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My four blogs:

Blog 4

Blog 3

Blog Post#2: Topic 2

Blog Post#1: Topic 1

Evidenece of pariticpation

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1jm5-aZRJu001Nwevy2vm0V34GnHV0rSoveOCsYL9Ggk/edit

Final Report

Have you ever thought of online learning before the year of 2020? I believe the year of 2020 has been very special for me and many other students, we had moved from face-to-face learning to online learning within one night due the pandemic-COVID-19. The biggest difference between online learning and face-to-face learning would be face-to-face learning happening synchronously with an assigned location for students to attend to. However onlining learning can be both synchronous and asynchronous and courses are not assigned to a specific location or classroom in order for students to attend. Based on my personal experience with both synchronous and asynchronous online courses I have taken in the past year, I do find that sometimes it is very difficult for me to feel motivated to attend class due to the time difference between Hong Kong and Canada. For classes that happen synchronously, they usually take place at midnight around 12am till 9am. I remember very clearly that on every Monday and Thursday I would have class from12:30am-1:20am and another class from 3:30-4:20am followed by a two hour class from 5-6:50am and I would end my Monday’s classes with another class at 9:20am. Although my grades were not affected by the time difference, I was very stressed throughout the whole school year. I was also having engagement problems since most of the class time I was having trouble focusing as I was very tired and sleepy. In order to help and improve online learning and EdTech utilizing the UDL model and principles-engagement, representation and action and expression allows the learner to become engaged in learning(CAST, 2018).

As mentioned above Uvic had moved to online learning within one day, and it caused different confusion since different professors or courses were using different platforms for their class. I often needed to search for the email that contained the information about the platform the course used and how to login. Lucky in the beginning of the winter semester of 2020 Uvic had selected the use of Zoom for all courses. However, some students in my classes were not able to turn on their cameras or have audio issues since their computer does not include a camera or they could not afford a new computer due to financial difficulties. In order to provide equitable access to authentic, meaningful and relevant learning environments for all learners, improving technology access in school and home and/or supporting the development of digital skills should be the main focus for the present and future(Selwyn,2020). Although there were some technical problem with the use of Zoom, Zoom has been a very convenient application. First of all, student does not have to pay for zoom which ensure all student can participate and engage as long as they have a electronic device(computer, laptop, Ipad, phone) and purchasing an Ipad would be cheaper than purchasing a laptop. Secondly, Zoom has easy login in design where students would enter their instition’s SSO and Zoom would remember the SSO direct student to their institution’s login page. Students would only have to enter their username and password for their school website no other new username or password needed to memorize. Apart from being easy to access, zoom allows teachers to video and voice meetings where students can see their teacher’s face instead of a blackout screen to feel more interactive and engaged. Apart from video meetings, Zoom also allows meeting hosts to share screen and record meetings. I found screen sharing and recording meetings exceptionally useful for my classes. For example in one of the coding classes I was able to clearly see what the professor was coding through the share screen, where I was having difficulties seeing the code as the screen was too small back when it was face-to-face. Other than having a better vision of the codes, I was able to share what I wrote to the professor and this had made me feel more engaged since I was having interaction with my classmates and professors. Furthermore when I was stuck or faced difficulties while working on my assignment I could return to the recordings and look for solutions. In addition to feeling more interactive and engaging, I was able to study and revise at my own pace for my STAT course. In the start of the course I was having a hard time following what the professor was teaching since he was going at a relatively fast pace. I was able to review the recordings and stop whenever I needed to and continue when I had sorted out the confusion.

Social Media and other communication applications also play an important role in online learning. I personally dislike the use of email as it does not provide notification for users causing a delay in response. A delay in response can impact the learning environment as it creates communication problems and inconvenience. Personally, I have never used email to communicate with classmates on projects or assignments, we usually exchange contact information such as Facebook Messenger, Discord, Whatsapp for communication. However when Dr.Roberts announced that the class will be discussing through twitter chat, I was very surprised because I had never used twitter to communicate. After the activity I was actually concerned for this typical type of communication method due to how it was open to all twitter users and brought up privacy issues. Users could search up for the discussion simply by l searching the code(e.g. #EDCI399) and they would be able to view all the conversations students had. The privacy concer brought by twitter chat had brough up my awareness to privacy issues exist in the internet where my information can leak out throught different ways and I have to be more aware and thoughtful on chosing commuication skills. 

Throught the past year and this course I was able contact with varies way of online learning and EdTech, I now have a better understand of how I could use their advantage to enhance my learning and the limitations online learning and EdTech have. I am now more aware of the use of application I choose to use. 

reference 

The UDL Guidelines. (2021, December 02). Retrieved from https://udlguidelines.cast.org/

Neil Selwyn, Thomas Hillman, Rebecca Eynon, Giselle Ferreira, Jeremy Knox, Felicitas Macgilchrist & Juana M. Sancho-Gil (2020) What’s next for Ed-Tech? Critical hopes and concerns for the 2020s, Learning, Media and Technology, 45:1, 1-6, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2020.1694945

As technology becomes more and more advanced these days, education and learning contexts became more and more convenient and reachable. However, it is very difficult to access a learning context that is proven to be true. Furthermore, many learning contexts cost money, for example, I was doing research on cancer for one of my classes and I was using google scholar however I was having trouble accessing some of the articles as I am not authorized to access them. As part of having trouble accessing information, students that are having financial difficulties might not be able to afford to pay for a laptop or other required costs to access the internet. In order for students to have equitable access to authentic, meaningful, and relevant learning environments and access to learning contexts, it is very important that student is provided with the information they need and for free. In this case, K-12 would be the best option as K-12 provides all the learning materials to students and students do not have to pay for their education fee. On the downside, it limits the information that students can access as it the content provided was set, in the article(Selwyn, 2020) had suggested that these problems can be loved through improving school and home technologies to support the development of digital skills.

References:

Neil Selwyn, Thomas Hillman, Rebecca Eynon, Giselle Ferreira, Jeremy Knox, Felicitas Macgilchrist & Juana M. Sancho-Gil (2020) What’s next for Ed-Tech? Critical hopes and concerns for the 2020s, Learning, Media and Technology, 45:1, 1-6, DOI: 10.1080/17439884.2020.1694945

Open Learning Activities Experience

After participating in different activities in the last few weeks, I learned about how to participate in a Twitter chat, edit Wikipedia and create V&R map. Out of all I enjoyed Twitter char the most.

In the Twitter chat activity, I really enjoyed it because it allowed immediate response and I feel like I was interacting with someone face to face since I know that the person I am communicating with is also online. Apart from the immediate response, it also allowed information to flow in a less formal way, instead of being very academic-based. However, the Twitter chat is viewable to all users on Twitter as long as they searched for the same hashtag, which created privacy problems for users.  Users may be under the watch of strangers and they cannot protect their information(Cohen, 2020).

When I try to edit pages in Wikipedia in the beginning I faced some difficulties as I was unable to edit certain parts of the of the page so I went on and check what was happening; it turns out that Wikipedia has different types of lock that categories the page so they have different level of edibility to protect data privacy. Wikipedia also requires users to create an account to have access to editing resources. Wikipedia is one of the most visited websites in the world(Barbourb, 2019), it is important for Wikipedia to have accurate information and cite all resources. Students should use Wikipedia as a starting point but should not reply and cite from the website(Barbourb, 2019).

The Visitor and Resident Map helped me to orient my thought by using graphics and arrows to compose online images. The V&R clearly divides the information so information becomes easier to organize, however, I think that the V&R is somewhat limited as the use range is set, people might want to add information that is outside but are unable to classify them into the category.  However, V&R Map does not require users to log in to create a V&R map which is more convenient compared to Twitter chat and Wikipedia editing.

Reference

Barbour, B. (2019). Teaching Students How to Use Wikipedia Wisely. https://www.edutopia.org/article/teaching-students-how-use-wikipedia-wisely

Cohen, J. (n.d.). 12 tips for staying safe and secure on Twitter. PCMAG. Retrieved November 7, 2021, from https://www.pcmag.com/how-to/12-tips-for-staying-safe-and-secure-on-twitter

EdTech Trend

1) Consider WHY you are interested in the Trends, what is your personal connection?

After reading the article I found both Wikis and social media trend equally interesting because I personally used Wikipedia a lot when I need to search for something such as background or introduction of something. I also like the fact that they allow uses to update information however this information could be wrong. On the other hand, social media is something that people(teenagers) use very frequently, we are basically on social media whenever we use our phones.

2) Using the year to guide you, try to figure out any other information around that time period to help figure out why this Trend occurred and how it may have influenced learning or education. Is this still a “Trend” ? Why do you think it is trend for some at one point and for others at another point?

I think the trend occurs has to do with the development of computers and technologies, when computers first became popular and common, they did not have as much function as today. People were only able to perform simple tasks (considered the technologies we have now) such as editing information for a site(wikis). As technologies developed people or students were able to engage more with the use of computers or websites where they could post blogs to express their thoughts, interact with others through social media even though that person is not located in the same country.

3) What does this article miss? Which of the trends do you think were the most helpful during the Pandemic Remote learning and why?

I believe that the article could also mention how the computer has developed along with these trends. I think the trends of video were the most helpful during the pandemic remote learning because students were able to watch the video and see what exactly the teacher was doing instead of just listening to a voice recording(some students do voice recording for revision). I personally find video recording very helpful for my STAT 255 course where I was able to see how did my professor got the answer and was able to stop the video when I have problems solving a question and think about it.

Assignment 1 Topic 1:

e-Learning 

Before the pandemic has started I knew nothing about e-learning and never thought that e-learning would work since it is something new to school amd students. The first fews of e-learning with difficult, I was not able to locate my assignment instruction, reading source in brightspace (which I am still having difficuties with now) and was not sure if I was doing the right thing. Even though e-learnig can cause confusion I do find it really time saving, students do not have to travel to school and travel backhome. Furthermore because all resourced are post online students can easily reach out to these important when needed, unlike face-to-face courses where students might missed out important information in class.

Thoughts on the Article

In Regan and Jesse(2019) article they addressed the concerns about data collecting and the safety issue of the data collect. I believe this is something that should be paid more attention specially when there is a pandemic happening. Under the pandemic most people had either worked remotely or take classes online and their personal information will be stored by the system they were using for work or study. The information uplaod by the user can casued discrimination such as students were split in different class based on their race(Regan & Jsses, 2019) and furthermore parents might feel unsafe to have their children’s information to be stored in the clouds when they do not know who can access these information or even trackdown users’ progress mention by Regan and Jesse(2019).

Weekly Reflection:

What did you know about CoI and social presence in online/open learning before this week? What did you learn after reviewing your weekly readings this week? What were your initial thoughts about the CoI framework? How does considering the CoI framework when designing online and open courses benefit students?

I did not know anythiny about Col and social presence in online?opening learning before this week. I learn that online learning might not be as bad as it sounds as long as the course and teach follows the framwork set up and allowing students to engage in the course more than and create a enviroment for student to study and learn. My intial thought for the CoI framework was that it sounds really difficult to implement when course are online. Considering the CoI framework and create a better study and learn enviroment for students allowing them to have more interaction with teachers and classmate instead of being isolated and had no interaction with others.

Do you have any online and open learning experiences to share where you noticed social presence? How does considering social presence when designing online and open courses benefit students? what are some of the challenges?

I believd that it is important to turn on your cameras when you are discussing a group project with your teammates to feel to presents of others and yourself. Moreover, by seeing the social presence of your teachers it feels like you are interacting with teachers. By considering social interaction student will feel more emtioanlly connected and have a sense of belonging(Barnes, 2016). However some student may refuse to turn on camera or does have a computer that allows that to show that face which creates challenges.

References 

Regan P. & Jesse, J. (2019). “Ethical Challenges of EdTech, Big Data and Personalized Learning: Twenty-First Century Student Sorting and Tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(3), pp. 167-179. DOI: 10.1007/s10676-0189492-2. Retrieved From https://link.springer.com/article10.1007/s10676-0189492-2

Barnes, C.L. (2016). “Where’s the Teacher? Defining the Role of Instructor Presence in Social Presence and Cognition”. Online Education, Humanizing Online Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from  https://humanmooc.pressbooks.com/chapter/wheres-the-teacher-defining-the-role-of-instructor-presence-in-social-presence-and-cognition-in-online-education/