Category: EDCI-569- Open Education

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EDCI 569#4- Digital and Media Literacy

 

 

Photo by Ari He on Unsplash

What?

Law 12 class:

Student-“Thank God I deleted that old photo of myself doing …………..!”. 

Me- “Did you?”

Student- “ Yup, after we talked in class about the use of peoples social media (SM) accounts as tools for future employers, school admin, ETC to look us up, and how our data is sold,  I cleaned up my Facebook and Instagram”

Me- “Good start, did you increase your privacy settings?”

Student- “Yes”.

Me- “Good, now did you look at the tag setting for your photos?”

Student- “ Yup, set those as well”.

Me- “Wait a minute, you didn’t mention cleaning up your SnapChat?”

Student- “I don’t need to, it disappears after 10 seconds.”

Me- “Sit down and let’s talk about data-permanency.”

So What?

How do we make that connection with cell phones and not only their addictive potential but the data-proliferation and ownership of your data? Phones and tech are a great tool that has reinvented and will continue to reinvent, the way we process and disseminate information. We should not fear this. That would be counter-productive. How do we embrace this in an informed manner? We should teach it! 

Now What?

The new curriculum does lay-out how to teach media literacy. I have looked it over and it is good. Nieve but good. It is my opinion that teaching the students about what implications their digital footprint may have on their lives has to be more organic. It needs to be more conversation-based, tied to a real-life scenario that is happening. In the Law class mentioned above, we were talking about the suicide cases in the east and the contributions of SM in those cases in terms of bullying ETC. We talked about whether someone should be responsible for the results of their online behaviour and they said yes. I asked if there should be laws in place to make you responsible for that behaviour, and they paused. I asked if an employer should be able to make employment decisions based on their SM information and they said no. I then asked them how they believed what happens online does not correlate with who they really are? They said social media is the place that they can be who they are at the moment, but maybe not who they actually are. That led to a great conversation about intent and privacy that lasted 40 minutes. It was all organic and non-lecture based. Just a conversation in a place where they were safe to express themselves and their thoughts. That, in my opinion, is how we teach digital footprints and SM. We talk about it. We talk about the value it has on our planet and in our lives. We talk about its benefits without ignoring its drawbacks. We talk about our responsibility in societies both outside, and on the web. 

By: Andrew Vogelsang

 

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EDCI 569#3-Different Worlds: The Distance Education Experience from a Classroom Teacher.

Photo by Lena Bell on Unsplash

What:

This week’s class discussion was widely based on Online Learning. With the advent of the internet and the proliferation of access to information and knowledge, distance education was a clear next step in the genesis of education or at least a viable option. For the purpose of this blog, I am going to call it Distance Learning (DE). According to an article by NĂ­ ShĂ©, Farrell, Brunton, Costello, Donlon, Trevaskis, Eccles, they say that,  “[t]oday many providers of distance education have become fully online where all teaching and learning materials are made available to students online, generally via the institutions Virtual Learning Environment (VLE)” (2019, p 18). Though the article is based on findings for university and higher education settings, I believe there is transferability. DE affords the option for parents to school their children, or have their students educated, in their home for a variety of reasons, be it health (both physical or mental), values, or proximity to a physical building. There are those who are weary DE, those who say that it is robbing the student of the valuable social aspects a public school provides. Others will counter with the schools cannot protect the values that the students’ families want them to be raised with. Both are valid points. But if we are going to talk about the efficacy of DE, we must look at the technology involved and what makes a good DE Teacher.

I work for a school district with a thriving DE program. It is called E-Bus. E-Bus has been operating for 25 years and has an enrolment of approximately 4500-5000 students (from around BC and beyond, with about 1000 being full time enrolled (FTE). The numbers are hard to calculate exactly as they have students taking one course while enrolled at another school, or just one course to reach graduation. In DE, the numbers always fluctuate. Beyond the numbers, there is a massive amount of technology involved, both by the school, and the student, to make this enterprise work.

So What:

I had a sit-down, well… a stand in the hall, chat with a teacher from E-Bus, and I asked him some questions about his job, and the tech they use to deliver their courses. Though this teacher is in my school and I see him every day, I have very little knowledge of his daily routines, as I am sure is common in schools that have DE teachers. We are in different worlds, even though we share a physical building. We had a fantastic talk that was enlightening.

First of all, this teacher suffers from a chronic physical ailment and teaching at E-Bus allows him the flexible hours that will fit his schedule. He is always in on the weekend and works his hours, just not in an 8-4, 5 day a week fashion. This is fantastic accommodation that DE affords. If we are to be inclusive to all students, which we should be, then we have to be inclusive to all workers if possible. 

Secondly, his workload is interesting. I have asked many E-Bus teachers about how many students they teach at a given time. As you can imagine, with the fluctuation in course starts and finishes, that number changes often. As I understand it, the teachers in elementary have 25 families they look after and give education to in all disciplines. High school teachers can have as many as 200+ students at a time. As a classroom teacher, I find that number to be astonishing and in a classroom that would be 50 per class. However, DE is different in a way, as this teacher explains. He says that there are self-starters who he never really has to interact with as they complete their assignments without prodding and can fly through the course. However, there are students that may take 2 years to finish a course, and DE allows for that flexibility too. I cannot speak to whether this number of students is manageable, as I have never taught DE. Furthermore, with a lack of provincial class size limits for DE, the point is moot anyway. So how does the learning happen? How are all reached? Tech.

E-Bus runs off Moodle. Moodle is a Learning Management System (LMS) and it is open source. Through Moodle, the units are delivered. They also rely on Office 365 from Microsoft to deliver all their software needs through an online platform (cloud-based) and therefore not requiring the students to have the software on their physical computer. They also use a video recorder/editor called Camtasia. Though Social Media Platforms, like Facebook, are a viable way to communicate with students, it is frowned upon as it is a great way to get viruses, along with other confidentiality issues. The tech is allowing for the potential of a good online experience for the students and the teachers. But is it different being a teacher online vs. a regular school?

Now What:

To the question of DE and in school education being different, I would say it clearly is. However, the skills required to be a good teacher in this platform seem to match up well with regular schools. According to Ni She et al., the main factors important to successful online teaching are: presence, facilitation and supporting students (p34). When one looks at the descriptions of these (Table 10, p34) it discusses all the things that are effective in OE, but they are the same as good teaching in a classroom. Words like support, facilitation, presence, timely feedback, ETC. all play a role as an educator no matter the venue. I feel that I, and others, tend to try to differentiate what something is based on its mode of delivery. Yes, they are different, but the ideals are the same: Education. There are ways to create a tie between DE and conventual education through technology.

Overall, I was truly ignorant of the daily duties of a colleague that works in the same building as myself. We are together but in different worlds. There is a lot that I can learn from him as to how to incorporate the software he uses in my classroom. This has been a fantastic week of learning, and growth, and I am better for it.

By: Andrew Vogelsang

 

References

Shé Ní, C., Farrell, O., Brunton, J., Costello, E., Donlon, E., Trevaskis, S., & Eccles, S. (2019). Teaching online is different: Critical perspectives from the literature. Retrieved from Dublin City University website: https://openteach.ie/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/Teaching-online-is-different.pdf

 

 

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EDCI 569 #2- OERs-An Emerging Trend

Photo by Alex Holyoake on Unsplash

What:

In this week’s readings and classroom discussions, we discussed the use of Open Education Resources (OER). In my opinion, the largest and most impactful OER to date is and will be for a long while, YouTube. According to the United Nations, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO),  “Open Educational Resources (OER) are teaching, learning and research materials in any medium – digital or otherwise – that 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” (Downes, 2019). OER’s are a fantastic emerging phenomenon in the educational field. In teacher’s college, they emphasize the importance of sharing resources, and to make sure we try not to, “reinvent the wheel”. That is a very important tip as the sheer workload commitments on new teachers, and teachers in general, are immense. Therefore, it is great to see sites like Teachers Pay Teachers, and the BC OpenEd, where teachers can help one another move forward in their field. OERs are also growing in the Post-Secondary field with places like MIT OpenCourseWare as an example. These sites allow me to get ideas that are from people in my field. As the only computer teacher in my school, I find collaboration with others hard as they, most of the time, have little idea of what I am talking about. That is in no way a slight on them, they just don’t teach computers. I have reached out and discussed many ways of teaching software, or units, with the Tech Teachers in my district and that has been helpful, however, we all have such different teaching styles that sometimes it is more work to change their ideas to fit my classroom than to just do it myself. OERs are opening up many doors for both my students and myself as a life long learner.

So What:

Being able to find resources that are specific enough for the students in my class is a challenge. Having split away from the traditional stand-and-deliver pedagogy for the grade 9-12 students in my class and switching more to a passion-driven independent style of learning has been amazing for engagement, but hard for resources. I, at any time, have 10+ different software programs going in my room and that requires some quick resources I can find that the student can use to move forward. I have one student using AutoDesk Fusion, an immensely complicated piece of software that he wants to learn to help him understand and work towards his goal of being an engineer. I was able to get educational copies of this software and he is creating amazing things. That is more on him, as this is his passion, I just had to get him started and get out of his way. But where does he get the information to learn this software? OER. This student went on the software website, spent an hour finding the tutorial he wanted and started making the product. His work on Fusion has inspired another student, who wants to learn AutoCAD like his father. The benefits are great and the learning intense. This process has been many hours scouring YouTube and other online forums to get the information to the students. However, due to these class readings, I was introduced to  MIT OpenCourseWare which is a blessing to those who teach programming.

What Now:

MIT OpenCourseWare is a tool I would have never thought about, or heard of, if not for this course. It has changed my expectations, and understanding, as to what OERs could be. This is mostly due to my ignorance of the platforms and their uses. I have a student that is learning Python (programming language) and has had some good resources to aid him in that. However, there is a Python training course, with full lectures and class script and learning modules on the MIT site. Also, the Directory of Open Academic Journals (DOAJ) has been very helpful to my Senior Humanities students when they are looking for research on their various courses, be it Philosophy, Psychology, Comparative Religions, ETC. These sites are a game-changer for me and my students. Furthermore, I have a student designing assets (3D models) for her house in Google Sketch-up. She has decided she wanted others to use her work so she uploaded her asset to the 3D Warehouse for others to use, free of charge, which is adding to the repository of assets available to those who use the program. 

I know the examples above are small samples of what can be done, however the willingness to share with others is the greatest part for me to witness. This group of learners, and this generation, is less interested in ownership than they are of getting their stuff out there and, possibly, helping others. It is this idea of sharing that may change the monetization of resources in future generations.

 

Reference

Downes, S. (2019). A Look at the Future of Open Educational Resources. International Journal of Open Educational Resources, 1(2). Retrieved from https://www.ijoer.org/a-look-at-the-future-of-open-educational-resources/

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EDCI 569-Stuck in the Middle

 

Photo by Hutomo Abrianto on Unsplash

In the modern, litigious, and ownership-based society in which we live, one must ask if education could ever be truly open? How do we recognize the achievement of higher education? How do we structure a system where knowledge supersedes credentials? What are credentials actually? Does someone with a Master’s degree in a subject, have the knowledge, or the performance in that subject, more fully than someone with a high school diploma, but a voracious appetite for that subject matter and has read everything available on the subject? Does knowledge even need to be formally acknowledged by an institution, that we have paid money for the privilege of having that institution give us a piece of paper for our completion? Therefore, do credentials mean qualification?

UNESCO fights for access to education as a right. They discuss human rights around free and accessible education. Furthermore, one could say, if the whole educational, and social, structure of our societies is based on not what you know, but what an institution says you know, and that acknowledgment is the defining factor in your progression in both status and financial security, then we will need a true paradigm explosion in not only education but what society values. 

It is clear that most people, and countries, know the value and the essential nature, of having an educated and informed population. The very nature of being informed is that you can take part in society and try, though not always successfully, to move that society forward. However, we only guarantee an education to a certain level (high school) and that will supposedly get everyone to one playing field. Furthermore, only having a high school education will get you only so far. If one is interested in following their dreams and becoming a doctor, lawyer, teacher, etc, then one will have to have the resources to do this: And so begins the proliferation of wealth and equity gaps. Those who can afford the education can reap the rewards, where those who can’t, cannot. Moreover, this goes to the heart of the issue of ability versus credentials. Our societal structure dictates that status is achieved through education, or at least financial status and security. That is not true in all cases and we have all seen, or know of people, who have made a great success of themselves, in terms of status and security, with little to no education but those cases are few and far between. Therefore, access to knowledge and education are not linked.

I will bring this idea out with an example. I worked in the restaurant industry for a greater part of my working life, 17years. In a kitchen, there are chefs and there are cooks. One difference is that the chef has gone to Culinary School and the cook has worked in actual kitchens. The Chef runs the kitchen and gets paid more, based on his/her paid education. The cook works under the chef, makes less, and in most cases, that I have seen, are better at working with, and cooking, food. Thus, the disparity in the kitchen is based on what someone is certified in, knot what they can do. This is true in the front of the restaurant too, where the person who started out as a host, has worked there for years, rose to the top as head waiter, and knows how a restaurant should run, is working under a person who has 12 months of Hospitality schooling and a certificate, but is not effective in the actual work beyond book learning and classroom scenarios. Can the chef and the manager learn and get better? Yes. Is it the cook or ex-host that is invariably training and bringing the skills to their superiors? Yes. Thus, is the status and financial security achievement of the chef and manager not based on the fact they paid someone money for a piece of paper? 

Before I go any deeper into this rabbit hole, I will end with this. Do I think that a person’s actual abilities be “worth more” than a person’s certificates? Yes. Do I know how to make this happen on a societal scale? Not a clue. How do we reward those who research and write books, educate the public with a formal education? How do we recognize the skills of those who lack formal education with recognition of their abilities based on experience and not letters after their name? This course is talking about the equity of information access and how we as teachers, and professionals, can take that information we learn to better our classrooms and develop intrigue and self-dependance in our students and in their abilities to find knowledge, to help further themselves, and their understanding, on a topic. So is it not time to redefine what education is, and what it is for, other than receiving marks and latent gratification towards security and financial independence? Welcome to my brain! You’re welcome!