EDCI339 Distributed and Open Learning

Original post:

https://xinxinwuopenedca.opened.ca/post-4/

Updated and revised blog post:

https://xinxinwuopenedca.opened.ca/updated-and-revised-blog-post-4/

Pod project:

https://myblog.opened.ca/

Reflection on the TwitterChat:

For the TwitterChat held a few days ago, I think Twitter provided us with a free platform to exchange and share our ideas and thoughts. During the process of learning, discussion as well as mind collision is very necessary. TwitterChat can promote us to think deeply about what we’ve learned in this course and eventually summarize out our own learning by combining our own knowledge with others’ opinions and thoughts. 

In addition, by participating in the TwitterChat, I corrected many of my previous misconceptions about open learning and distributed learning and learn something new about online and open learning. At the very beginning, all of the members of our team had wrong understanding of these two concepts, until we received feedback from the email of the teacher and were helped by other classmates by chatting with them in Twitter. 

Furthermore, through the process of sharing the resources and ideas to support the online & open learning, it was a great way for us to express our own thoughts freely and learn from others’ opinions since the discussion was held online on a public platform and the resources could be accessed by all of us. 

As far as I am concerned, another advantages of TwitterChat is that we could get instant feedback from others. Imagine that tens of people were engaged in the discussion, as long as you post a question about the topic, it is possible for you to get instant feedbacks from others in the chatting group instantaneously.

All in all, TwitterChat was a helpful platform for me to discuss with many people on social media and a meaningful tool for me to get tips and information.

In Twitter, people can share whatever they like such as articles, tutorial videos, selfies, conversations and so on. Among these, articles, tutorial videos are educational resources and can be used for open learning.

There is no doubt that Twitter can be used to increase access to education. For example, people using Twitter can share resources, which can be regarded as  Open Educational Resources to a certain degree. 

Kay(2013) indicated that while some insist that a tweet’s 140-character limit can not be useful in the classroom, others encourage the use of the micro-blogging platform to promote discussion (“Props,” 2010), connect students outside the formal classroom (Stieger & Burger, 2010), assess on-going course assignments (Aspden & Thorpe, 2009), facilitate collaboration (“BETT,” 2010) and encour age continued informal learning outside of the classroom (Ebner, Lienhardt, Rohs, & Meyer, 2010) . That is to say, as an “open platform”, Twitter can benefit both the educators and learners a lot.

The users of Twitter are more than millions of people who can bring a wide range of resources. Meanwhile, all of the resources can be access easily for free as Twitter is a public open platform, which can help learners save much money and time. Many students and residents are already accustomed to checking Tweets, texts and e-mails regularly. Using Twitter to post links to credible sources will likely increase students’ use of those resources, as a simple click will take them to the information (Forgie,Duff,Ross, 2012). In a public platform, instead of sending email to teachers for help, students can help each other to make progress, which will be more efficient and convenient. 

For educators, it might be easier to share instructions and other information because most of people nowadays choose to use Twitter as their social networking applications and they are familiar with the sharing and accessing information steps. Twitter polling applications allow educators to offer a different option for informal quizzing and polls when compared to a show of hands (Ebner, Lienhardt, Rohs, & Meyer, 2010). Apart from these, links to current media stories that relate to course content create ‘real life’ applications that may allow students to contextualize course information (Aujla,2009).

As far as I am concerned, Twitter does have a negative effect on learners and educators. While sharing resources in Twitter, it would be easy to distract learners’ attraction because the information sources are various and not all of the information in Twitter is helpful. Students unfamiliar with the platform may complain about having to do something that strays from traditional classroom expectations while those familiar with Twitter may complain about their lagging colleagues (Kay,2012). For educators, after all Twitter is not a formal platform for people to share Open Educational Resources, its functions for this is not complete enough. According to Kay(2012), teachers might face pressure from parents because  Parents may even challenge the use of Twitter as being irrelevant and a risk of exposing their children to outsiders. 

In my opinion, Twitter is a double-edged sword to open learning and the sharing of open educational resources and it does more good than harm to both learners and educators. Only if people make good use of it, can it benefit us to the maximum degree. What Kay suggested in 2012 is that embrace technology and search for innovative ways to enhance student learning whether that happens within the physical confines of a classroom or happens virtually using social media.

Reference:

Wiley, D., & Hilton III, J. L. (2018). Defining OER-Enabled Pedagogy. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601

Seo, K. (2013). Using Social Media Effectively in the Classroom. New York: Routledge, https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.4324/9780203101490

Forgie, S. E., Duff, J. P., & Ross, S. (2013). Twelve tips for using Twitter as a learning tool in medical education. Medical Teacher, 35(1), 8–14. https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.3109/0142159X.2012.746448

In Twitter, people can share whatever they like as long as their posts are legal, such as articles, tutorial videos, selfies, conversations and so on. Among these, articles, tutorial videos are educational resources.

There is no doubt that Twitter can be used to increase access to education. For example, people using Twitter can share resources, which can be regarded as  Open Educational Resources to a certain degree. More open resources can be accessed if more people are glad to post learning materials.

That is to say, As an “open platform”, Twitter can benefit both the educators and learners a lot. The users of Twitter are more than millions of people who can bring a wide range of resources. Thanks to Twitter’s huge user base, the amount of open educational resources can be huge. People are more likely to find the resources they want. Meanwhile, all of the resources can be access easily for free as Twitter is a public open platform, which can help learners save much money and time. In addition, people can learn from the experience and successful learning stories from others and can ask them for help. Even more luckily, they can make friends with people who have the same goals or interest with them. For educators, it might be easier to share instructions and other information because most of people nowadays choose to use Twitter as their social networking applications and they are familiar with the sharing and accessing information steps. In a public platform, instead of sending email to teachers for help, students can help each other to make progress, which will be more efficient and convenient.

Sometimes I am thinking about does Twitter do more harm than good to learners and educators? Although I am not certain about the answer, Twitter does has a negative effect on learners and educators. As a social networking platform, Twitter at most time provides a platform for people to express their feelings or opinions and helps people make friends with each other. While sharing resources in Twitter, it would be easy to distract learners’ attraction because the information sources are various and not all of the information in Twitter is helpful. For educators, after all Twitter is not a formal platform for people to share Open Educational Resources, its functions for this is not complete enough. What’s more, since it is open learning circumstance, some students might be unwilling to download a Twitter and even some learners have difficulty downloading it or using it in their countries.

In my opinion, Twitter is a double-edged sword to open learning and the sharing of open educational resources. Only if people make full use of it, can it benefit us to the maximum degree.

Reference:

Wiley, D., & Hilton III, J. L. (2018). Defining OER-Enabled Pedagogy. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601

From the article Open Pedagogy – A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students, I learned about that if we intend to make an open textbooks with our students, there will be much stuff to be considered. One of the most important thing is that we must be familiar with the learning condition of our students and keep asking questions that might be included in the book. What’s more, we should think about the role of Open Pedagogy to learner-driven education as well as OEP.

Since people began to share information by using digital tools, digital privacy becomes a hot topic that people think highly of. No matter under what circumstance, people’s privacy should be respected and protected. Even in Online learning, digital redlining still exist, which arouse out of policies that regulate and track students’ engagement with information technology. Although in some conditions, just like the story of the girl at the very beginning of the article, people might have trouble dealing with the problems of the digital privacy, such problems should not be neglected. Honestly speaking, this article reminded me to pay more attention to the protection of digital privacy online. For my open learning course, I will certainly respect the privacy of my students and their choice about whether posting prompts in public.

Reference:

Coolidge, A., Andrzejewski, A., Ashok, A., Hyde, A., Squires, D., Higginbotham, G., . . . University Teaching Fellow in Open Studies at Kwantlen Polytechnic University. (2017, August 29). Open Pedagogy. Retrieved July 24, 2020, from https://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/chapter/open-pedagogy/

Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. (2019, November 06). Retrieved July 24, 2020, from https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/digital-redlining-access-and-privacy

While reading Openness and education: a beginner’s guide, I could not agree with the opinion that ‘Open Education’ is that people come into it from a wide range of backgrounds(Bea,2017) any more. Therefore, for the instructors, it is difficult for them to set specific teaching methods for their students. In the Beginner’s Guide, I noticed that there are more and more tools being applied into the Open Learning, which indicated that the modes and types of E-learning become diversified.

It was reasonable that after Distance education & open learning appeared in 1980, the open education in schools becomes less popular. The coverage of distance education & open learning is wide like administration, economics, communication, course design, etc. It has more complete education system and a wider range of scholars, thus serves a wider range of learners. But I wonder why didn’t E-learning & online education become prominent after it appeared. For E-learning & online education, learners have more flexible schedule and social networking tools. But one of its disadvantages is that it is challenging for learners who are not familiar with using electronic tools or even do not own one. But I still hold a strong believe that E-learning & online education will play a vital role in the teaching mode years later. Meanwhile, the application of Social media, MOOCs is also bright in the future. For me, I intend to apply them into my work in this course because I think these ways of teaching is popular nowadays.

While reading the Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice, I think it is quite necessary to show learners the schedule and tasks of one course because I believe only in this way, can they learn efficiently, know which steps they are going through and set corresponding goals. From this article, I can feel that the teacher tried her best to give feedbacks to students in time and make all of the students absorb the knowledge to the maximum degree. The teaching plans she made is detailed and comprehensive. But I wonder is it possible to take some measures to let students explore by themselves which is helpful to develop their exploration ability, thinking ability, and problem-solving skills? The tasks of teachers is not only instructing learners how to learn, but also developing their abilities in every aspects.

Resource:

Arcos, B. (2020, July 14). Openness and education: A beginner’s guide: GO-GN. Retrieved July 24, 2020, from http://go-gn.net/research/openness-and-education-a-beginners-guide/

Johns, H. U. P. (2015). Teaching online : A guide to theory, research, and practice. Retrieved from https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca

Education is, in the words of Paulo Freire, an “inescapable concern.” And although the whole world is suffering from the COVID-19 and most of the industries have stopped their factories or companies, which caused that thousands of people lost their jobs. However, education has not been stopped by this global catastrophe. All of the schools tried their best to help the students continue their study and they turned the off-line teaching into on-line teaching, which indicated that education is one of the most important part of human life.

Honestly speaking, after reading all of the resources, I thought I learned many new things about education, teaching as well as learning. When I was reading LEARNING IS NOT A MECHANISM, I thought I had much misunderstandings about learning before and the article introduce a new category of learning to me. And I quite agreed with the viewpoint “Digital pedagogy is not equivalent to teachers using digital tools. Rather, digital pedagogy demands that we think critically about our tools, demands that we reflect actively upon our own practice. ” In my view, Digital pedagogy not only depends on the teachers who find useful and manageable tools, but also requires us to pay more attention to our own work by means of the specific digital tools we use.

There is no doubt that with the rapid development of technology and education, an explosion of new educational technologies (edtech) is unavoidable. The situation that edtech applications have appeared at a variety of fields in education like commerce, politics, language learning and so on is quite common. Under this circumstance, as students, we should obey the basic rules for edtech and only in this way, can we gain as many benefits as we can from this new educational trend.

After reading Teaching in blended learning environments, I knew a new learning type – blended learning. Actually, from my point of view, both the offline teaching mode and the online teaching mode have their own advantages. And whether both of them are useful for us depends on how we use them.

Reference:

Stommel, J. (2018, September 12). Learning is Not a Mechanism. Retrieved July 7, 2020, from https://criticaldigitalpedagogy.pressbooks.com/chapter/learning-is-not-a-mechanism/

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

Regan, P.M., Jesse, J. Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: twenty-first century student sorting and tracking. Ethics Inf Technol 21, 167–179 (2019). https://doi-org.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2

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

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