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1. Narrative on the Future of Open and Online Learning

The Ed trend that I believe is essential to online and open learning is E-learning. Before the pandemic, I have a very vague idea about what E-learning is, I imagine it is simply switching teaching and learning places—from traditional classrooms to online classrooms. Pre-pandemic, I took many online classes by myself in order to support my learning in school, for example, Khan Academy. 

YouTube is another place I would go to if I encountered some difficult concept in my textbook, for example, I watched a lot of crash courses for my history class, John Green explains historical facts in a very fun and visual way, which helps me to memorize history events better. 

As EDCI 339 proceeds, I realized that E-learning is more than about distance education. Weller (2020)’s chapter on E-learning prompted me to reflect on my own experience with distance education, and I ask myself the following questions: 1. How does it feel like to take online classes? 2. The role of e-learning in promoting inclusion and diversity. 

How does it feel like to take online classes? My initial response to this question is simply one word: free. Free not in the sense of no cost, but in the sense that I can schedule how I learn when I learn, and what to learn. For example, if I find one online course that is not appealing to me, I would search for other online courses, until I can find one that engages me. The freedom to choose is not offered in traditional classrooms, educators were challenged to make their content appealing to every student, but in reality, this aim is hard to achieve. For instance, I am a visual learner, which means—I learn better with graphs, pictures, videos, and other multimedia. So when I am in a classroom reading texted based PowerPoint, my mind wanders. 

 The role of e-learning in promoting inclusion and diversity? In a traditional classroom, inclusion and diversity mean that students can learn from their diverse peers and teachers take everyone’s learning needs into account (eg. Developing class activities that can engage different types of learners). Inclusion and diversity in an online learning environment also aims to meet students’ diverse needs and encourage students to learn from their peers, but in a different way. For example, what I learned from UDL guidelines is that technology can offer learners choices on how they want to reach the learning objectives, what multi-media they want to use to demonstrate their learning, what platform they hope to communicate and collaborate. In other words, digital devices empowers students to own their learning, so that they are not waiting for instructions, or waiting for the teachers to deliver the content, they are active participants that may even make positive contribution to the larger conversation. For example, although I have not participated in the Twitter chat activity due to China’s internet censorship, my peers shared with me how they feel about this activity. From their responses, I learned that participating in online educational event ‘crashes’ the wall between teachers and students, it is not that students don’t respect teachers anymore, but students can see themselves as more of a contributor than a receiver. 

This experience connected to Weller(2020)’s chapter about E-learning, in which he says that: “ In an e-learning course, CMC will usually form a substantial component, particularly if, as we have seen, a constducvists approach is adopted, which promotes dialogue, collaboration and students guidance” (Weller, 2020, n.p). Not only do I think that E-learning operates based on “constructivism”learning theory , I also think that E-learning is linked to “connectivisim” learning theory because of the Twitter chat activity. According to Weller (2020):  “By the late 2000s though, with the advent of greater connectivity, user-generated content, and social media, a number of educators began to explore the possibilities of education in a more networked, connected model that had these new developments as core assumptions” (Weller, 2020, n.p) I think E-learning helps students to be the content creator while they are in the process of learning, for example, as the UDL guideline suggests, students can use multimedia to produce and present their learning results, and such multi-media project could further benefit other students’ learning. 

In sum, I think E-learning is the “spaces of possibility” (using Suzan Koseoglu’s term). The possibility is associated with uncertainty as Koseoglu would suggest, for example, we never know what connectivisim learning theory would lead to, we lack the practical data or research about how students are actually doing using such learning theory. But I think it is worth trying because E-learning empowers students to reflect how they could contribute to the knowledge-based society. 

References: 

Bali, B., Cronin, C., Czerniewicz, L., DeRosa, R. & Jhangiani, R. (2020) Open at the Margins. Rebus Community Pressbooks. Retrieved from: https://press.rebus.community/openatthemargins/

UDL Guideliens (2021). Universal Design for Learning Guidelines. Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Weller, M. (2020). Chapter 17 –Connectivism. 25 Years of Edtech. AU Press. Retrieved from https://read.aupress.ca/read/25-years-of-ed-tech/section/198057f5-1a3e-4436-a4b8-c6e1a3e0bd69

Weller, M. (2020). Chapter 6-E learning. 25 Years of Edtech. AU Press. Retrieved from https://read.aupress.ca/read/25-years-of-ed-tech/section/198057f5-1a3e-4436-a4b8-c6e1a3e0bd69

How can equitable access to authentic, meaningful & relevant learning environments for all learners be afforded to all learners in open and distributed learning contexts? What did you already know, what do you know now based on the course readings and activities, what do you hope to learn? 

This blog selected Suzan Koseoglu’s article “Open Pedagogy: A Response to David Wiley” for review. Koseoglu starts the article by quoting David Wiley’s definition of “Open Pedagogy” : “…there’s apparently a temptation to characterize good educational practice as open educational practice” (Koesoglu, n.p). Koesoglu rejected this definition because she thinks that there are limitations that Open Education faces in order for it to be considered as a good or even successful pedagogy. Koesoglu mentioned the 5Rs for OER (Retain, Reuse, Revise, Remix and, Redistribute), which I think are very important when we are trying to talk about how equitable access to authentic, meaningful & relevant learning environments for all learners. As we learned from our previous weeks, Open education resources are licensed under creative commons, and educators can take and use these resources based on their needs. They can modify, change, or alter the content according to what they think will help the students.

If teachers don’t have the knowledge of what is OER or non-OER and do not know how to use OER, then they ‘Open’ means little for them or their students.

Reference:

Article 7. Open Pedagogy: A Response to David Wiley by Suzan Koseoglu. Retrieved from https://bright.uvic.ca/d2l/le/content/144866/viewContent/1260428/View

This week is all about inclusivity and diversity. For me, I always think online learning is more inclusive than in-person learning. It is not that professors and classmates are mean in schools, it is that we don’t have the time and space for everyone to express themselves in learning. Traditional class time in University is one hour or two hours, and my experience is that teachers talk for one or two hours straight, even with Q&A questions, I did not feel like I truly participated in the class.

Last week, our online activities used to complete Assignment 2 made me realize that participation is about contributing, it is not enough just to sit at the table, we must raise our voices in order to be perceived as participation. The UDL guidelines also stressed the importance of participation, engagement, working with the online resources and create conversations with others. In online learning, students are not just taking notes of what teacher said, but they are criticially engaging in the topic and making a difference.

Moreover, in traditional lectures, we don’t have a record to record our conversation, whereas in online learning, we can reply to ideas that being previously said, and we can contribute in anytime we want. For example, in Cronin’s chapter, the author said that being “open” means students can: “access education…collaborate with others….create and co-create knowledge openly and integrate formal and informal learning practices, networks, and identities”(Conin, 2019, p. 3). An ongoing conversation where everyone can participate is what I think inclusivity and diversity mean. I truly believe that learning is rooted in interaction; in the past, we have storytelling tradition to pass the knowledge, and now we have more tools to start conversation and communicate our knowledge.

References:

Cronin. C. (2019). Open education: Walking a critical path. In D. Conrad, & P. Prinsloo (Eds.), Open(ing) Education: Theory and Practice. Leiden: Brill. Open Access Version – http://eprints.teachingandlearning.ie/4345/

Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Review: http://udlguidelines.cast.org/ 

Topic 2: History and Context of Distributed and Open learning.

Formalized Discussion Question: What learning theory/ies fit/s E-learning Edtech Trend.

Over the weeks, we have encountered various learning theories that might be able to support open learning, from Behaviourism to Cognitivism to Constructivism to OLC (online collaborative learning) to Connectivism, I learned that there’s no single theory that is perfect and without critics. E-learning has a different set of challenges compared to conventional learning, but it also offers students more opportunities.  In a globalized world, everything is moving very fast, information is updating every second, and if we do not make good use of technology in the education system, we will be outdated. In reviewing Bates (2014)’s blog about learning theories, I think connectivism best fits with E-learning. Even though Bates (2014) has pointed out that this theory is still developing and face a lot of criticism, I think once this theory is developed, it will be the model of how we learn in the future.

According to Weller (2020)’s chapter 17 “connectivism”: “By the late 2000s though, with the advent of greater connectivity, user-generated content, and social media, a number of educators began to explore the possibilities of education in a more networked, connected model that had these new developments as core assumptions” (Weller, 2020, n.p). In my view, new knowledge in the digital age is not generated from the vacuum, there must be some kind of interaction and some collaboration going on in the process of knowledge-making. It is the process of numerous ideas and perspectives clash and then emerging.

My peer wenzhuo from my social pod adviced me to add my personal experience to this blog, which I think it is a very good idea. Reflecting on my experience of E-learning, I love how my peers build on what I wrote, and receive constructive comments so that I could improve my previous writings. In the pandemic, I see teachers are trying a different method to make online courses engaging, and I remember one time my teacher assigned us various political readings that are controversial, and send us a link to a collaboration website, which the whole classroom can use and add annotations on the readings. There’s really no guide on how or what to highlight on the readings, and what kind of comments are expected, but that excites many of us, and we make hundreds of comments on that website, and this experience allows me to see the possibility of making new knowledge in social interaction, and such interaction can be made without teachers’ guidance. This experience resembles very much George Siemens’s talk, which I included below, Siemen’s work is also discussed in Weller (2020)’s article, so I think he is very important.

I love the idea of connectivism because I think the aim of E-learning is to form social interactions. However, the kind of social interaction that E-learning brings does have many shortcomings. For example, in Weller (2020)’s article, he pointed out that some individuals might find absolutely confusing when there’s no structure or guidance offered by teachers in the learning process, or they may find E-learning very chaotic. But same with the conventional learning approach, some people find it less engaging. I think E-learning and connectvism theory sends the message that it is possible to have multiple learning outcomes rather than a set of pre-determined learning outcomes, and I believe this is the most intriguing aspect of E-learning and connectivism.

Here are the links to my original topic 2 blog and Wenzhou’s peer feedback:

References:

Bates, T. (2014). Learning Theories and Online Learning. [Blog post]. Retrieved from
https://www.tonybates.ca/2014/07/29/learning-theories-and-online-learning/

Weller, M. (2020). Chapter 17 –Connectivism. 25 Years of Edtech. AU Press. Retrieved from https://read.aupress.ca/read/25-years-of-ed-tech/section/198057f5-1a3e-4436-a4b8-c6e1a3e0bd69

The Edtech trend I picked for this topic 2 is E-learning, because as a student in this pandemic, I become more and more familiar with it. Even though nowadays, I think E-learning is very prevalent, I think it could be more prevelant in the future. In a globalized world, everything is moving very fast, infomation is updating every second, and if we do not make good use of technology in the education system, we will be outdated. According to Weller (2020)’s chapter 7 of his book: “By the late 2000s though, with the advanet of greater connectivity, user generated content, and social media, a number of educators began to explore the possibilities of education in a more networked, connected model that had these new developments as core assumtions” (Weller, 2020). This is the first reason why I chose to discuss E-learning.

The second reason has to do with constructvism. We all know that E-learning can be asynchronous and synchronous, asynchronous E-learning allow students to learn at their own pace, and synchronous E-learning gives the opportunity for collaberation. When talking about constructivism, Weller(2020) highlighted Siemens (2005)’s constructivism principles, these principles matches with how E-learning works. For example, Simens (2005) says: “Learning and knowledge rest in diversity of opinions” and “learning is a process of connecting specialized nodes or information sources” (Weller, 2020). Asynchronous and synchronous lectures give students the opportunity to do that.

In the Community of Inquiry framework, what strikes me the most is the “elephant” example. I think that represents how an individual’s perspective is always limited, but we can expand our horizons if we work with a group of people. Further to this, with E-learning, we are not limited to time and space, which means we have multiple communities to study the “elephant”. The second resource in this post: using Human-Centred design stated that apps that facilitate E-learning should consider people’s diverse needs, such as making the interface more accessible for people with disabilities. I think it is very necessary for e-learning to be as inclusive as possible because we need perspectives from all groups of people in order to tackle difficult problems, not just people who are privileged or people who have the resources that make them advantaged in e-learning. 

I am concerned with the teacher’s role in Community of Inquiry framework, how do we prevent guidance to turn into domination is a question that is lingering on my mind. Should the teacher point out what they are learning is “an elephant”, or should the teacher just let the students interpret in the way they want. I don’t have an answer for this question, please feel free to discuss with me in peer review!