Explore and engage with current literature on the distributed and open education movement
Throughout this course, I wrote blog posts, took notes, read articles, and responded to my pod members’ blog posts to meet this learning outcome.
The readings provided diverse literature that discussed distributed and open education. In topic 4, Wiley & Hilton, 2018 present a 4-part test used in identifying OER-enabled pedagogy. In my topic 4 blog post, I expressed why I felt that the 4-part test was effective in determining resources that followed the OER-enabled pedagogy. I stated that I ” agree with the efficacy of the four-part test introduced by the authors, in identifying OER-enabled pedagogy. Central to this concept is the notion of OER’s and the 5 Rs that guide them: reuse, retain, revise, remix, and redistribute.” In this statement, I suggest that the test is effective because it examines the OER component of OER-enabled pedagogy. If a resource enables users to achieve the 5 Rs activities (reuse, retain, revise, remix, and redistribute), it is most likely following the OER-enabled pedagogy. I also reflected on my university experience through the lens of the 4-part test.
Here are my notes for that post
OER-enabled pedagogy
- Renewable assignments vs Disposable
- 4-part test works because it ties in the 5Rs of an OER
- Example of 4-part test in my learning: EDCI 337 game project
- Would I use the 4-part test?: It’s all about context, some areas of concentration provide an opportunity e.g EDCI, others like STEM do not really because of privacy concerns.
From the reading, I found a quote that aptly described the aim of OER-enabled pedagogies. “OER-enabled pedagogies resulting in the creation of supplementary learning resources designed to facilitate the learning of other students.” (Wiley and Hilton, 2018).
The text also presented the concepts of renewable and disposable assignments. I related to these two concepts because, during my time at university, most of my assignments have fallen in the disposable category. OER-enabled pedagogy suggests adopting renewable assignments that serve a purpose for the larger learning community.
In her response to my post, Jordyn reflects on renewable and disposable through her university journey.
Madeline commented on her own experience around creating artifacts that passed the 4-part test
Hi Sam,
I enjoyed reading your post. I agree with what you said about not feeling a sense of gratification from assignments that meet the criteria of “disposable”. I found that a lot of my classes in high school relied too heavily on these assignments. Personally, I never thought writing papers, essays, and exams really benefited anyone. Especially exams, I feel like they do not test individuals on how well they learned or how hard they worked in a class, but instead on how quickly they could memorize as much as possible. In the days after my exams, I typically forgot most of what I had crammed in.
I also participated in EDCI 337 this summer but the resources I made never passed all four criteria for OER-enabled pedagogy. I posted my whiteboard animation about multiplication strategies on YouTube under “unlisted”. I also password protected my “create your own phys-ed adventure” I made on Twine. In the past, I have always leaned towards privatizing the artifacts I create. This is because I know that many people choose to be online with the purpose of spreading unkind messages. Nevertheless, I have started to publicly share some of the resources I have made for other classes in order to start conversations and collaborate with like-minded individuals. I shared a few of my lesson plans and a unit plan on my blog. One of the lesson plans I actually found for free online from Common Sense Education and I revised it in ways I thought would make it more meaningful.
I also shared some of my thoughts on pod members’ blog posts. In Ayden’s post, I discussed some limitations of OER-enabled pedagogy
Hi, Ayden!
Great job reflecting on this week’s readings
I think it’s hard to see courses that qualify as OER-enabled pedagogy in non-higher education for a reason you highlighted, protecting minors.From my experience, it’s even more uncommon in STEM programs. There is also a concern about protecting intellectual property. However, I do see the benefit of designing more courses like EDCI 339 that enables students to learn and contribute to open learning.
Your concerns regarding obtaining consent from schools and parents are very valid. In your opinion, what target age group do you think would benefit from courses that satisfy the 4-part test?
Regarding the research question, I agree with your assertion that students will find assignments in which they are able to create, revise, or remix artifacts more valuable. I have personally experienced this with a handful of project-based assignments. There’s a more valuable learning experience in this kind of assignment when compared to traditional assignments that don’t feel genuine in their attempt to teach.
Topic 2 provided an opportunity to explore literature that discussed the structure of online courses. Major, 2015 identified 5 elements of online courses.
The image above was very interesting to me. It showed the classifications for the 5 online course elements. This image is pertinent in understanding some of the content discussed when examining each of the 5 online course elements.
In my 2nd blog post, I reflected on my learning experiences through the lens of the 5 elements. I presented in my reflection as follows:
For example, most of the online classes I’ve taken at UVic fall under a range of element categories, including:
- Fully online, and blended (amount)
- Asynchronous and synchronous (timing)
- Utilization of an LMS like Brightspace which has been predominant since the pandemic started (platform)
- Centralized pathway with a focus on all students engaging with content the same way and decentralized pathway (pathway)
- Enrollment has typically been strictly by registration (enrollment)
I also answered a prompt provided by Ryan regarding the structure of informal learning mediums like youtube. Regarding this, I said “It is my opinion that even informal learning facilitated through youtube falls on the extreme ends of the spectrum for each of the 5-course structure elements. It is offered completely online, completely asynchronously, makes no use of any LMS but makes use of youtube’s platform, it could fall under a decentralized or distributed pathway but typically favors the latter, and enrollment is mostly free and open although there is premium content offered by Youtube content creators.”
My pod members also weighed in on the discussion with some great insights.
Madeline remarked how similar our online courses were structured despite being in different faculties
Hi Sam,
I enjoyed reading your post. I too decided to compare my own online coursework at Uvic to the 5 variables from the Major(2015) reading. Based on what you shared, it looks like our online coursework typically followed similar structures despite being in different faculties.
I like what you added about informal learning on Youtube. I would agree that Youtube’s platform follows a distributed pathway since users have the opportunity to pursue their own interests and investigate any questions of inquiry. What is great about Youtube is it’s virtually impossible to not find a video that discusses your topic of interest.
During my most recent teaching practicum, I used Youtube every day. The best way to get my class to settle in their seats, sit quietly, and start to think critically in the classroom, was to show them a video at the beginning of my lessons that would complement what I was going to be teaching.
My favourite channels to use in the classroom are Mystery Doug, Crash Course/Crash Course Kids, Mark Rober, SmarterEveryDay, The Backyard Scientist, and Science Bob.
One more thing to add, I think that if teachers are going to be allowing students to do their own research using YouTube, we need to teach them the essential skills to evaluate the videos they watch. Like how we teach students to think critically and evaluate the validity and accuracy of what they read online, we need to do the same with what they watch.
Jordyn was curious about how the different components of online classes at UVic had worked for me
Hi Samuel, I really liked the structure of your post and the way you clearly stated the different aspects of your online UVIC courses as bullet points, it made it very clear and easy to read.
I would be curious to know you or others personal stance on how you have liked the online courses at UVIC? How has BrightSpace helped or hurt your learning? Claire and I have discussed this in our posts, and I think it is interesting to see others perspectives on how they feel different online components work/don’t work for them!
It is interesting that you mentioned Youtube as a concept for online learning, and it made me think of personal experiences I have had with Youtube during my academic years. When the pandemic first happened and all classes at UVIC were quickly moved online, I was taking a statistics course. Even though my course wasn’t facilitated directly through Youtube, for the remainder of my stats course I relied heavily on Youtube channels to teach me concepts that were blurry and unclear. It would be interesting to know what category of online learning this would fall under, if any?
I also continued the conversation in my pod mate’s blog posts with these contributions :
On Madeline’s blog, I reflected on my experience asynchronous courses and use of social media in facilitating learning
Fantastic reflection Madeline!
I also reflected on the various elements of course structure through the lens of classes I’ve taken at UVic. Having taken a handful of online classes, I’ve found that asynchronous classes offer you the freedom to be creative and interact with the course content in your own unique way. Consequently, it could also become difficult to manage deliverables.
Social media can be a powerful tool in facilitating learning. We already use social media sites to learn informally. Harnessing this to create communities of learning and disseminate information creates a form of learning that is relatable.
I also found the concept of pathway interesting, especially when contrasting the different courses I’ve taken through this lens. Overall, I found that I am more inclined towards fully distributed pathways
In Ayden’s blog post, I echoed her sentiments on the importance of multimodal materials
HI, Ayden!
Your reflection highlights the importance of multimodal materials like visual, audio, blogging, or text. It’s critical to produce learners who are capable of interacting with a multitude of digital mediums that are tied with modern literacy. Viewing the issue of literacy through online learning is critical as an educator because you first need to be cognizant of the various components of open learning and how they are structured and applied. From your reflection, it is evident to me that you view open and distributed learning as a way to introduce your students to a new age of learning. I agree with that sentiment
By completing these activities, I learned about various concepts related to distributed and open education.
The things I learned matter to me because as a future educator, it is pertinent for me to be apprised with current literature in open and distributed education. This will enable design courses that are effective mediums for learning.
Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 76-108)
Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2018). Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4).
Hi Samuel, I found our posts to be very similar in terms of our understanding of OER’s as well as the completing of an assignment that passed the four part test mentioned in Wiley and Hilton’s (2018) assignment!
I wholeheartedly agree that so many of our assignments are structured around closed systems, and unfortunately this means that many of our assignments are completed, graded, and then thrown away. Throughout my high school career, I had a few of my teachers reach out to me or my friends and ask if they could use my assignments for future classes, such as the Spanish Youtube video that we created and that I explained within my post, but within University I have never heard of any professor asking to keep work stored for future use. Do you or any of my pod members know if this has to do with a potential privacy or protection issue, or if this is just not something professors do? Perhaps they do it and my work just has not been sufficient to keep (haha). I would be very interested to know if you or any of my pod members have had a professor ask to keep any of your assignments! While reading your post, I thought about how cool it would be if students in higher education could have the option to share their projects/assignments to a secure folder once it has been completed and graded that could then be used for future professors to show other students taking their courses… perhaps there could be a criteria that states a student has to have a certain percentage on the assignment in order to submit? Although this is still considered closed because the file is secure and not open to the public, it could benefit other students in the future and allows work to be reused. I’m not sure why more professors don’t utilize other students work as examples, as I know personally having examples of past students works, such as the ones we had for our pod project, really helps to visualize what the professor is looking and asking for, and can create overall better content.
I never thought about the fact that posting work online for the public to view could lead to potential stealing of work by others online, but you make a perfect example of that. Does this mean if you were to put an idea online that it is considered public domain and anyone has the right to take it and use it for their own benefit? Or are there copyright laws to protect things such as this?