Category: Reflective Posts

The future state of learning openly and in a distributed way in the year 2040 is up for debate. However, by taking the course- EDCI 339, it has enabled me with a wealth of knowledge in relation to learning design. By doing so, this allows me to make an educated personal opinion on what education in the future might entail.

The EDCI 339 course outcomes embodies key concepts, relating to an introduction to the practice of learning design and its application to interactive learning environments.

With the technological advancements already available in the current year of 2020, I foresee a giant leap in the betterment of online platforms as they will act as a medium between instructors and students in the world of academia. In my futuristic story in the setting of 2040, there is an heavy incorporation of strict guidelines of the OEP and OER to ensure consistent educational sources for school environments. UDL principles play a great part in online learning, and the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine-learning will heighten the learning experiences for students. My final project post will take the form of 4  main pillar guidelines, and explore each concept in detail and relate their importance to the future of education.

My prediction of education in the year 2040 explores 4 main framework pillars:

-Humanizing online platform teaching and learning.

-UDL core principle guidelines.

-Open Educational Resources (OER).

-Future tech (Artificial Intelligence, Chatbots, Video Learning).

PILLAR 1

I believe there is great merit and importance for future education to be humanized. Cathy Barnes outlines the importance of humanizing online teaching and learning into three sub-categories:

• Cognitive Presence
• Instructor/Teaching Presence
• Social Presence

The Col (Community of Inquiry) Framework reflects a mergence of three presence theories. The entities of social presence, cognitive presence and teaching presence are inseparable as they share many commonalities; and works together to form an enhanced educational experience. “Dewy asserts that interaction is vital for students to adapt and learn from their surroundings; whereas Vygotsky’s social constructivist’s theory contend that knowledge is co-constructed within a community” (Chen, No Date). A hands-on approach to teaching is often overlooked as an influx of online learning materials are made available to students. A constructive improvement would be to try and mimic the in-person classroom experience with live-webinars; adding the social and teaching presence into the overall educational experience.

The Community of Inquiry characterizes instructor presence as an important key component “for creating community and affecting learning outcomes” (Barnes, 2017).  The framework discusses the importance of instructor presence, as it “promotes social presence and heighten the sustainability of cognitive presence” (Chen, No Date). An outcome of the study exemplifies that teaching presence promoted student participation and discussions. An example of this when an instructor distribute a survey to students, and the students in turn fills out the survey in direct response. This instance illustrates a correspondence between all parties as direct result of the instructor’s prompt [presence].

In the realm of education in the future, students are expected to participate in their respective courses behind computer screens. By incorporating the Community of Inquiry framework, instructor can help boost engagement from students in the course. By doing so, it also encourages a human-touch in the midst of heavily computerized learning platforms and e-books. An example of this is as simple as the participation in a discussion or forum site, where students are able to post questions and receive responses from instructors; in the form of a post or direct message.

PILLAR 2

The UDL principles encourage instructors to provide students with multiple means of engagement, representation and actions and expression. UDL framework is a strong guideline for contents-design and defines expression applications in course-work. The principles of providing different means of engagement can easily include the incorporation of technologies like ZOOM and Microsoft Teams to deliver online discussions between instructor and students (Dickinson & Gronseth, 2020).

In the sphere of futuristic education, the lack of human to human interaction in educational settings can pose as a problem. An example and a remedy to this is the creation of a class social-hub, also commonly known as break-out rooms. The purpose of this is for instructors to open-up a period in the day for office hours. This further enforces UDL guidelines to ensure that students in online course have the opportunity to express and articulate course related materials with their instructors. On the whole, the end goal of UDL incorporation provide multiple means of engagement, representation, and action & expression.

PILLAR 3

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are teaching, learning and research materials in different formats. The OER reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. (UNESCO, 2018, p. 2). In a way, textbooks and course materials can all be unified and stored within the OER.

In the educational setting of 2040, it can be assumed that many services will be subscriptions based. In the current times, common subscriptions to music and movies such as Spotify and Netflix are very commonplace. In the realm of academia, educational services will be subscription-focused while offering an all-inclusive access to students and instructors. As an example, students will no longer be required to purchase textbook and reading materials as their education subscription service will provide them access to ebooks and learning materials online. Furthermore, the need for traditional methods of students having to visit school libraries for academic journals and specialized book volumes; can be mitigated with secure virtual private access (VPN) from the comforts of home. In a simplified manner, Open Educational Resources helps to make accessibility to online learning more attainable. At the same time, OER helps to streamline the overall user learning experience and negates obstructions such as difficulty obtaining course materials as an example.

PILLAR 4

The new generation of learning

Although some might view technology as pervasive, for the new generation of learners, technology will be heart of academia platforms and learning. It can be assumed that both children and adults will be very digitally savvy and heavily rely on the internet. The COVID-19 pandemic has already thrusted online learning to new heights. By 2040, a student-focused approach of learning design can allow children to choose their own learning objectives and their own pace- all of which can be guided by artificial intelligence, chatbots, and video-based learning.

Artificial Intelligence

Artificial intelligence (AI) in education typically focuses on identifying what a student does or doesn’t know, and then subsequently developing a personalized curricula for each student.

The employment of AI in educational capacities has garnered great attention, and by 2040, AI will play a key role in schools. What AI will do is to use a mixture of user-based interactions and machine-learning to better analyze information. Over time, AI can interpret a big collection of big data to improve learning materials provided by schools.

In an purported example, an online assessment is provided to a class of students. And after careful analysis of the completed assessments, the AI can be utilized identify certain questions in the assessment that the majority of students answered incorrectly. By doing so, the instructor can better single-out deficiencies in learning-materials that might have caused this; in relation to the wrongly answered questions.

In short, the adoption of AI and machine-learning gained great momentum in recent years, and will continue to do so in the near future. AI helps course designers and instructors cater to a growing number of students partaking in online learning.

Chatbots

Chatbots are increasing in popularity and becoming a fundamental tool in next generation education. Chatbots are designed and aim to simplify the interaction between student and computer, and some benefits may include:

• Spaced interval learning: Uses algorithms and to calculate user memorization and information retention.
• Immediate feedback: Papers, quizzes, and exams can be graded instantly, providing near immediate results.
• Self-paced learning: Closely tailor and track a student’s learning performance.

Essentially, the adoption of chatbots will enable reduced workloads on instructors, and help to facilitate course materials to a large number of student all at once.

Video Learning

Video-based learning has slowly gained acceptance in schools and is greatly considered a learning innovation. By incorporating videos into online course curriculums, it empowers students to view videos at their own leisure and as well have flexibility of replaying videos when needed.

The usage of videos in educational capacities provides:

• Educational material for student course work.
• Verbal feedback on assignments.
• Instructional and step-by-step directions for students to follow.

References

Brau, B. (2020). Constructivism. In  R. Kimmons &  scaskurlu (Eds.), The Students’ Guide to Learning Design and Research. EdTech Books. https://edtechbooks.org/studentguide/constructivism

Chen, A. (No Date). EDCI 339 Student Blog. https://andrewc.opened.ca/

Dickinson, K. J., & Gronseth, S. L. (2020). Application of Universal Design for Learning (UDL) Principles to Surgical Education During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Journal of surgical education, 77(5), 1008–1012. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jsurg.2020.06.005

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2), 87-105.

Johns, H. U. P. (2015). Teaching online : A guide to theory, research, and practice. ProQuest Ebook Central https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca

“The UDL Guidelines.” UDL, 6 Oct. 2020, udlguidelines.cast.org/.

“Learning Pathways: Open Education Online Tutorials: OER Africa.” Learning Pathways: Open Education Online Tutorials | OER Africa, www.oerafrica.org/book/learning-pathways-open-education-online-tutorials.

The EDCI 339 course outcomes embodies key concepts, relating to an introduction to the practice of learning design and its application to interactive learning environments. Of the six learning outcomes, there  are two that demonstrated the most growth in as a learner. My two choices of outcomes are:  The development of an awareness of potential of human-centered learning in online learning contexts, and the conducted research into emerging and future educational technologies.

The awareness in human-centered is an on-going development and it has many implications surrounding learning in online and open learning contexts. Online learning platforms are often designed with students in mind, but the human-centered aspect of learning behind a computer screen can often be lacking and insufficient. Especially in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, students and instructors alike are often deficient of the classic brick-and-mortar class room experiences. As such, courses now offered online have an incorpration of humanization, to closer mimic the classroom experiences for students.  In the second chapter of the book “Humanizing Online Teaching and Learning”, Cathy Barnes defines and expands upon the following three presences in online teaching:

• Cognitive Presence
• Instructor/Teaching Presence
• Social Presence

The second outcome that I feel I demonstrated the most growth in as a learner is the emerging of future educational technologies. The realm of online educational platforms is nothing new and have been around in the recent 20 year of academia. However, it is interesting to note that educational technologies are not sedimentary, and instead, rapidly evolving to adapt to new learning designs. Prior to taking this course, I have studied UX and this is in relation to app design and user interface. The importance of an user interface is often undermined, as it can make or break an user’s overall perception and usage of the given platform. In the EDCI 339 course, it explores many platforms and this includes are not limited to BrightSpace, Moodle, Blackboard and many more. However, we already see a deep integration of face-to-face technology softwares such as ZOOM, adding a humanizing touch to both instructor and students. In my personal opinion, the usage of ZOOM is current optional, but I foresee ZOOM being made mandatory in the future as it helps to cement a stronger learning experience in courses that are offered online.

I believe that pre-recorded webinars and videos have already became dominant in online learning, as it provides flexibility for students to view videos and webinars at their own preferred times. In relation to this, I believe online education designers are still seeking better ways to embed videos in platforms. For example, a video that is made available by instructor in Moodle can pose a number of issues as it heavily relies on Java-Script and Flash add-ons. The aforementioned video may display fine on a PC computer but may not be on an iOS apple iPad device. This led to commonly-used work arounds by posting videos on Youtube and then hyperlinking the video in Moodle. The reason I chose the video embedment in online platforms is because there is an increased adoption in the viewing of pre-recorded webinars rather than the attendance of live-webinars hosted by instructors.

In consideration of definitions and practical examples of distributed (online) and open learning, I believe that “open learning” is most effective for myself as a learner. The reason for this is strongly tied to available resources that is accessible and offered to me. Open learning offers the flexibility for students to access journals most relevant to my research/studies and not be limited by the selection of journals that my campuses are able to provide. In many recent cases, I was able to save costs on textbooks and instead adopt ebooks to save money, and have the ability to connect to campus library resources via secure VPN portals. This to me is a spectrum of freedom and flexibility as I am able to seek resources made available by the school.

Finally, the most valuable thing that I have learned about myself as a learning throughout this course is open and effective communication. This course focuses on  learning design and its application to interactive learning environments. Yet during my time studying this very course,  I feel that effective communication is very crucial to my success in studying. For example, I love how BrightSpace have a well designated sections of resources for students. I am able to login to BrighSpace and be able to click through my assignments and instructions of weekly reading materials. The overall experience have been phenomenal and and positive. Communication plays a key role in the facilitation of this course and I especially enjoyed the live-webinars hosted between Dr. Roberts and guest speakers, as this helped to simplify harder-to-understand course concepts. On the whole, EDCI-339 is a valuable course and I would whole-heartedly recommend it to my peers.

With the ever-changing landscape of education, open-education has a dominant place in the world of academia along side in-person classroom settings. Platforms have been made available and carefully designed to support open education settings. This week’s course readings have been very delightful as it laid out the basis of good Open Educational Resources (OER) sites and its uses. Prior to this week’s readings, the OER is an area where I have been uncertain of, primarily their usage, procedures, and accessibility. In this blog post, I will explore the definition behind OER and how I resonate with the resources as provided.

Open Educational Resources (OERs) are teaching, learning and research materials in different formats. The OER reside in the public domain or have been released under an open license that permits no-cost access, use, adaptation and redistribution by others with no or limited restrictions. (UNESCO, 2018, p. 2). In a way, textbooks and course materials can all be unified and stored within the OER.

From a personal standpoint, the accessibility of learning materials have been easier than ever. In the past, the usage of textbooks and printed materials have been the norm. However in recent times, the adoption of e-books and online-based reading materials have been widely available and often very affordable with a small subscription cost. There is a caveat however and that is the adaptation to reading course materials and textbooks on the computer or a tablet instead of texts on paper. I have peers who have trouble and grapples with this change of reading style and many have transitioned back to hardcopy textbooks or simply printing out sections of reading materials.

Photo by Tia Heftiba on Unsplash

In the realm of OER and it’s availabilities, it allows easy access to affordable resources for both students and instructors alike. It is important to note that distributed learning is widely embraced due to it’s flexility with materials. And in direct comparison, open learning offers bigger room for plasticity in terms of costs and convenience to campus library journal and resources for students. In short, the ease of access to OER with online libraries and academic research journals for students is a large factor, this is primarily because it negates having to be physically on campus in order to access the aforementioned materials.

I strongly feel that open learning is both mindset and value based. A personal experience in relation to this is the interdisciplinary program that I took part in the past. The Human Kinetics (Kinesiology) at UBC offered an interdisciplinary stream, and this enabled students to take the core program courses, while having the flexibility of self-picking electives that he or she feels adhere to her studies in Kinesiology. In a way, the student must be well disciplined and self-pace with the offered learning materials. At often times, the student is required to visit clinic sites to observe physiotherapy being practiced and at the same time, appropriately access OER and knowledge bases for learning instructions.

Open Educational Practices (OEP) are, “collaborative practices that include the creation, use, and reuse of OER (Open Educational Resources), as well as pedagogical practices employing participatory technologies, and social networks for interaction, peer-learning, knowledge creation, and empowerment of learners” (Cronin, 2017, p. 18). After careful review of this week’s readings, I feel that OEP is critical to both students and instructors because it offers guidelines to best practices and frameworks to educational material creation.

Photo by Clement H on Unsplash

What is next in line in online learning? An unpopular opinion of mine is that I don’t think new ideas will present itself. Instead, I feel that educators will simply improve upon current practices and guidelines. As an example, better incorporation of embedded learning videos can be better improved upon. Videos are often embedded via JavaScript, and this can be an issue when viewed on different computer and tablet devices; as contents are encounter play-back errors. A potential workaround to this is linking the aforementioned videos to a site like Youtube, as this imaginably provides better stability and accessibility. All in all, both OER and OEP will help to expand the educational horizons for educations around the globe!

References

“Learning Pathways: Open Education Online Tutorials: OER Africa.” Learning Pathways: Open Education Online Tutorials | OER Africa, www.oerafrica.org/book/learning-pathways-open-education-online-tutorials.

Online-learning have garnered great attention over the past few years and it has been accelerated to new heights during 2020’s virus pandemic. I am well versed with online learning as I have taken many courses via Thompson Rivers University and Athabasca University. The delivery of these courses have been smooth and effective as I believe their online courses have been made available to students for a long period of time, and the respective courses were diligently improved gradually with help of student feedbacks. It is also interesting to note that I also took part in the early stages of online learning during high school in 2008 and at the time; is was more commonly called distance-education. The delivery of these courses was a combination of online materials, exams and mandatory bi-weekly sessions with course instructors. Granted, the senior high school courses that I had taken was not a popular choice at the time as most students had preferred in-person classes rather than the online-delivery alternatives.

The readings from Week 3 provided valuable insight into the Col Framework and they are as follows: Social Presence, Teaching Presence, and Cognitive Presence. The author of Chapter 2’s readings Cathy Barnes, outlines the importance of humanizing online teaching and learning. Her article compliments Chapter 1’s discussion surround teaching online as instructional change.

The Col (Community of Inquiry) Framework depicts interrelated theories by Vygotsky, Dewy and others. The highlights of cognitive, instructor and social presence allows for the formation of a community. Dewy asserts that interaction is vital for students to adapt and learn from their surroundings; whereas Vygotsky’s social constructivist’s theory contend that knowledge is co-constructed within a community. The theory of constructivism establishes the importance for instructors to adapt their teaching styles to interpersonal and increased hands-on-approach (Brau, 2020). An online class community must be able closely relate to the in-person class counterparts.

The Community of Inquiry characterizes instructor presence as an important key component “for creating community and affecting learning outcomes” (Barnes, 2017).  The aforementioned component is dominant with its inclusion of cognitive and social presence; because the instructor presence promotes social presence and heighten the sustainability of cognitive presence. Cathy Barnes also asserts this in a study carried-out by Shea and Bidjerano (2009). The Study discovered a high correlation (70%) between instructors’ ability to effectively cultivate teaching and social presences and students’ cognitive presence.

In the realm of pushing boundaries of educational delivery online, the importance of the presence of instructors should be considered highly important. While educational materials can be made available on any chosen platforms, it remains crucial for instructors to effectively communicate with students in their respective courses. In a traditional format of in-person classes, most students are accustomed to social interactions and one-on-one attention from instructors & TAs. This social interaction or presence can be closely replicated via myriad of ways. One option in particular is holding live-webinars online, as this calls for student’s attendance in courses and as well to help jump-start participation. In conjunction to live-webinars, the utilization of ZOOM meetings between student and instructors can help to resolve course material related questions. Furthermore, the practice of classes online and meetings help to anchor a combination of social, teaching, and cognitive presence.

A personal experience with the Moodle learning-platform via Thompson Rivers is as follows. The math course was well presented and structured in the Moodle platform. I was provided with easy access to the outline of the course, submission of required assignments,  and as well, take part in quizzes and examinations. However a shortfall of this course was the lack of instructor’s presence. For example, all communications were carried out via email, which lead to uncertainty when the expected-responses will be received between all parties. In one particular instance, I messaged my instructor with a math question, and I was provided with a YouTube video with that depicted a robotic explanation of the math theory. My personal insight with online learning is that online class deliveries should closely mimic the experiences that of in-person classes, and the social presence of instructors should be prevalent.