materials. I find it more convenient for me to learn as I could ask questions during class time and send messages to my professor through email. Learning in an open learning course is a very unique and special experience for me, almost everything in the course has to be done through the internet, accessing any course material anytime and has a flexible timetable.

Despite the advantage of these conveniences, open and distributed learning still could not provide courses such as nursing, sculpture and courses that require practical practising. Additionally, doing exercise in class can actually help students to have a more fitting environment thus have better learning efficiency. If I am an instructor, I would arrange a schedule that allows students to practice and discuss with their groups and with me in-class and learn online through social media and online teaching platforms. In this way, I could encourage them to speak to me more causally and allow them to explore their imagination. Therefore, I think reaching the balance between online open and distributed learning and in classes is the key for instructors to hold as it determines the efficiency of their students’ learning.

The online learning platforms showed us the possibilities of learning, as they improve over time. they will help us to develop a better learning environment. After all, the internet teaching platforms are unavoidably the future trend of education.

Changes and additions

In this showcase blog post, I show a better understanding of distributed and open learning than I had in my original post. I used an example (Howard) to demonstrate how online platforms can provide a natural learning environment for students thus eliminating their learning barrier.

Reference

Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 76-108) 

To me, exams used to mean pain and sleepless nights, I hated exams so much as I always feel the pressure which made me could not do well on them. I would rather do tons of homework than doing a high-pressure exam. However, I changed my perspective when I reached the age of 15, when I finished my first open book exam, I was amazed by how I creative I could be, although open book exams are not open exam, still, since that open book exam, I beginning to think of the possibilities of an open exam where students are allowed to use their creative ideas; however, if an exam is being too “open”, then it might be difficult for instructors to mark. This week’s reading helped me to have a better understanding of Open Pedagogy.

In Defining OER-Enabled Pedagogy, Wiley and Hilton (2018) explain the concept of open pedagogy. By using the four-part test the authors give in the article, I can only identify very few courses I had as OER-enable pedagogy. EDCI339 and EDCI335 are the courses I considered as OER-enable pedagogy, both of these courses asked students to create and share their crafts on blogs, all of the posts can be helpful to those who might be interested in the topics and also to prove students’ understanding on the topics. Allowing them to comment on others’ blogs. To me, sharing thoughts with other students can be very interesting and also inspiring as they often have different and creative ideas compare to mine.

By the end of the articles, the authors presented us with some questions that need further research to answer, one of those being: “Do students who make their assignments publicly available demonstrate greater mastery of learning outcomes or show more enthusiasm for their work than students assigned traditional assessments? Why or why not?” To me, the answer is yes because students who are confident enough to make their assignments publicly available are often to be open-minded and willing to accept corrections, also knowing someone in the class has similar thoughts and ideas as themselves could encourage and inspire students to have more enthusiasm toward the topic.

References:

Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2018). Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4).

When talking about textbooks, I often think of the cost first rather than the knowledge they provide, I know that we can not put a price on knowledge, but it is just too expensive. However, the price of the textbooks is something I must pay for the purpose of studying in university, and plus, the textbooks are actually very helpful for me to understand the course material better, therefore I still consider textbooks as a good element for students and instructor, however; the advancements of educational technologies during this pandemic showed me the convenience of not needing to carry books to attend classes, which make me like the open educational resources even more.

This week’s reading is about open educational resources, and Mays’s A guide to making open textbooks with students. As a person who dislikes textbooks, I found this article pretty interesting, as it introduces the idea of open educational resources to me. To me, open educational resources are something like Khan Academy (my friend told me so), but I did not understand exactly why Khan Academy is an open educational resource. According to Mays (2017), the basic elements of open educational resources are remixable, reusable, revisable, redistributable and retainable. And thanks for Mays’s article, I understand the reason why Khan Academy is qualified to be an open educational resource because Khan Academy’s characteristics match the elements of an open educational resource.

I really like the idea of open educational resources because of their potentials and their convenience, to me, being able to carry all the materials I need for the courses is so much better than have to carry serval books to school. At my younger age, I had to carry 6 to 8 books per day to school, and I can sure that I did not enjoy those days.

I also agree with Mays’s thought on learning from learners. In my opinion, different from instructors, learners have a different perspective on learning, it also helps learners to have a better understanding of the course materials because they need to understand the materials well to teach others. I happen to have experience of being taught by my classmates. It is very helpful for me to understand because they can understand my struggles and know what is easier for me to understand the material. And I think that this could also help to share instructors’ responsibilities, thus helping instructors to teach their classes easier.

Reference:

Mays, E., & DeRosa, R. (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. The Rebus Community for Open Textbook Creation.

I find this week’s readings very suitable for me to read due to the current pandemic. I have taken many courses online since the pandemic, most of the professors of those courses used tools such as zoom to try to reconstruct face to face lectures, I find it more convenient for me to learn as I could rewatch the lecture, however; I know that it was very inconvenient for students who took courses that need practices and experiments. And I have 2 open learning course experiences (including this course). Learning in an open learning course is a very unique and special experience for me, almost everything in the course has to be done through the internet, I can access any course material anytime I want to and there is no class time. Personally, I love this learning style A LOT, however; I strongly believe that I do not have the self-control to follow the course schedule (August is a very busy time for me as I have some family business to deal with. And the second dose of the vaccine I took yesterday makes me feel a little dizzy, they are not excuses, I just want to tell you guys how lazy I am).

The pandemic has caused us great pain, but it has also created a huge improvement for the online learning platforms, before the pandemic, I did not even know what zoom is, and now, almost every student of UVIC knows and sees the improvement of online learning. I really believe that open learning resources can help us to develop a better learning environment even after the pandemic. And after reading the articles written by Regan and Jesse (2019), I know the ethical challenges we are facing and understand that the laws we currently have are not enough to protect our internet safety. I still have faith in ourselves and believe that the current laws will adjust and integrate just like the online learning platform we use nowadays.

The readings of Topic 1 help me to have a better understanding of privacy. Sadly, I did not have an “AhA” moment after I read these articles (because my brain is full of danger warnings and I am too busy thinking about how should I change my passwords). Privacy has become more important nowadays, however; it has also become harder for people to keep their privacy safe because of the internet. Before reading these articles, I thought I know how to protect my personal information when browsing the internet. I made most of my passwords similarly just because I am too lazy to think of a new password. I am also very careless about my personal information, it is very easy for any website to obtain my personal information because I did not realize the importance of my personal information (except my birthday, I do not know why I think keeping my birthday a secret would help me to hide my true identity), I underestimated the possibility of people stealing my identity to sign up for anything. After reading the articles, I realize how wrong I was and how lucky I was for no one stole my identity. According to Regan and Jesse (2019), technology has merged into the current educating system. It is necessary for educators and students to share their personal information when doing online courses, however, this situation brings up our concerns about our personal information’s security. I agree that using technologies such as zoom can help students and educators to have better learning and teaching experience, especially when it comes to the pandemic we are having nowadays. Therefore, it is important for educators to choose the technology used for the courses carefully to protect their students’ personal information. 

I am glad to see that educators are adapting the new teaching method during the pandemic, I think it is crucial for educators and students to adapt and improve their teaching and learning methods. As a student, I found that it is more accessible and easier for me to access the course materials and I can repeat my course recording anytime I want to. Although the technologies we used in courses create a very convenient environment for us to teach and learn, we can not overlook risk and ethical concerns for sharing our personal information on the internet, even on some online tools we think we can trust. 

In conclusion, These readings of topic 1 helped me greatly in understanding the importance of keeping my personal information secured and I would love to learn more about how we can achieve the “win win” condition when it comes to the ethical concern and convenience of using online technologies on education.

References

Regan, P. M., & Jesse, J. (2018). Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and PERSONALIZED learning: Twenty-first century STUDENT sorting and tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(3), 167–179. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2