yuqing's blog

Part 1: Evidence and Reflection on Your Learning (Structured by Activity)

Blog 1:

During the course, I did a blog 1 writing on Brightspace. The topic of this blog is about “Privacy and Human-Centred Learning”. Before I wrote the blog 1, I read three materials and completed my blog inspired by some views“ In “teaching in blended learning environments”, the author mentioned the view that “blended learning is the inspiration of much of the innovation, both pedagogically and technically, in higher education.”. Through further understanding of this view, I illustrated in my blog that blended learning solved a series of problems that may arise from other teaching methods during the pandemic.In addition, we also checked the article “reading ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: twenty first century student sorting and tracking”. The article mentioned “ethical policy concerns about use of big data in education”. According to this part, I began to think about the negative impact of educational technology on our privacy and security, and combined with my own experience, I further analyzed that collecting student information can answer the violation of student privacy. Finally, we mentioned the viewpoint mentioned in Jim Luke’s article “that’s not a robbery Checker”. He mentioned that websites such as Turnitin are teaching Death Star. I have used up this view in my blog, but I think “we can’t unilaterally criticize or praise this educational technology”.

From doing this, I learned that even the existence of websites with official authorization that can reasonably collect information exposes the possibility of user privacy. However, in distributed learning, open learning and online learning, it is difficult to never collect students’ information. The only best solution is to highly protect students’ privacy and improve the system in order to avoid information leakage. This learning contributed to my development of“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. “This learning matters to me because I think online learning is something I have to do every day during the very popular period. Understanding this information will help us protect our privacy information.

My blog link: Yuqing’s topic1 post

Comment I received:
Hi Yuqing,

I’m glad you mentioned the guard me privacy incident; It’s such as coincidence that something relevant to privacy happened so recently. when I was reading that email, the uncertainty of whether or not my information is leaked and what are the third party is going to do with it horrifies me. I was upset to see that their database is hardly protected and exposed to the public network. You brought up a very interesting point and I enjoyed the read a lot! Great work!

Regards,

Alex

Comments I made on others’ posts:

Blog 2：

The topic of this blog is “history and context of distributed and open learning”. Before I wrote this blog, I read too articles. From the first one “Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice”, I understand that MOOCS course means massively open online courses. In my blog, I analyzed the advantages and disadvantages of this course compared with the traditional course. In addition, I read “twenty five years of ED technology”, in which Martin Weller mentioned “at the turn of the center, e-learning was poised to become part of the main stream of higher education.”. This means that e-learning has left the laboratory and entered the public’s attention. In my blog, I analyzed the relationship between the development of e-learning and economic investment. From doing this I learned the importance of economic factors in the development of e-learning (including open learning and distributed learning). In addition, we have further deepened our understanding of MOOCS course. This learning contributed to my development of explore and engage with current literature on the distributed and open education movement. This learning matters to me because I am a student majoring in economics. This knowledge combines my major with the learning methods that I am interested in.

My blog link: Updated version of the post (Topic 2)

Comment I received:

Comment I made on other’s post:

Blog 3:

The topic of this blog is equity and access. Before I wrote blog 3, I read an ‘a guide to making open textbooks with students’, Mays points out The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights asserts that “higher education shall be equally accessible to all.” I had never thought about the relationship between equality and education before. After reading the article, I analyzed the possible resistance of high spending to higher education according to economic pressure. I read “design principle VIII: a space to engage with the world” mentioned in “design principles for indigenous learning spaces”. According to the inspiration, I wrote a good place for the dissemination of indigenous culture by distance education methods such as open learning environment. From completing these activities, I learned open educational resources (such as free online textbooks) not only reduce the economic burden of students, but also maintain the fairness of higher education to every student. The things I learned matter to me because I will also give up some interested elective courses because of some high textbook costs. This is closely related to my student life, and I hope these problems can be well solved. 

My Blog link：Yuqing’s Topic 3 blog

Comment I received：

Comment I made on other’s post:


Blog 4:

The topic of this blog is sharing resources and practicing ‘open’. Before I wrote this blog, I read ‘Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy’. This article is mainly focus on the relationship between open education resources and teaching methods. Author provides some examples of OER-Enabled Pedagogy. Based on these examples, I think if I were a teacher, I would avoid Disposable assignments and promote open homework permissions. And I also showed the benefits of open work permissions in my blog. From doing this I learned Renewable assignments is not only a way to make assignments public, but also a way to share everyone’s ideas.In this way, students continue to learn new knowledge and get new inspiration. This learning contributed to my development of ‘Practice digital, networked, and open literacies in support of learning about distributed and open learning’. This learning matters to me because as a student, I have done a lot of disposable homework. I think it is a waste of my learning task. Through this study, I have better understood the importance of renewable assignments.

My Blog link：Yuqing’s Topic 4 blog
Comment I received:
Comments I made on others’ posts:

Part 2: “Showcase” Blog Post

Update version of the post:
Updated version of the post (Topic 2)

Original version of the post: Yuqing’s topic 2 post

The changes made along with reasons why the changes were made: I read Ryan’s comments. He put forward the possible shortcomings of MOOCS course, so I added a part to my post to explain the possible problems of MOOCS and how to solve them. I wrote two possible problems in MOOCS courses: students may give up halfway and there is a lack of communication between students.

Through reading Topic 2 resources, I noticed that both distributed learning and open learning involve e-learning. In “25 years of ED technology”, Martin Weller pointed out that the golden age of e-learning began in 1999, because that stage belongs to the period when e-learning is separated from the experimental process and enters the public vision. I noticed that he mentioned the cost of e-learning, which is very concerned by both students and capitalists in today’s society. This problem involves students’ tuition fees, capitalists’ profits and other problems. I think the cost directly affects the development progress of e-learning. I linked this issue to the changes in tuition fees in higher education institutions during the pandemic. At first, it was thought that studying at home would reduce the overall tuition fee, but the reality did not. I think there are two main reasons. The first is that e-learning requires high research and development costs, such as: the research and development costs of brightspace. The second point is that e-learning needs some different websites to maintain the teaching quality, such as: zoom. In general, although e-learning reduces a series of lower costs, such as: commuting cost and venue cost, it is  still has higher fixed costs than traditional offline teaching. It only changed the allocation of resources, but did not reduce the input of resources. I think in the period when e-learning is not necessary, school can reduce the online courses with low demand of students to ensure the balance of payments.

In reading ‘Teaching Online : A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice’, I found a new word: massively open online courses (MOOCS). This kind of course is more inclusive than traditional online courses because anyone with enough technical tools can choose to take these courses. They open these courses to people who don’t need credits. I think the advantage is some courses are free, but compared with traditional online courses, this kind of course has a large number of students in one class. I think this course can be used as a way to enrich the traditional online courses in our university. For example: My major is economic, and I can go to take some MOOCs courses which about economics to learn some knowledge outside the traditional online courses. This way can enrich my professional knowledge. I think this is very useful because it plays the role of preview, review and accumulating experience for future work. Like many people who want to enrich their lives, I have high expectations for MOOCS courses. However, while highly recognizing this course, we should also be rational enough to think whether this course has completely completed its mission. The main significance of MOOCS is to let people learn more knowledge, contact more people and get more ideas at low cost. But the reality is slightly different from our ideal situation. I will analyze the reality through two phenomena. The first is that the low cost causes many people not to study MOOCS seriously, and they are likely to give up halfway. Unlike traditional courses, the cost of MOOCS courses is almost zero. Many people will think that even if they give up halfway, they will not lose anything. But I think it’s a waste of time. I think the only way to improve this situation is to make the course content more interesting. Some activities like signing in and getting rewards can be held. If students sign in successfully for each class, they can get some rewards at the end of the course. The second situation is that some shy students are unwilling to communicate with others. This situation goes against the goal of MOOCS course to share idea. I think the way to improve this situation is to organize more group activities. According to the personal information such as age or personality, arrange group members with more common interests for them to discuss together. This method may make them willing to share their views with others. 

From another perspective, if I am a teacher, I think opening the MOOCS course will enrich my teaching experience because the network has too many serendipities. There are more students in MOOCS which means that both students and I will get more diversified feedback. It will help to enrich my teaching methods. In a word, I think it is very beneficial to develop MOOCS course under the condition of ensuring that students receive enough high-quality teaching.

References:

Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 76-108)

Weller, M.(2020). 25 Years of Ed Tech. https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781771993050.01

The reading articles of topic 4 mainly focus on the relationship between open education resources and teaching methods. The main purpose of open education resources mentioned in the article is to give other students the opportunity to supplement learning resources, so as to improve students’ understanding of knowledge. I think the main advantage of this is to avoid the generation of Disposable assignments. Disposable assignments means that students have completed an assignment, but the assignment has not been made public, and others have not been publicly allowed to refer to and modify the assignment. These permissions prevent students from creating higher value with this assignment. This situation often exists in my student career. When I finish a paper and submit it to the professor, I get a score. At the end of the semester, I will delete this document and it will never be used again.  After reading this article, I think it is a waste of some teaching resources. If possible, students can allow professors to upload their homework on the network to provide future students with more ideas. Future students can enrich these homework on the current basis and create more academic value. This can not only facilitate others’ learning, but also make their homework more perfect.

If I become a teacher, I will aim to design tasks that pass all four parts. I think this can maximize the benefits of each assignment. Renewable assignments is not only a way to make assignments public, but also a way to share everyone’s ideas.In this way, students continue to learn new knowledge and get new inspiration. I think this is the advantage that another methods can not achieve. At the same time, I think this approach also needs the full attention of the professor. For example, the article mentioned the task of students creating Wikipedia together. I think professors need to read it in time and ensure its accuracy so as not to mislead the public.

In short, I think there are two main benefits of opening the assignment permission when the student copyright is obtained. First, it can accelerate the improvement of students’ understanding of the course. Second, it can reduce the pressure that students may have because of buying textbooks.

Reference:

Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2018). Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4).

By reading the articles included in topic 3, I have more in-depth understanding and ideas on open pedagogy. First of all, I think the most important component of open pedagogy is open educational resources (OERS). Open educational resources is an open teaching material with shared rights. I think this material has many benefits. It is recyclable and has open permissions. This makes it a great contribution to knowledge sharing. In ‘a guide to making open textbooks with students’, Mays points out the link between access to higher education and equality. I have never thought of this view before, but after reading this view, I found that this kind of problem does exist in our stage of higher education. Despite the fact that students cannot accept higher education because of economic pressure, there is still a situation that the teaching materials required for courses are too high, which leads students to give up some courses. Taking my personal experience as an example, there are some courses that I am interested in but not required. If I need to spend more than 100 Canadian dollars to buy textbooks, I may give up this course. If it is an elective course, you can give it up directly, but what if it is a required course? For students who really think they can’t afford these prices, this will be a factor hindering their access to higher education. I think open educational resources can help students solve these problems. Non paper resources can ignore some costs, so that students can choose the courses they want to take at will. This greatly maintains the fairness of higher education to everyone. If I become a teacher in the future, by reading this article, I think I will greatly help my students use open educational resources to ensure that each student will not be unable to complete a university degree due to financial burden.

By reading the design principle 8 mentioned in the chapter ‘design principles for indigenous learning spaces’, I found that open learning environments can help more people in the world understand the culture of indigenous peoples. This is a way to realize the diversification of distance education. Indigenous culture can be disseminated to more young people through an online open learning environment. The most common way of communication is to let local young people spread videos that can represent local culture to a series of video websites and open permissions to everyone to watch. People can learn more about indigenous culture through these online resources. This is an innovative way. Through this open learning environment, people around the world can achieve real cross-cultural sharing.

In short, the reading materials on Topic 3 let me understand the impact of educational communication on students’ personal economic ability and indigenous culture.

Resources：

Mays, E. (Ed.). (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. Rebus Community.

–   Read Chapter 1: Open Pedagogy

Kral, I. & Schwab, R.G. (2012). Chapter 4: Design Principles for Indigenous Learning Spaces. Safe Learning Spaces. Youth, Literacy and New Media in Remote Indigenous Australia. ANU Press. http://doi.org/10.22459/LS.08.2012

Through reading Topic 2 resources, I noticed that both distributed learning and open learning involve e-learning. In “25 years of ED technology”, Martin Weller pointed out that the golden age of e-learning began in 1999, because that stage belongs to the period when e-learning is separated from the experimental process and enters the public vision. I noticed that he mentioned the cost of e-learning, which is very concerned by both students and capitalists in today’s society. This problem involves students’ tuition fees, capitalists’ profits and other problems. I think the cost directly affects the development progress of e-learning. I linked this issue to the changes in tuition fees in higher education institutions during the pandemic. At first, it was thought that studying at home would reduce the overall tuition fee, but the reality did not. I think there are two main reasons. The first is that e-learning requires high research and development costs, such as: the research and development costs of brightspace. The second point is that e-learning needs some different websites to maintain the teaching quality, such as: zoom. In general, although e-learning reduces a series of lower costs, such as: commuting cost and venue cost, it is  still has higher fixed costs than traditional offline teaching. It only changed the allocation of resources, but did not reduce the input of resources. I think in the period when e-learning is not necessary, school can reduce the online courses with low demand of students to ensure the balance of payments.

In reading ‘Teaching Online : A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice’, I found a new word: massively open online courses (MOOCS). This kind of course is more inclusive than traditional online courses because anyone with enough technical tools can choose to take these courses. They open these courses to people who don’t need credits. I think the advantage is some courses are free, but compared with traditional online courses, this kind of course has a large number of students in one class. I think this course can be used as a way to enrich the traditional online courses in our university. For example: My major is economic, and I can go to take some MOOCs courses which about economics to learn some knowledge outside the traditional online courses. This way can enrich my professional knowledge. I think this is very useful because it plays the role of preview, review and accumulating experience for future work. From another perspective, if I am a teacher, I think opening the MOOCS course will enrich my teaching experience because the network has too many serendipities. There are more students in MOOCS which means that both students and I will get more diversified feedback. It will help to enrich my teaching methods.

References:

Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 76-108)

Weller, M.(2020). 25 Years of Ed Tech. https://doi.org/10.15215/aupress/9781771993050.01

Through reading and understanding several resources, I think I most agree with the view that blended learning is an innovative educational method.By reading the book “teaching in blended learning environments”, I think blended learning is not a simple combination. It complements the advantages and disadvantages of face-to-face teaching and text-based online teaching.For example, blended learning solves the campus space problem of face-to-face teaching and also solves the problem of lack of timely and effective communication between students and teachers in text-based online teaching.This teaching method is very suitable for university campuses during the pandemic. It imparts knowledge to students to the greatest extent under the condition of ensuring safety.The auxiliary tools used in this teaching method, such as brightspace, zoom and MS teams, can assist students to receive suggestions and guidance from professors and classmates remotely.

The upsurge of new educational technology makes us see the multifaceted nature of future educational methods, but at the same time, we often ignore the negative impact of educational technology on our privacy and security. At first, I didn’t pay much attention to privacy security, but a recent incident made me pay attention to it. On July 23rd, I received an email from UVic privacy information, which said that guard.me( a provider of emergency medical insurance for international students at the University of Victoria) had been illegally accessed. it leaked students’ information and data. This reminds me of some other websites. Whether it’s an assessment website like Turnitin or a website like Quizlet that provides online exercises. Both students and teachers need to register accounts to achieve better use results. These registrations may require me to provide my contact information and name, so whether this will cause the leakage of my personal information is my most concern.However, if I submit the registration information, it means that my information may enter the database, which is tangled and contradictory to me.In addition to these cases of whether to register or not, some data must be recorded. Through reading the materials, I learned that they are a kind of “administrative data”, including attendance records and transcripts. These data are closely related to my learning career and must be recorded, so how to respect privacy while ensuring the recording of students’ basic information is the direction I want to know more.

I think the muddiest concept mentioned in topic 1 is the viewpoint mentioned in Jim Luke’s article “That’s No Plagiarism Checker”. He believes that websites such as Turnitin exist to make profits and replace labor with capital investment. He believes this is a the teaching death star. To some extent, I think the existence of such websites may infringe upon the privacy of students and the copyright of academic works. But it is also meaningful to think from another perspective. It can reduce and simplify manual scoring and maintain original thinking. Therefore, I do not think we can unilaterally criticize or praise this kind of educational technology.

In conclusion, this week’s reading helped me understand the close relationship between privacy and new educational methods.

References:

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/10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2

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

Luke, J (2019), That’s No Plagiarism Checker, https://econproph.com/2019/03/12/thats-no-plagiarism-checker/