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Author: xiaoqiwang

Final Reflection

July 28, 2020 / / 0 Comments

The TwitterChat tackled some of the most important issues with regard to Open Education. One thing I appreciate the most about TwitterChat is the healthy exchange of ideas between educators and learners. Reading the discussion, I observed that the learners learn from educators and vice versa. This shows that educators no longer dominate the class discussions because learners also have something important to share. For instance, when the learners and educators are discussing where to find resources for teaching/learning, both the learners and teachers actively participated in the discussion through posting the links of free digital libraries that they are using.

In addition to the healthy discussion between educators and learners, TwitterChat also enabled teacher-to-teacher discussions and learner-to-learner discussions. In other words, TwitterChat helped teachers and learners to connect to people whom they share the same interest. It is important for teachers to connect with other teachers because teaching can be challenging sometimes. For this reason, teachers need to help each other out through sharing teaching tips and tricks. Similarly, learning can also be very challenging to students so pieces of advice from their fellow learners would really be a big help. Hence, openness and sharing in education can encourage solidarity and it can also create communities.

Discussion Post 4: Twitter as an Open Learning Environment

July 26, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Long before technological revolution, most class discussions are done inside the classroom where teachers ask questions and students answer the question. With technological development, it became possible for teachers to bring class discussions outside the four walls of the classroom. While reading the discussion in TwitterChat, I would say that I feel like I am inside the classroom once again, listening to my teacher and classmates exchange ideas. This means online discussions are as good as face to face discussions. Although it is true that twitter can be utilized to support open education, educators and learners should be aware of the risks of using it.

One of the advantages of using twitter is it can amplify the voices of the learners. For instance, when Dr. Roberts asked about the openness and sharing in K-12 educational contexts, learners can easily share their ideas and thoughts about the topic. Compared to face to face discussions, learners feel more confident to share their thoughts online. In addition to this, when learners share their ideas online, they could reach people from all over the world. I find this advantageous because connecting with other teachers and learners will give them varied perspective on a certain topic and it could also increase everyone’s learning opportunities. Moreover, twitter also enables renewable assignments. Renewable assignments are public, open-licensed tasks created by students to support their learning (Wiley and Hilton, 2018). Through twitter the tasks created by students can be publicly accessed and it also freely available to those who want to use it. Moving forward, despite the advantages of using Twitter as an Open Learning Environment, educators and learners should also take note of its downsides as well. For instance, just like other social media sites, Twitter is also collecting data. For this reason, twitter might put the educator and learner’s privacy at risk. In addition to this, since everyone can join in twitter discussions, sockpuppet accounts may ruin the discussion through sharing unrelated stuff. This means the discussions in twitter could be hard to regulate.

In conclusion, to promote openness and sharing in K-12 educational contexts, educators and learners should know how to properly use twitter and other open platforms to their advantage. Educators and learners should also know what open platform they find convenient to use because different platforms have different user interface. There is a possibility that learning will be hindered when the users of open platforms find it hard to navigate through the site. In addition to this, they should also responsibly use the site through being aware of its negative sides as well. Being aware of the risks of using open platforms will help the users to take precautionary measures. I believe that most open platforms have negative sides. However, it is not a good reason enough to quit utilizing open platforms altogether.

Reference

Wiley, D., & Hilton III, J. L. (2018). Defining OER-enabled pedagogy. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 19(4). https://doi.org/10.19173/irrodl.v19i4.3601

Discussion Post 3: Education in the Digital Age

July 20, 2020 / / 0 Comments

The ability to adapt to new technologies can be considered integral if one plans to succeed in the future. This is based on the grounds that everything today is affected by technology –particularly education. In other words, educators shall know how to effectively incorporate technology in education. The use of technology in education can be related to Open Pedagogy. Open Pedagogy is a teaching approach that considers autonomy and interdependence; freedom and responsibility; and democracy and participation as its values (DeRosa & Jhangiani, 2017). Reading the DeRosa and Jhangiani’s (2017) article on Open Pedagogy inspired me to approach teaching in a more empowering and collaborative manner because it enables student’s autonomy.

Teachers can apply the concept of Open Pedagogy and enable their students to be autonomous through building Open Education Resources (OERs) with their students (DeRosa & Jhangiani, 2017). Even if the students have not mastered the content of the course like their teachers have, the students have the capacity to come up with fresh perspective on the content. If the students can provide their own ideas about the course content, then their insights can be considered as valuable OERs. Moreover, I also personally believe that if teachers build OERs with their students, the teachers will also have the opportunity to learn as well. If the students and teachers learn from each other then, they would be able to develop a positive and healthy relationship.

Nevertheless, since the students have the freedom to conduct research on their own, the next question is: “How can the education sector assure that the internet is a safe learning space?” In the article written by Chris Gilliard (2016), he mentioned that there are some schools that filtered out sensitive contents. However, even if the act of censorship had a good intention, then it can lead to some problematic situations. For instance, when a certain institution filtered out sensitive topics like sexual predation among women, students will not be able to have access to various resources related to this topic. If this is going to be the case, then the school is short-changing the learning experience of the students.

With regard to the issue of filtering out sensitive contents, I am wondering if it is possible for the educational institutions to support the students’ academic freedom while maintaining their privacy and security when using the internet. At first, I thought that the best solution is to not filter anything at all and believe that the students are mature enough to handle sensitive topics. However, what if the students accessed a site that will collect all their private data? The privacy concerns in the digitization of education only shows that in addition to proper teaching philosophies and strategies, teachers should also watch out for the student’s safety.

 

References

DeRosa, R., & Jhangiani, R. W. (2017). Open pedagogy. In Guide to making open textbooks with students. Retrieved from                        https://press.rebus.community/makingopentextbookswithstudents/chapter/open-pedagogy/

Gilliard, C. (2016, May 24). Digital Redlining, access, and privacy. Retrieved from                                                                                                          https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/digital-redlining-access-and-privacy

Discussion Post 2: Social Media and Education

July 16, 2020 / / 0 Comments

Jordan and Weller (2017) came up with Openness in Education: A Beginner’s Guide as a result of people’s different understanding and perspective on ‘Open Education.’ In exploring this concept, the said authors explored various research papers that can be connected with ‘Open Education.’ In this guide, the authors were able to identify various themes related to openness. One of the themes identified by the authors is Social Media. According to Jordan & Weller (2017), the theme of Social Media emerged during the mid 2000s. The influence of social media made the educators think about open practices and scholarly activities online.

In the article titled, “A New Online Course Using Social Media,”  Biddix (2015) discussed how he used the Social Media to teach Technology in Higher Education. To goal of Biddix’s (2015) course is to introduce the current events related to the use of technlogy in higher education. The second goal of the course is to expose the students to different technologies which will allow them to work in higher education institutions. In attaining these goals, Biddix (2015) believes that social-learning approach would be the best strategy to keep his students engaged. In connection to this, I would say that I have to agree with Biddix because observing others will help the students gain insights on the “real” role of technology in the education. Moreover, instead of giving students a lot of readings, Biddix can model the best practices of using technology to his students.

With regard to Biddix’s use of Social Media, I am wondering about what the critics would say about using Social Media. For instance, some would claim that it would be not practical to use Social Media because there are a lot of distractions there. More so, some would even claim that Social Media is not specifically designed for student’s learning. For this reason, teachers should use resources that are tailor fit for the students. Additionally, I am also wondering what Social Media are highly recommended for online learning. This is important to know because educators cannot conduct a trial and error in order to know the effective Social Media to use in online learning. Lastly, I am wondering if it will be advisable to use a Social Media that the educators are comfortable with? Or educators should  use a Social Media that the students favor?

References

Jordan, K., & Weller, M. (2017). Openness and educaiton: A beginner’s guide. Global OER Graduate Network.

Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. JHU P.

 

 

 

 

 

Discussion Post 1: On Cloud Computing and Education

July 14, 2020 / / 0 Comments

According to Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner (2012) cloud computing refers to the practice of using the Internet to process, manage, and store data on network services. More so, because cloud computing is functional and cheap it is seen as one of the most important tools in online or distance learning. This is because the cloud technology enables online course providers to provide online learning experience to students regardless of their location. Even if cloud-computing is unarguably essential, the school administrators should be aware of its possible downsides.

Being not able to secure the students’ personal information is one of the downsides of using cloud computing in online education. Nevertheless, not everyone is aware of the possibility of this problem. This is because, when people use the internet, not everyone gives too much thought on the repercussions of using it. For instance, not everyone knows that cloud computing has the ability to store the users’ personal information. In connection to this, in using cloud- computing in education, the school administration as well as the students should be properly guided on how to protect their personal information. To illustrate, I learned that in order to come up with strong passphrases I could use KeePass, a passphrase manager that could help me remember unique passphrases. Whenever I make my passphrase before, the first thing that I consider is that I could easily remember it. Nevertheless, I learned that passphrase shall be created with the goal of protecting your own privacy. Accordingly, users shall make it as random as possible so that the hackers would not be able to guess it. In addition to this, school administrators and students shall all be familiar with the Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act. Having sufficient knowledge on this act will help the users know whether their rights are being violated or not. There were instances when some cloud-computing services would take advantage of the users’ ignorance to acquire their personal information. Moving forward, the users shall also be encouraged to be vigilant. For example, some would try to steal people’s personal information through creating personality tests (Ng, 2018). The information collected by the “personality” test would then be sold to certain companies for a high price.

To sum up, cloud computing can be considered as both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing because this technology enabled education to cope with the current pandemic. Despite its benefits, cloud-computing can also put the students’ privacy at risk. For this reason, the users of cloud technology shall use cloud computing as careful as possible. On last note, I would like to learn more about the due process that people needs to undergo when their Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act is violated. In addition to this, I also would like to know how exactly the users will know that their information are sold and used by other people?

References

Ng, A. (2018, April 11). Whoops! Mark Zuckerberg Says Even His Own Facebook            Data Got Scarfed Up by Third Parties. Retrieved from https://www.cnet.com/news/zuckerberg-facebook-data-was-sold-to-cambridge-analytica-too/

Office of the Information & Privacy Commissioner. (2012). Cloud computing guidelines for public bodies. Author.

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