Part 1: Evidence and Reflection on Learning in EDCI â 339
- Describe the potential of human-centred learning in distributed and open learning contexts.
I achieved this learning outcome by writing blog posts, participating in the Pod Project, and reading content provided in the course.
My understanding of the potential for human-centred learning expanded as the course progressed. Human centred-learning and privacy were the focus of Topic 1, and right away the readings gave me a much better understanding of the scope of human centred-learning. In my initial discussion post on Topic 1, I write about InBloom from the 2018 Regan and Jesse piece, Ethical challenges of EdTech, big data and personalized learning: Twenty-first century student sorting and tracking. In this piece, InBloom is brought to court over their extensive student sorting, an eventually the software was abandoned. This was all before 2014, a fact that shocked me, as well as some of my peers, given my experience with EdTech has really only been noticeable within the last 2 years. This made me skeptical of the uses of EdTech, but the next reading in the same topic made me realize just how positive of an impact human-centred learning could have on students. Morris and Stommel (2018), highlight the importance of focusing learning on learners, rather than creating a âtransactionalâ relationship between students and educators. A highlight for me was the concept of  âproblem-posing educationâ, which involves creating space for mutual creation, instead of consumption. Vaughan et al. (2013), gave some definition and guidance on how to create collaborative education experiences, noting the importance of social presence, cognitive presence, and teaching presence.
A lot of my peers agreed with the sentiments in my Topic 1 post on the difficulty of creating spaces and community in an online or distributed environment, and we had an interesting discussion following the post:
To which I replied:
My initial feelings were that it would be difficult to foster community in an online space, I was surprised during our Pod 2 Project that many of the group members were willing to put in effort to make one another feel welcome. I think a large part of this was all of us being invested in our persona, Isla, and having interest in creating a persona that flowed together and made sense, while incorporating our own ideas. Now that we are able to reflect on the work we did in the course; I would say that this process involved elements of an open-enabled pedagogy approach. Further, I think it served to bring our group together as we tried to come up with a realistic person, with a background, skills, and personality. A form of human-centered learning if you will!
For my Topic 4 post, when reflecting on Wiley and Hiltonâs, Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy (2018), human-centred learning gives students, especially younger ones, an opportunity to be in control of their own learning, something that is rarely seen in a traditional education setting. Essentially, building a Community of Inquiry, wherein students and educators are encouraged to share their personal experience and connection to learning, while being able to push one another to ask meaningful questions. The premise of the CoI framework is that higher education is both a collaborative and individually constructivist learning experience (Vaughan et al., 2013).
The potential for human-centred learning in both distributed and open learning contexts lies in how we as students, and educators can create spaces whether online or in person, to promote collaboration and knowledge creation, critical to higher education.
- Explore and engage with current literature on the distributed and open education movement.
To fulfill this learning outcome, I engaged with readings during this course that offered excellent insight into what the development and advancement of open education and distributed learning look like today and interacted with my peers to expand my understanding.
In the second topic of the course, History and Context of Distributed and Open Learning, we reflected on how distributed and open learning differ from traditional educational settings. In the 2015 piece by C. H. Major, 5 key factors are identified that would help classify learning approaches, those being: enrollment, amount, timing, platform and pathway. These factors can be classified into categories such as open or closed enrollment, centralized or distributed learning pathways, and blended or online amounts. While each of these is important in its own right, in my blog post for discussion 2 I highlight timing specifically.
Some of my Pod members shared the same views on timing being of particular importance:
Courtnay and I share very similar views on how online courses shape relationships in an educational setting. With the value of relationships to educators, other students, and the material being of the utmost importance to facilitating higher education, and an open pedagogical approach. Relationships must be emphasised when advancing open learning as a movement, as relationships are the foundation of how students and educators interact with learning.
Another key point I learned during this topic was the limiting factor of some learning management systems (LMS). Reading through some of my peersâ blog posts, specifically Maeganâs post and her mention of FlipGrid, an online commenting software that allows users to share video comments with others. FlipGrid is a great example of a software being used by educators to facilitate connection between students, by having them make videos for one another rather than commenting on discussion posts. This is a strong example for what EdTech can be used for in terms of creating spaces for human-centered learning in educational settings, even online.
Creating relationships to educators, students and course material was an important part of my learning that I will take with me moving forward. Having a relationships between students and their educator is essential when promoting engagement with material, as students are encouraged by a teaching presence to reflect on their relationship with the coursework.
- 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.
Reflecting on the concepts of modality, pedagogy, access and the privacy concerns that come with open learning and human-centred learning is essential when trying to understand the scope of open-enabled pedagogies. During this course all of our learning activities including discussion posts, replying to peers, and quiz on privacy all contributed to me being able to articulate concepts around open pedagogies.
Firstly, Topic 1 was an excellent introduction into the world of EdTech, and the vast privacy concerns that come with it. Taking the quiz on FIPPA and Acceptable Use, it made me realize just how nuanced some the of concerns around privacy can be, and how little most people are aware of. Regan and Jesse (2019), share a more accurate version of âprivacyâ which includes 6 distinct ethical concerns on student tracking and privacy. Those being: information privacy, anonymity, surveillance, autonomy, non-discrimination, and ownership of information.
One of these concerns that jumped out at me was autonomy, as I mention in my first discussion post.
Privacy was a big concern in Topic 1, especially when contrasted with Topic 4 (Practicing Open), as many of the benefits offered by EdTech can be especially effective on youths K-12.
Problem posing education is a concept that I will hold onto in my future work, as I am now able to recognize this style of learning, and how beneficial it can be for educators and students. This form of human-centred learning involves educators being involved with students in problem solving environments, encouraging the social, cognitive and teaching presences required to build strong human-centred learning environments. However, the positive impacts of human-centred learning can be oversimplified when failing to consider the implications of data tracking on students, especially youth. In my discussion post for Topic 4, I wrote about how powerful it can be for learners to control their own learning. Becuase students are rarely given the opportunity to express themselves in their approach to learning, rather often this falls to the creation of disposable artifacts in the traditional setting. The 5 Râs (reuse, retained, redistributed, revised, remixed) brought up initially during the Topic 3 reading, A guide to making open textbooks with students, by Mays et al. (2017), were also very helpful in guiding my understanding when contrasted with the 4 key factors that constitute and OER. Those key factors being:
- Are students creating new artifacts or revise/remixing OER?
- Does the new artifact have value beyond supporting the learning of its author?
- Are students invited to share their artifacts or revised/remixed OER?
- Are students invited to openly licence their artifacts or revised/remixed OER?
These factors act as tools to identify OER in practice, but they also present their own set of issues. One that I make mention of in my Topic 4 post is the privacy of minors:
Privacy concerns are definitely coming to the forefront of EdTech, as student tracking is becoming easier, and more accurate. The advancement of EdTech without a complementary advancement in the ethical protocols of EdTech poses significant issues to the adoption of OER-enabled pedagogies. Protecting the rights of minors is something that EdTech will have to be actively invested in, in order to avoid cases such as InBloom I already mentioned. In response to my Topic 3 post, my Pod members and I had an interesting conversation:
My Reply:
My sentiments on the advancement of OERâs were echoed in the conclusion of the Topic 4 reading, Defining OER-Enabled Pedagogy (2018). âPowerful examples of OER-enabled pedagogy will give faculty specific and direct reason to adopt OER. As faculty come to understand that OER allows for the benefits of open-pedagogy, the adoption of OER will significantly accelerate (Wiley et al., 2018)â. Discussions such as this one encourages reflection by students and are essential in promoting critical thinking. EDCI 339 is an excellent example and my only example of an open-pedagogical approach to learning. Critical thinking on subjects such as data protection and data access build a relationship between the student and the material beyond consumption from a reading and turn the relationship into constructivist rather than consumption.
This is important to me because I want to be able to share resources Iâve been able to accrue throughout university with people who arenât able to access those resources. If I could apply open-enabled pedagogy in reality, for me it would look like offering an open course to Indigenous community youth on investment and economics. Ideally, I would begin the class with a certain amount of capital, and allow students to choose where to invest the class fund. This serves as problem-posing education, as I would participate in doing due diligence on investment opportunities, while teaching students how to evaluate those opportunities. I would allow students to keep the profits they make from their investments as a class, in order to encourage students to engage with course material in a tangible way.
- Examine and reflect upon the potential for equitable access for all learners in an online and open learning context.
The learning resources and discussions in Topic 2 and 3 helped me complete this learning objective.
Ryanâs short presentation on Topic 3 made me reflect on how technology offers equitable access for all learners. In short, it does not. Platforms such as Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram and many others are created by white people, for white people. Thus, it is in the nature of those platforms to cater to white people, and thus push the dominant culture forward simply by running the algorithm that these platforms have created. The contrast of LMS and open-enabled pedagogy lies in the ability to access these services or programs. ââŠWith big data and EdTech, such subtle signs [of discrimination] may be difficult to discern (Regan et al., 2019)â. The reading points out right after this quote that big data is able to come up with a reasonable metric to avoid using race specifically, while still achieving the same results. This is an example of the troubling nature of data tracking on students. Similar to the previous outcome the ethical concerns of EdTech and ensuring equitable access for all is not as simple as the provision of resources, but in fact has to do with education policy, privacy and institutions. From the reading in Topic 2 by Gilliard et al.;
Digital redlining is not a renaming of the digital divide. It is a different thing, a set of education policies, investment decisions, and IT practices that actively create and maintain class boundaries.
â Gilliard et al., 2016
As I mentioned in my first post in Topic 1, the decision to gather data and use it to improve oneâs software is inherent to the nature of EdTech and big data. As an investment decision, it makes no sense to invest in a software that would not improve the results of students at an institutional level. Again, similar to the last learning outcome, a simultaneous advancement in the protection of equitable access for all and the use of EdTech is essential to open-enabled pedagogy. Without equitable access, the open-enabled pedagogy is by nature non-existent, as many of the voices that would allow for contrasting views or opinions are lost. This inherently takes away from the community oriented and human-centred approach open learning represents and will be detrimental to the advancement of open pedagogy if not properly addressed.
In Topic 2, my group members and I got onto the discussion of timing in online courses, and our preferences on synchronous or asynchronous classes. I already highlighted Courtnayâs post and our discussion on timing in online courses, but I think it is important to bring up once again.
Now that there are so many widely available asynchronous courses through universities, does that mean they are more accessible all around? While it may be easy to assume the answer is yes, it can be difficult to quantify whether that access is equitable.
It is very important to be able to identify how certain technologies are exhibiting biases without being in the process of designing the technology. For this reason, a lot of responsibility falls unto faculties to ensure the use of EdTech is not detrimental to equitable access. However, as I just mentioned it can be very difficult for faculty to identify biases or discrimination, as big data can often create metrics to measure these values without explicitly measuring them. Open-enabled pedagogies present an opportunity for access to educational tools that many individuals are not offered in their traditional settings. Developing OERâs specific to classes or institutions can also be a hidden form of inequitable access, as learners in person are offered different tools than their online counterparts. In this space is where equitable access will take shape, and research will need to be done on how these two forms of learning can be equitable for students.
- Conduct research into and critically reflect upon emerging and future educational technologies.
Understanding what emerging technologies means in the context of EdTech was a more interesting question after engaging with the course material, especially in Topic 2.
I think the answer to this question does not lie necessarily in the research and development of new EdTech tools, but rather the reobservation of educational tools as a whole, to get a better picture of what the learning environment truly consists of. An example of this would be Howard Rheingold in the Teaching Online â A guide to Theory, Research, and Practice (2015), wherein Howard shares his experience teaching online through social media, and how much more connected he is able to be to his students, and to their learning.
To me, the real magic in using social media in learning is not the ability to scale traditional teaching-as-knowledge-delivery (Paulo Freireâs âbanking modelâ of learning), but the ability to inquire together, to seek understanding and construct knowledge together, and reflect personally on the learning process itself.
- Major, C. 2015
In this piece, the author highlights a few different instructors that have used different learning methods and pathways to give examples of just how varied EdTech can be in its delivery. In my discussion post for Topic 2, one of my group members commented on my thoughts on learning platforms people were using without being aware of them.
My reply:
Using YouTube as an example, learning tools are not confined to LMSâ, library tools, and other databases, but rather most anything can be adapted into a learning tool. In my opinion, emerging technologies in EdTech may not be a new and improved software, but rather a reimagined approach to an existing software such as YouTube, or in the case of the Major 2015 reading, SecondLife. Creative examples such as SecondLife being used in an educational setting and the resulting high raise will serve to push emerging technologies, and reimaginations forward as tools of education. I think using social media specifically helps integrate a human-centred approach to learning, as students engage with the material on a platform they are familiar with, and on a personal level.
The importance of future EdTech to me will be in the how they assist in forming relationships in learning environments. Using social media, video games, or other forms of media can serve as a tool for creating stronger relationships between students and faculty, which can result in more collaborative and problem posing learning environments.
- Practice digital, networked, and open literacies in support of learning about distributed and open learning.
Â
This learning outcome was met largely by our POD Project, as well as the discussion forums on our blogs.
Initially, we all introduced ourselves on Brightspaces with introductory posts.
After joining a learning Pod, our group quickly moved over to Facebook Messenger where we could more reliably communicate with one another. I didnât realize it at the time, but this was a big factor in encouraging our group to actively communicate. Furthermore, we moved over to WordPress after a short time in order to fulfill the 4 metrics required to qualify as an OER. This was my first experience with an open learning environment, and I was excited to be able to tell my parents and my partner that they could follow along if they wanted to.
I engaged with my group members in groupchats, on Zoom, and on shared Google Docs. Having a shared document was also a great way for our group to comment on each otherâs work, and help each other edit and ensure our project was cohesive.
Overall, I found that engaging with the network of students built by this course was a huge factor in my learning during this course. Creating Pods really helped limit the feeling of insincerity when writing in discussion posts as I had group members to be accountable to, and that had amazing experiences of their own. This will be something that I take with me moving forward, as I feel a lot of online learning environments lack a sense of relationship with the course and to other students. This course was eye opening in that it was one of the most engaging online learning environments Iâve been in, and I think that does have to do with the OER nature of the course. I was a bit nervous to share my thoughts with the class, but my group members made the class feel much closer to a project we worked on together, and a learning experience we shared with one another.
PART 2 : Showcase Blog Post
I chose to review my blog post for Topic 4, as I found that my learning had really come together in terms of being able to articulate and connect the learnings from each topic. Here is the original:
[https://aidenk1.opened.ca/topic-4-discussion/#comments
Here is the revised version:
https://aidenk1.opened.ca/topic-4-showcase-post/#respond
Reflection:
The changes I made to my blog post were mostly expanding on sections that I think my group members wanted to hear more about, as well as having  had time to reflect on the relationship between Indigenous knowledge and open-enabled pedagogy. I expanded the first section to try to address Tegan and Maeganâs questions on how we could aim to improve the privacy concerns for minors when adopting OER. In my experience, mentoring can be a very powerful tool for students, especially younger ones as they are often not given the opportunity to fulfill a teaching presence in their early years, as well as make connections to students who have experienced the learning they are. This would also help expand the sense of community in schools, and could potentially aid in limiting the privacy concerns while maintaining the sense of pride that comes with the public presentation of oneâs work.
I also wrote more on the relationships between open-enabled pedagogy and Indigenous ways of Knowing, especially with their relation to human-centred learning. Involving individual context in the classroom is seldom done if not avoided, and this is something that the advancement of open-enabled pedagogy will help eliminate. This is parallel to the integration of Indigenous knowledge into traditional education, as context is so important. Further, the context of both the educator and the student must be taken into consideration, which is why the process of self-location is so important for both parties. This also helps build relationships in the class, as students and educators share their experiences with one another and how those relate the learning.