Final Reflection Component 2

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