My four blogs:
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