Category: Reflective posts

Four Reflection

FLOE is a resource to personalize how people learn and address barriers on an individual basis (floe flexible learning for open education., n.d. para. 1). I resonate strongly with the statement that addresses how each individual learns differently. I remember throughout my high school education, I often struggled with reading comprehension and I would discuss with the teacher about my results. The feedback they would give to me would be something along the lines that my thought process was wrong and that I needed to think about the article in a different way. I never really understood how I needed to change the way I think. For instance, when you ask individuals to describe how a car crash happened, every single individual saw the same incident, but in a different way. There are many different learning styles that people can learn from. When designing learning tools for individuals, one needs to consider that people think differently and learners learn differently. For example, certain people can apply visual aids as cues to recall information, and certain people can apply audio cues to recall information. Neither technique can be described as superior, but one can be more helpful than the other in specific circumstances.

Throughout my university schooling, I often found reading my textbook as a tedious task and would often put it off. I eventually found a tool that would read my digital textbook to me. It was a way to transform and select alternative educational resources to fit individual needs is essential for a learning experience (floe flexible learning for open education., n.d. para. 3). Such applications could help barriers students may have. individuals with cognitive disabilities may benefit from such tools. 

Security architecture is also a great tool to have. This allows complete control over who has access to your preferences (floe flexible learning for open education., n.d. para. 10). As technology evolved, security should follow in the same timeline. Throughout my degree in Health Information Science, professors emphasize the importance of security within the databases in the healthcare system. For instance, personal information provided in confidence to healthcare providers must be kept secure – information such as addresses, personal identifiers, etc. For that reason, I see the importance of security to be embedded in technology as I am often educated on the emphasis of the two. 

Sonification is one in which I would need more clarification, however, I understand the overall concept of it. I tried the demo of it and it didn’t seem to work the way I thought it would. The demo read the section of the chart but not the numbers associated with it, which I think would be another beneficial feature. I also found the metadata component confusing. My knowledge of metadata is data that provides information to other data. I did not understand what the demo could provide to help users. 

To address universal learning design, does one need to focus on specific learning types or rather than an overall objective. There are many learning types, such as visual, aural, verbal, physical, logical, social, and solitary (Overview of learning styles., n.d.). Would a FLOE need to include many different learning types or just emphasize on one.

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://images.app.goo.gl/FK4hU5KQWEiUqQUF6

floe flexible learning for open education. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://floeproject.org/

Floe Project: Inclusive Learning Design Handbook. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://via.hypothes.is/https:/handbook.floeproject.org/

Overview of learning styles. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.learning-styles-online.com/overview/

In high school, I took a course called Career and Life Management (CALM). This course was required to graduate. This was my first online course I took, I noticed certain aspects that were not necessarily related to the course curriculum but rather than the overall experience of taking a course online. I noticed that online courses often lacked aspects that a classroom setting offered. For example, a classroom course often discussed basic information that the online classes were missing. I often found myself confused about how to navigate the online course. I was confused on where to start, where to submit assignments, and certain expectations for projects. This type of information is often very clear from the first class in a classroom setting. On the other hand, an online course has certain luxuries that a normal in class course cannot offer. Online courses tend to be more flexible, I am able to dedicate my time to the course based on my own time rather than an in-class course that required my attendance at a certain time. I also find that there is less pressure when communicating with peers. I am able to express myself with more liberty as I do not need to speak publicly and there is less association to me and my face online. I found that incorporating a communication channel for students for an online course gives it a human aspect to it. It gives a sense of community within the course and to connect with fellow students. I also found a great way to humanize an online course was when the professor provides feedback on the assignment. Not only did it increase the professor presence, that is already limited when you have never met them but I felt that I got to know the professor a bit better as well as gaining a general understanding of what the professor would like in future assignment based on the provided feedback. Lastly, I have never had the experience of synchronicity when taking an online course. I understand that there might be many obstacles with taking this route. Coordinating the schedule of many student may be challenging. I find that many students take online course as their schedule is already very challenging to begin with. With that being said, I often have meetings via webcam at my co-op and the entire experience is great. It is a great way to get in touch with individual that may be remote. To conclude, I find that an online course provides more options for student and provides a certain level of flexibility that I personally can appreciate. On the other hand, I think there is still some growth that may be require to improve the overall experience. Many of these aspect will improve as technology improve. For instance, video conferences were not an option 10 years ago but are now very common. Technology has given us the ability to eliminate many barrier we had before therefore I am optimistic to see what is next to come.

Online educational resources (OER) are free educational materials that can be used for teaching, learning, research, and other purposes (Open educational resources., 2020). One can personalize their overall learning experience according to their own pace (raccoongang, n.d). OER allows individuals to have quick access to all the latest information (raccoongang, n.d). OER includes course material, textbooks, streaming videos, and examines (Open educational resources., 2020). They can be adapted and re-purposed by others (Who Puts the Education into Open Educational Content?, n.d.) accordingly. Openly licensed educational content acknowledges the content is openly available, meaning it is readily available to be found or discovered. Licensing allows for content to be openly accessible and openly reusable in a way that the user can modify it according to what they require from the information presented. In other words, online open educational content is anything one can find online, while the open-licensed means that one is allowed to freely use that content with the given permission.

The steps I took to find my chosen OER, first began by starting with the google advanced search. From there I ensured that I was using “free to use, share or modify, even commercially’. Once I found an OER I wanted to use, I was able to evaluate my findings. My OER finding was information that was relevant to this course as it discusses many of the information for this week’s topic. The accuracy seems legit has it has been peer-reviewed and is a scholarly article. The production quality is clear, understandable, easy to navigate, as well as design features. Accessibility is also available for this content. I was able to download a PDF of the article. The licensing for the article is creative commons.

The task was more tedious than usual when finding resources.  When ensuring there were licensed that allowed me to use the information, I needed to double-check the resource followed the OER guidelines. This was a step I had never considered when looking for information when thus it added a couple of extra steps. I needed to ensure my sourced followed the provided guidelines which were quite time-consuming. Nerveless, I do understand from an educational purpose, OER does have a beneficial aspect to it. For starters, OER allows for an instructor to use material from other sources without getting granted permission and this does save overall time for the individual who will be using the information they discovered (Module 10: Why OER Matters., n.d.). OER also provides cost-saving for students. Saving cost on things like textbooks and other course materials (Module 10: Why OER Matters., n.d.). OER also grants access to more quality resources (Module 10: Why OER Matters., n.d.). OER allows for greater learning opportunities. The material from one resource to another will be shared across more individuals (Module 10: Why OER Matters., n.d.). OER provides peace of mind for all users. One does not need to stress when re-using material with OER (Module 10: Why OER Matters., n.d.). The resources are licensed to allow the sharing of content (Module 10: Why OER Matters., n.d.). To conclude, I would use OER for future research I conduct because I would feel secure in the information I am using as I know there are licenses in place that allow me to do so.

Link: OER

Article: OER

Citation

Cheryl. (1970, January 1). Benefits and Challenges of OER for Higher Education Institutions. Retrieved from http://oasis.col.org/handle/11599/3042

Module 10: Why OER Matters. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.openwa.org/module-10/

Open educational resources. (2020, January 30). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_educational_resources

Who Puts the Education into Open Educational Content? (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.educause.edu/research-and-publications/books/tower-and-cloud/who-puts-education-open-educational-content

(n.d.). Retrieved from https://raccoongang.com/blog/quick-list-open-educational-resources-examples/

Reflection 1 – 

Throughout my education, the instructor was the center focus of the learning process. I did not mind this, rather, as I much preferred having direction and to know what is expected from me. I have found with previous experiences of taking online courses, I was often lost on where to start and how to proceed. For example, I took an online course in high school and I found it difficult to know what the teacher expected with regards to assignments or where to start. In a classroom setting, the first class is often left to explain expectations for the course and how we were to be graded. I often find that for the most part synchronous issues can be solved a lot faster than asynchronous issues. An email interaction could take up a lot more time than a face-to-face conversation which would be more direct and effective. Therefore, a class discussion could be very minuscule and seem unimportant but could create the platform for the duration of the course; I found that aspect was sometimes lacking in online courses.

There are three possibilities for the power dynamic, instructive, constructivism, and connectivism. Connectivism is related to networking with connections to gain knowledge or skills.  Personally, I find a certain experience that an individual has, is the best way to remember something and learn from it. For example, I remember my first day of university so clearly. The feeling I had during that day helped me remember that experience – “Experience is the best knowledge”  (Siemens, 2005). The network that connects entities allows for more learner experiences. Relying on other individuals, technology and power to help one gain knowledge is better than relying just on yourself. Connectivism allows us to learn more than our current state. Using the resource helps divide up the workload one carries. The chaos of breaking down predictability can be helped with one’s experience that has occurred with another situation that may be similar. Knowledge cannot be isolated, there are many aspects that occur when learning and utilizing tools can help the knowledge one gains. “Half of what we know today was not known 10 years ago”  (Siemens, 2005). Our knowledge doubles, as there are more resources out there, people are using them to their advantage  (Siemens, 2005). I believe a large contributing factor to that state is how far technology has developed. There is much more information presented and obtained nowadays. We are more connected than ever before. People can network more easily and can obtain information more frequently.

Benham, B., Dellinger, J., Semingson, P., Spann, C., Usman, B., Watkins, H., & Crosslin, M. (2018, June 22). Chapter 2: Basic Philosophies. Retrieved from https://uta.pressbooks.pub/onlinelearning/chapter/chapter-2-basic-philosophies/

Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. Siemens, G. (2005). International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1). Retrieved from https://edtechuvic.ca/edci339/wpcontent/uploads/sites/5/2020/01/Connectivism-A-Learning-Theoryfor-the-Digital-Age.pdf