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.