2024 Summer EDCI339

Open learning is the provision of free learning resources in an online format. The advantage of this approach is that people can learn regardless of time or location. Compared to normal offline school learning, online learning can be done without the need to go to a scheduled classroom at regular intervals, and likewise without the need to have a teacher present in the classroom in order to learn. Open learning offers a better way to learn for people who do not have the luxury of time to study. It also allows people who are no longer accepted by the school and want to learn to learn better, such as some elderly people who want to continue learning. For them, school may no longer be the right place, but they can still learn through an open online format.

Open pedagogy is a way of transforming the traditional lecture by the professor into an interactive format where the lecture is no longer given by one party. Instead of having one side of the class talk, students can learn and apply their knowledge better through interactive discussions. At the same time, it is an easy way to check whether students have understood a particular point correctly, eliminating the need for quizzes. Through the interactive learning process with the students, the professor can better understand what he/she is talking about and where the students are likely to misunderstand or find it difficult to understand.

OERs are some of the materials that may be used in online open-ended learning, and most of these materials are free online. It is still mostly free mini-materials, but most textbooks still need to be paid for. Also, many of the more specialized academic papers need to be paid for. But as you can see, there is a gradual move towards free materials of all kinds. An academic paper now costs only a few dollars, and textbooks are becoming cheaper, and students have the option of purchasing them for only a few months instead of being forced to buy them permanently. Just purchasing a short-term loan will also be much cheaper than a permanent one.

These licenses are a safeguard to keep the materials used in open learning from infringing. The use of these licenses allows professors to ensure that there is no infringement of copyright and that all teaching materials and information used by learners are scholarly and free from misinterpretation. The absence of such licenses can lead to the use of unproven teaching materials that may convey incorrect knowledge and lead to learners being exposed to misconceptions.

Because open learning hasn’t been maximized in popularity, there are still a lot of people who have misconceptions about it. I personally believe that open learning is a very convenient way of learning, but it is more demanding on the individual learner. The normal mode of learning will give the learner some sense of compulsion, but open learning relies mainly on the learner’s self-motivated learning. Learners who are less self-motivated may prefer traditional offline learning. For people who are not familiar with using computers and the Internet, it is also more suitable to learn in the form of traditional offline lectures so that they do not learn the wrong information because they do not know how to use online resources.

It is also important for students to be aware of their personal privacy. On the learning platform, you can say what information is necessary; for example, you need to indicate the school and specialization. However, more attention should be paid to the safety of the Internet. If you need to use your school e-mail address or school login information to log in, make sure that the equipment and network you are using are secure enough. For Uvic, having DUO for secondary login verification is a great way to keep students safe online. For other times, you may consider using a school computer to log in, as school computers are generally more secure and use the school’s secure network.

In the event that a teacher needs more personal information from a student, all we need to do is consider or make a personal judgment as to whether or not we really need to provide that information. For example, if a teacher needs a student’s student ID number from his or her home school when taking classes at an outside school, we need to make a judgment call. I think that most people and most teachers are good people and are ethical enough not to sell or maliciously use the information they obtain about students, but not without precaution. For example, in the earlier example, I would judge the situation to see if my student number was really needed. Since I can get a lot of information from my school, as a teacher from a foreign school, I would determine if my student number is really needed. If it is necessary, I would first change my login password and information for my home school’s platform to guard against the possibility that if someone could crack my password and use my student number to log in.

Trying to make every student feel included requires the use of multiple forms of interaction. For example, if some shy students don’t like to talk to people in class, they can interact through online message discussions. This will make them feel more included and cared about. For example, if some people feel they learn better by listening to the content, then a PowerPoint presentation can be added to the audio.

Basic human ethics need to be maintained on the internet as well, such as not using overly aggressive text. Instructors need to make their students feel that they mean well, not ill will. When interacting with students, they need to remain positive and not discourage them. When designing lessons, they also need to try to take into account the differences in each student and design as much as possible that can be made into something that can include everyone. Professors cannot be irresponsible just because it is an online course.

Digital technology has made it easier for us to present ourselves, and it has made education easier and more accessible. However, it is also making it easier to unleash individuals in multiple directions without showing their faces or being seen. For example, there are a lot of people who judge others recklessly online, and those judgments can be made with malicious intent. Because they are online, no one can do anything about them, so they can be more open to bringing ill will to others. This was very common when digital media was just starting to develop, but as time goes by, people are now gradually starting to monitor each other and the online environment is getting better and better. Nowadays, in the comments section under many video bloggers, there are more compliments and discussions than comments. People are spreading their goodwill to bring compliments instead of malicious comments.

With more and more platforms available now, it is also easier for people to learn from a variety of platforms. More and more bloggers who specialize in instructional videos are on various platforms. Originally, if you want to learn, you need to go to YouTube to find a special education channel to learn, but now all kinds of educational videos have gradually become more interesting and shorter. I think this is a good thing, as the old educational videos were very long and exhausting to watch. Now when I swipe through Tik Tok, all of a sudden there are all sorts of interesting and educational videos, and it makes me want to watch them. For example, some simple science of history or science of interesting little experiments in psychology. Knowledge is constantly being popularized.

The presence of the teacher is very important in educational videos. If there is no presence of a teacher in an educational video, then the knowledge may cease to be knowledge. It is better to have a teacher to spread the knowledge. The presence of a teacher ensures that the knowledge is correct. The teacher can also explain and correct the wrong points better and faster when there is a deviation in the understanding. The presence of a teacher also allows for better impartiality in learning, giving better feedback and corrections when grading assignments.

• Open education is more accessible. Before open education, people needed to come to a designated classroom in a designated school and be taught by a designated teacher at a designated time. Not only did the students need to be on the same schedule as the course, but the school also needed to match a teacher with a schedule that corresponded to the course. With OE, students can study wherever they are, even if they are in a different country. At the same time, the time constraints for students and teachers are not as strict. Students can organize their time to complete the course without having to attend classes every day.
• I think a very successful new innovation in modern education is the use of specialized school assignment websites like Brightspace or Canvus. most schools now use these types of websites for assignment processing. These sites help to make teaching and approval of assignments more systematic. Teachers just need to conduct lessons in class and customize the assignments to be submitted at the right time. This type of website not only allows the teacher himself to observe the hours of usage of the students, the answers during the exams, but also makes it easier for the TA to help the teacher along with the approval of the student’s assignments. This can be very helpful to enhance the efficiency of homework approval, but it can also give students a timely approval of their learning status.
• I think the shift from traditional education to the current educational concept is very good and has increased students’ freedom and convenience in learning. I think more schools should adopt more modern open education in the future. Some countries that have not yet fully adopted this open education will gradually adopt this approach. I hope there will be more convenient platforms and methods for students to learn in the future. I think education methods are constantly improving.

I am Jingyi Yang, and I prefer people to call me Yoki. I’m from Beijing, China. This is my fourth year in Uvic and my 10th year in Canada. I am about to graduate at the end of this year. I’m a psychology major.

In today’s society, everyone can’t live without social media. In my daily life, over 90% of my friends use TikTok or Instagram, so because I understand the importance of social media and the importance of it in my daily life, I think this class will be very interesting, and I think it will give me a better understanding of open learning. I do see and hear many voices saying that social media should be suspended in school, but this course focuses more on how to combine social media with learning and make it a open online study tool, which really interests me. Another big idea is distribute learning. This is a smart idea, in my opinion, for colleges and universities. Like this course, students can do more flexible work, and in my own situation, I need to graduate soon but I still have a lot of courses to take. It is not real to take 6 courses all in person during the summer session; then I can do several online courses so that I can have more time to study instead of on the way to school.

I feel that digital literacy makes education much easier. Nowadays, most textbooks have an e-textbook, and we can make notes right after we highlight the sentence(s), which makes it much easier than taking sticky notes. A digital copy of the same textbook is usually cheaper than a paper copy. Also, I don’t like to buy a used version of a paper book just because I want to do my own highlights and I cannot know which ones are mine and which ones are from the previous owner. However, a digital copy can definitely solve my problem with that. A digital copy is usually sold for 6 months or 12 months of use, but a term is usually just 3 months so it is a good idea to reuse it.

Also, note-taking apps are really helpful in my life as well. I have to use a note-taking app during lecture time and after class when I am reading the textbook. The app is much easier and faster than taking notes by hand. I can easily underline a sentence in a very straight line by staying for 3 seconds at the end point of the line. Same when I am trying to highlight.

One of my digital learning experiences was when I was a high school student. I was trying to catch up on Spanish in my Spanish class, but I did not go due to illness. I downloaded several language-learning apps. My result is that I only kept the one that is most simple in design, and it is also the one with my favourite colour, the one that I most like in it’s look. Therefore, I think later in this course, when we start to develop our own networks, I will try to make them as beautiful as I can. I believe that a way to catch people’s eyes can make them want to learn here.

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