Month: July 2022

After reading this week’s articles, I have a clearer distinction between distributed learning and open learning. When we post content on Brightspace, what we are doing is distributed learning. When we post content on WordPress, because some permissions have disappeared, all the public can view your content. This is distributed learning. 

However, in addition to knowing how to distinguish between distributed learning and open learning, I think we should also understand the word “open”. In the first article,  A guide to making open textbooks with students by Mays, the author introduces the concept and application of open education resources (OER). Compared to distributed learning, open learning provides equitable and free learning opportunities for more people. OER, on the other hand, refers to free and open digital materials that can be used and reused in their teaching, learning by both teachers, students and independent learners. As the 5 characteristics of OER mentioned in the article, anyone can reuse, retain, redistribute, revise, and remix. 

In the article, the authors focus on using OER as a free alternative to textbooks. As an economics student,  I had to purchase textbooks for some of the specialized courses I took because some classes require corresponding quizzes on the website. However, after spending tens or even hundreds of dollars on textbooks, you won’t even read them a few times by the end of the semester. This is definitely a waste. Also, some students will choose to use pirated textbooks to save money, which also causes copyright problems to some extent. Therefore, I think the existence of ORE provides a great convenience for students and also helps some students persevere through their university education.

In addition, OER also provides a way for learners to share their personal perspectives and contributions. The instructor guides students in exploring knowledge and creating course-related content through open learning and OER. This course model allows students to be truly engaged in building the course, greatly increasing their learning ability and motivation.

Regarding privacy and access, as Gilliard and Culik describe in their article Digital Reading, Access, and Privacy, digital redlining creates a degree of inequity and privacy issues while regulating student use of information. While reading this article, I had a thought about whether I still have access to some of the websites if I am not a Uvic student. I noticed that when I research some articles, I need to log into my Uvic account to access the university’s Library. Therefore, for people who are not Uvic students or teachers, they are not able to access some websites, and this will definitely create unfair of getting information. On the other hand, when we want to access some information, the existence of “filters” also makes some websites blocked from searching because they contain sensitive words. But these information restrictions are like an invisible wall that creates a “new world” in the existing online world, isolating students from the outside world.

References

Mays, E. (Ed.). (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. Rebus Community.

Gilliard, C., & Culik, H. (2016, May 24). Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. Common Sense Education.

Part 1: Evidence and Reflection of My Learning

Outcome 1: Describe the potential of human-centered learning in distributed and open learning contexts

Throughout this course, I read articles, wrote blogs and participated in group communication to meet this learning outcome.

I think the key elements of human-centered learning is to pay attention to students’ individual differences, to teach them according to their aptitude, to protect students’ desire for knowledge and to change teaching methods. Also, I think the “human” in human-centered is not only student-centered, but also includes teacher-centered.

In Topic 1, we read Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry by Vaughan, Garrison and Cleveland-Innes, and discussed blended learning. In this part of the discussion, I argued that with blended learning, there would be less interaction between students and teachers, which might affect the teacher’s attention to the student. My group members gave similar views on this opinion and suggested different solutions.

Outcome 2 & 3: Explore and engage with current literature on the distributed and open education movement & Critically reflect on and articulate concepts around modality, pedagogy, and access, including distributed and open learning theory, online and open learning history, privacy laws, online learning communities, open research, and open data.

In topic 1, I read the article Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: twenty-first century student sorting and tracking by Regan and Jesse. I discussed FIPPS-based privacy protection.With the popularity of Internet applications and people’s reliance on the Internet, personal information is under great threat. As a university student, when we use the Internet to study, we should learn to protect our personal information effectively and improve our awareness of Internet security. 

Besides that, we also did a FIPPS-related quiz to help us better know how to keep personal information secure.

In week 2, we learned about the difference between distributed learning and open learning

In Topic 2’s article Teaching Online—A Guide to Theory, Research and Practice, I learned about the 5 components of online learning, enrollment, amount, timing, platform and pathway. With the examples of different structured online courses in the article, I also gained a better understanding of several of these elements and showed them in my blog.

In addition, the second week’s article Openness and Education: A beginner’s guide also taught me the concept and history of some words, such as open education, distance education, open education resources and so on, although I did not reflect this part in my blog.

This part of knowledge also helped me with our group assignment. We created a virtual character, Jackson. And our task was to create an effective and appropriate learning program for him based on his personality and reality. During creating the chart, my group members and I compared the similarities and differences between face-to-face, distributed learning, and open learning, and analyzed the impact of different learning styles on Jackson.

Outcome 4: Examine and reflect upon the potential for equitable access for all learners in online and open learning contexts.

In topic 1, when talking about personal information protection, I pointed out that categorizing students through big data to create personalized learning could lead to the inequity or discrimination. But my group member, Oliver’s response reminded me. About how to ensure equity in learning opportunities, there is no absolute equity. All we can do is combine online and traditional courses to meet the needs of most students.

In topic 3, we read about digital redlining. I found that while digital redlining is effective in protecting students’ online environment, it also restricts students’ freedom of access and creates inequitable access to information. After I read other members’ blogs, I found that Zhaohan Tan had a similar, restricted access experience as I did. 

Overall, I argue that learner equity is limited in the context of online and open learning. However, this limitation is not completely negative, as it protects students’ personal information.

Outcome 5: Conduct research into and critically reflect upon emerging and future educational technologies

In the Topic3 article, we got to know what OER is and learned from it the benefits that OER brings. OER providing free and easy access to educational resources for all. However what really made me think deeper was the content of Topic 4. While reading the article, Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy by Wiley and Hilton, especially the part of the article about renewable assignments, it made me connect the reading material to the course itself. My blog has likewise inspired my pod members.

Outcome 6: Practice digital, networked, and open literacies in support of learning about distributed and open learning

Throughout the course,I used various software to achieve this outcome.

In the first week, we used LMS platform, Brightspace to discuss. We introduced ourself, and took quiz.

After Topic 1, we post our thought on WordPress, which is an open learning platform, everyone can view your blogs and comment. It’s also a shift from distributed learning to open learning.

Communication with group members is done through Mattermost and Discord. We share our blogs and discuss group assignment on it.

We also used google doc to write our group assignment.

Part 2: Showcase

Link to updated version of the post: https://zmjudy.opened.ca/topic-3-open-edu…l-reading-update/

Link to the original version of the post: https://zmjudy.opened.ca/topic-3-discussion/

The changes made along with reasons why the changes were made：

Firstly, I corrected the spelling errors in the original blog. e.g. ORE -> OER

Then, regarding the OER section of the blog, I added the concepts and characteristics of OER, as well as relevant examples. After reading the comments on the original blog, I added a description of how OER can help students contribute knowledge.

About the section on digital redlining, Weng’s comment gave me new ideas. So I rethought the impact of digital redlining on non- university students.

References

Gilliard, C., & Culik, H. (2016, May 24). Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. Common Sense Education.

Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017). Openness and Education: A beginners’ guide. Global OER Graduate Network.

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)

Mays, E. (Ed.). (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. Rebus Community.

‌Morris, S. M., & Stommel, J. (2018). An urgency of teachers: The work of critical digital pedagogy. Hybrid Pedagogy.

Regan, P., & Jesse, J. (2019). Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: Twenty-first century student sorting and tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(3), 167-179. DOI: 10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2

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

This week’s reading made me think deeply about open education resources(OER). Many of the examples in the article demonstrate that OER-enabled pedagogy not only engage students more actively in learning and building knowledge, but also offer assistant for subsequent learners. 

I really like the word “renewable assignment” that is mentioned in the article, where assignments can support individual student learning and create follow-up value. For most students, after a course is over, the content learned is useless because it won’t be used in later courses. However, if the purpose of learning a course is just to complete assignment and pass the exam, then the meaning of study is lost. Therefore, I think that the OER-enabled pedagogy allies students to learn more deeply than traditional teaching method. Since when a student creates meaningful works, he should master relative knowledge completely, so that he can design questions or give explanations for other students. This can do nothing but improve students motivation toward studying and the quality of teaching. 

Going back to the course EDCI339, whether reading articles and posting ideas in the form of blogs, or exchanging opinions through comments, these methods help us create value for others while learning knowledge. Looking back to the first week of the class, the survey about whether or not to agree to public blogging is what made the class so “open”.

After reading this week’s articles, I have a clearer distinction between distributed learning and open learning. When we post content on Brightspace, what we are doing is distributed learning. When we post content on WordPress, because some permissions have disappeared, all the public can view your content. This is distributed learning.

In contrast, open learning provides more learning opportunities for more people, not just for university students. Open education resources(OER) provide a more affordable learning environment for students. The high cost of textbooks is often prohibitive for many students, especially for students with difficult financial condition, the cost of completing higher education is enormous. OER, on the other hand, not only provides students with a free alternative to high-priced commercial textbooks, but also, allows them to share their views and ideas and contribute to knowledge. For teachers, ORE is making instructors rethink their teaching methods so that more students can persist and succeed in their secondary education.

With regard to privacy and access, as Gilliard and Culik describe in the article Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy, digital redlining creates a degree of inequity and privacy issues while regulating students’ use of information. Sometimes, when we want to access some information, the presence of “filters” makes some sites with sensitive information blocked from search. These information restrictions act as invisible walls, creating a “new world” within the existing online world, isolating students from the outside world.

References

Gilliard, C., & Culik, H. (2016, May 24). Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. Common Sense Education.

Mays, E. (Ed.). (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. Rebus Community.

After reading this week’s article, I have a better understanding of open learning. In the article, online learning contain five elements: enrollment, amount, timing, platform and pathway. The elements included in different courses vary.

Of these five course structure elements, the one I am most interested in is enrollment. As mentioned in the article, the element of enrollment can be divided into closed and open. Closed enrollment tends to correspond to a traditional online course, while open enrollment expands the range of participants. In the examples mentioned in the article, open enrollment is also what most instructors choose when building an online course. I think of open education as actually making education available to everyone. Either university students or workers can learn what they are interested in through the internet.

In addition, the discussion of pathways in the article also made me think about it. The article talks about three types of teaching pathways: centralized, decentralized, and distributed. After reading this part of the article, I realized that distributed learning is more flexible than the centralized model of traditional online classes, but it also requires a strong sense of student autonomy.

Overall, I strongly agree with Howard’s point mentioned in the article that technology and tools only play a supporting role and do not teach you to learn, whether it is online or blended learning. Online learning are indeed convenient, but learner’s own effort is the main point. In addition, as online teaching technology continues to advance, teachers should continue to change their teaching strategies to better achieve their teaching goals.

Reference:

Johns, Hopkins University Press. Teaching Online : A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874.

As I read this week’s material, I thought a lot about mixed learning and personal privacy. Looking back on the past learning experiences since childhood, from pure face-to-face teaching in primary school to the blended learning in university, the teaching methods are constantly progressing. During the epidemic, most courses became online, and “the era of online class” opens. Now, as the epidemic has improved, face-to-face courses have resumed, but people have long been used to wearing masks to class. So in this situation where student-teacher interaction becomes less, as stated in Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry, blended learning should be explored in depth to create a more effective way of learning, and at the same time, teachers and students should share the responsibility of teaching and learning.

Moreover, as more and more teaching and daily contact is now done online, the security of personal information has become especially important. Yet the reality is that everyone’s personal privacy has long been collected and tracked with online learning. With big data, everyone is “naked”. While these data can be used to develop more reasonable personalized learning for students based on their preferences and learning progress, it also invariably categorizes students and even leads to problems such as discrimination. And as the article Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning says, “FIPPS-based privacy protection is both ineffective and theoretically unsound in the education context” (2016, p. 107). Therefore, I believe that when schools implement blended or online teaching, they should also protect students’ personal privacy to some extent. In this regard, after reading Acceptable Use Policies of University of Victoria, I think some relevant policies of Uvic are effective and reasonable.

References:

Regan, P., & Jesse, J. (2019). Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: Twenty-first century student sorting and tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(3), 167-179. DOI: 10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2

Vaughan, N. D., Garrison, D. R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. AU Press.