April 3, 2020 Final review paper, Uncategorised Post a Comment

Extended Reality Technology with Distribution and Open Learning

In human history, people have never stopped learning. While humans exploring the knowledge, they are also exploring the possibility of the different learning methods and learning theory. Students now have more chances to take different formats of learning based on their choices. No matter they choose the traditional instructor-centred face-to-face learning or they choose distribution open student-centred online learning, the outcome and objective are the same: to learn knowledge. There are lots of way of gain knowledge, some student likes to read from books, some student like to learn from their experience. Consider the COVID-19 situation, when students are all staying at home, how can students learn more efficient? How student can experience better when they learn while they all at home become a hot topic during this special time. The introduction of Extended Reality technology in distribution and Open learning helps enhance students’ experience in learning. Although this technology is still in development and gowning but can have merit to support distributed and open learning in a meaningful way.

Extended Reality Technology

Most people might familiar with Virtual Reality (VR) and Augmented Reality (AR) from movies and news. But what is the Extended Reality? Extended reality (XR) is a combination of all the immersive technologies. Currently, there are three main components of XR: Virtual, Augmented and Mixed Reality. XR can also include future realities that technology can bring to cover the full aspect of real and virtual environments.

Virtual Reality (VR): usually refers to technology that provides users with a simulated experience of realistic sounds and images by using a VR headset or head-mounted display (Marr, 2019). For example, users can experience walking on the moon.

Augmented Reality (AR): is a new technology that focuses on users’ “sight” where user can see the computer-generated information in a real word such as “Pokémon GO” (Najjar, 2020)

Mixed/Merged Reality (MR): as what people can tell from the name; it is a technology what mixed between VR and AR. “It blends real and virtual worlds to create complex environments where physical and digital elements can interact in real-time” (Marr, 2019).

Extended Reality: The Top Five Things You Need to Know

By involve XR in education, it brings opportunities for students to have immersive learning experiences in their learning. By using XR, students are no longer limited by time, space and environment. XR improved students learning opportunities in a broad range of needs. However, as a technology that is still in development and not in widely use for students yet, will this tool really fit students’ needs in content delivery, collaboration, assessment? The SECTIONS model developed by Tony Bates is a framework that can be used for instructors to assess this technology.

SECTIONS model

When using the SECTIONS model, the technology is assessed in various areas: students, ease of use, costs, teaching functions, interaction, an organizational issue, networking, security and privacy. By using this model to evaluate technology that the instructor picked, users will understand if the technology can be widely used in different learning content, easily understood and cost-effective.

Image 2 Choosing the right technologies, UVIC

Student

According to the SECTIONS model definition, when discussing the issue that related to students, the technology needs to widely fit different students, easy for students to access and have multiple options that allow students to choose based on their needs. VR and AR technology currently are exploring and expanding in many different areas. Extended reality use in medical practice has been explored by many researchers. Traditionally, most devices rely on 2D models to display information. With the introduction of XR, medical students can benefit from it to learn anatomy in the 3D way (Andrews, et.al., 2019). XR technology can also be used in the diagnosis and pre-procedural planning to support clinicians and researchers (Andrews, et.al., 2019). Since human-computer Interaction changed they way everyone interacts with computers, VR, AR can help student experience “in mixed-reality/virtual worlds are many and can result in effective, efficient and engaging learning” (Schneider, 2017). Student whoever can interact with these technologies can benefit from this new technology in learning.

Ease of Use

In one of the researches, student in the university by using the VR technology to simulate “how the enzymes behave under different conditions (Cai, et.al.,2018). Since AR technology is now implemented on some apps on the smartphone. There is a possibility to implement high-quality extended reality in easy to use and inexpensive devices. Although we still need more time to allow this new technology to be developed to a more stable phase. By look through how VR and AR technology grows fast in this age. There is a chance for extended technology to be used more widely.

Cost

Usually, new technology is always expensive. Based on the article “VR & AR Application Development cost explained”, the development of VR applications usually based on the content can cost from 10k to 70k. The development process on AR is a little bit lower, base on different content causes usually from 15k to 50k. However, as more and more company starts exploring various VR, AR products. The cost of these technologies is decreasing in recent years (Dede, Richard, 2017). Although the prices are cycling down for immersive media, currently it is still not affordable for each family but private high-end schools that can try XR in their school doing more research.

Teaching and media selection

Since there are not many XR implement in learning now, currently there is not much research on the comparison between XR learning and traditional learning. Based on Mayer’s principle in the multimedia design there are 12 principles that need to follow when design: Coherence, Signalling, Redundancy, Spatial contiguity, Temporal contiguity, Segmenting, Pre-training, Modality, Multimedia, Personalization, Voice, Image. By using XR, students usually experience a simulated environment that combines voice and image.

Interaction

There is one shortage when using VR, where when wearing VR helmet learning in a fully immersive environment. The instructor has lost the traditional face-to-face interaction. Therefore, the supporting technology in VR devices to capture user facial expression becomes an important function to help instructor understand their students (Liu, et.al., 2017). Since the XR combines the VR and AR technology, there is a possibility that in the future, students will wear simpler devices where allow student and instructor to keep the original interaction in class.

Organizational Issue

Due to the high cost for current XR technology, it is usually used within the school. Therefore, the use of XR must be provided by institutions. However, this actually has a benefit for users to use this technology in a more organized way. Usually, when the institution starts engaging technology, it will do an investigation to understand how the product can be used to benefit the overall teaching. And students can also get support from school if their class is involved with these new technologies.

Networking

The network in SECTIONS Model is to discuss if the technology can help with connecting students like social media. When student experiences in immersive technology, they can communicate within the same place but in the simulated environment.

Security and privacy

While technology grown supper fast, personal information security and privacy as one important topic that much is considered in use in Education. Especially in K-12 education, for students that are under-aged, how their user information et collection and being used must be tracked and consent in a meaningful way.

Conclusion

Also, XR technology is still new and still in development. However, I believe it can bring benefits to students in the future to learning from simulated experience that XR technology can enhance student’s learning.

Reference:

‌Andrews, C., Southworth, M. K., Silva, J. N. A., & Silva, J. R. (2019). Extended reality in medical practice. Current Treatment Options in Cardiovascular Medicine, 21(4), 18. doi:10.1007/s11936-019-0722-7

Bates, A. W. (Tony). (2019b, October 10). Chapter 9: Choosing and using media in education: the SECTIONS model. Pressbooks.Bccampus.Ca; Tony Bates Associates Ltd. https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/part/9-pedagogical-differences-between-media/

Cai, Y., van Joolingen, W., Walker, Z., & SpringerLink (Online service). (2018;). Virtual Reality Enzymes: An Interdisciplinary and International Project Towards an Inquiry-Based Pedagogy. In: Cai Y., van Joolingen W., Walker Z. (eds)VR, simulations and serious games for education. (45-54) Singapore: Springer Singapore. doi:10.1007/978-981-13-2844-2

Dede C.J., Richards J. (2017) Conclusion—Strategic Planning for R&D on Immersive Learning. In: Liu D., Dede C., Huang R., Richards J. (eds) Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Realities in Education. Smart Computing and Intelligence. Springer, Singapore

King, D., Tee, S., Falconer, L., Angell, C., Holley, D., & Mills, A. (2018). Virtual health education: Scaling practice to transform student learning: Using virtual reality learning environments in healthcare education to bridge the theory/practice gap and improve patient safety. Nurse Education Today, 71, 7-9. doi:10.1016/j.nedt.2018.08.002

Liu D., Bhagat K.K., Gao Y., Chang TW., Huang R. (2017) The Potentials and Trends of Virtual Reality in Education. In: Liu D., Dede C., Huang R., Richards J. (eds) Virtual, Augmented, and Mixed Realities in Education. Smart Computing and Intelligence. Springer, Singapore

Najjar, R. (2020, February 17). Extended Reality (XR) explained through the 5 + 1 senses. Medium. https://uxdesign.cc/xr-through-5-1-senses-f396acf8a89f

March 27, 2020 Showcase post Post a Comment

Showcase: Most Memorable Online Learning Experience

In the 20th century, education has continuously “open” and aimed for everyone to have access to knowledge. Due to the popularity of social media, online learning has been widely used in our daily lives. The format of learning has shifted from traditional face-to-face education to digital education, and later, MOOC has become popular for self-education. The shift of education format has also led to the shift of learning style. In my opinion, online learning plays an essential role in today’s education system. Most universities or colleges also have begun to offer flexible open learning with online courses and degree programs.

MY MOST MEMORABLE ONLINE LEARNING EXPERIENCE: EDCI 337

My most memorable online learning experience is the online course: EDCI 337 that I took last year as one of my electives at the University of Victoria (Uvic). It was my first time taking an online course at Uvic, and the topic of this course is Interactive and Multimedia Learning. This online course focuses on introducing the theory and application of multimedia learning in an interactive learning environment (EDCI 337, 2019).

It is aimed to help educators to create the educational materials by using different kinds of social media platforms and tools. In this online course, there were four main challenging projects: comics, screen-casting, whiteboard animation, and interactive multimedia elements. For each project, we could decide to either work individually or work in a group of 2-3 people corporately. Also, each project should be uploaded and shared in a specified discussion forum before the deadline so that all the classmates can engage in a semi-synchronous discussion and provide feedback to the projects that they feel most interested in individually. In addition, this online course is clear-structured and planned out. The deadlines of all the four challenging projects are scheduled at the beginning of the course, so it helps me to arrange my own time efficiently. Here is an animation project that my team made to teach other people about “Color theory” on this course:

THEORIES IN RELATION TO EDCI 337

In the reading, “Understanding Technology in Education”, Bates describes and lists the theories of some effective educational technology in relation to this online course:

Media Richness

Image from “20 Ideas for Rich Media Mobile Apps” by Tony Flores

This course contains rich media, including comics, animation, video, audio, reading materials, and images. Detailed instructions and several helping tools have been provided to benefits learners’ learning experiences. As Bates explains, rich media may help learners to achieve their learning goals successfully (Bates, T., 2019). Also, in my opinion, the use of rich media can make the course more attractive and interesting.

Communicative Media

Many communicative media are used in this course, such as e-mail, online discussion forums, social media platforms or tools (i.e. Powtoon, Scratch, Screen-O-Matics, and ComicLife3), and the Internet. In Bates’ opinion, the educational significance of communicative media is that it can provide more interaction between students and instructors and making the learning or teaching process more engaged.

Also, in the reading, “Effective Practices in Distributed and Open Learning”, Crosslin declares some theories and ideas, which I think can be connected to the design of EDCI 337:

Planning for Flexibility

First of all, the entire course design and assignments are clearly stated in Course Syllabus in the first class. This action provides a lot of flexibility to students to arrange their time and work on their own speed and space. Additionally, the scheduled deadline of each challenging project can also help students to arrange their own time and hand in assignments timely. As Crosslin explains, flexibility should not flow from the lack of planning ahead. Therefore, a well-designed and flexible course design will be important. (Crosslin, M., 2018).

Humanizing Online Learning

Image from “3 Design Tips to Improve An Online Discussion Forum” by Karen Gatewood.

In Crosslin’s theory, ‘humanizing’ as an important element in an online class, the process to eliminate the distance between instructors and students should be provided to engage the connection (Crosslin, M., 2018). Online discussion forums in this online course as an example of communicative media or technology have significance engage in building strong communication and interaction between learners and teachers (Bates, T., 2019). In my EDCI 337 experience, the instructor has provided a few useful forums, such as “introduction and final reflection forum”, “sharing cool finds forum”, “help forum”, and “respond to requests forum”, to help students to communicate with each other, learn from each other, and interact with each other. Students are also encouraged to ask questions via email.

Type of Communication

Synchronous Interactive Sessions

Last but not least, as a semi-synchronous online course, the instructor did not provide any synchronous interactive sessions, such as live sessions, but he encouraged students to work in a group and use online synchronous tools to communicate with each other.

In my opinion, the online course that I took at Uvic is interesting and memorable. After taking this course, I feel more interested in online learning and digital technology.

REFERENCE

Bates, T. (2019). Understanding technology in education. https://via.hypothes.is/https://uta.pressbooks.pub/onlinelearning/chapter/chapter-5-effective-practices/

Crosslin, M. (2018). Effective Practices in Distributed and Open Learning. https://via.hypothes.is/https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/part/chapter-8-understanding-technology/

EDCI 337: Interactive & Multimedia Learning. (2019, May 14). Web.Uvic.Ca. https://web.uvic.ca/calendar2019-09/CDs/EDCI/337.html

March 22, 2020 Reflective posts, Uncategorised Post a Comment

Reflection 4

In week 10 and 11, I have explored the Floe Inclusive Learning Design Handbook (CC BY 2.5 CA) and have a better and deeper understanding of the Flexible Learning for Open Education (FLOE). In the article from week 11, Flexible Learning for Open Education (FLOE) project applies Inclusive Design to open learning and is about the practice of equitable inclusion with open learning and teaching by providing resources to personalize how students learn and to address barriers to learning. The Floe Inclusive Learning Design Handbook is a free and accessible Open Educational Resource (OER), which is designed to create adaptable and personalized educational resources in order to meet a diversity of learning needs and preferences. In the part “Approaches” of this handbook, the author introduces three main accessibility principles of Floe, which I think are the most three important ideas:

Perceivability

In the handbook, the principle of “Perceivability” means “learning content should be consumable” (Floe Inclusive Learning Design Handbook). As the author explains, it is available to revise, re-purpose, and adjust the learning content and resources so that “learners who are more comfortable or only able to consume content in a particular mode have that option available to them” (Floe Inclusive Learning Design Handbook). The examples of accomplishing this principle include providing the larger text of the content, changing the volume of audio recording, and providing captions for multimedia. In my opinion, the idea of this principle is quite important for inclusive learning because learners all learn differently, providing different and adjustable modalities can help learners to meet their own learning preferences and individual needs directly. Also, in my opinion, this idea can increase learners’ engagement in learning and help them to personalize their own learning.

Understandability

The second important principle is “Understandability”. According to the handbook, it means “learning content should be plain and clear to comprehend” (Floe Inclusive Learning Design Handbook). As the author describes, “different learners have different thresholds for wading through the complexity of the content, and complexity of the content’s presentation” (Floe Inclusive Learning Design Handbook). In my opinion, this principle is very necessary because a clear-to-understand learning content can not only make learners become more engaged, but also can contribute to an accessible learning experience to learners. Moreover, plain language and readable content can increase the qualities of learning relate to effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction as well.

Operability

The third important that I believe is about the principle of “Operability”. The essence of this principle is about offering different ways for users to navigate sites so that the interactions in learning can be operable by everyone. In the handbook, the author declares several useful ways of using this principle, including giving users enough time to read and use content, helping users navigate and find content, making all functionality available from a keyboard. In my opinion, this principle is essential and effective because it helps learners to explore content in ways that work for them. Also, the use of this principle can make the learning and teaching process become more interactive and engaged.

However, during my exploration of the Floe, I also find some issues and concepts that I am having difficulty to understand, such as design for privacy and “If you are unique (and aren’t we all), numbers are not our friends”.

Design for Privacy

The first concept that I am having difficulty understanding is the design for privacy. I understand that it is very important and necessary for users to pay attention to their personal privacy and information; however, in the handbook, the author states that a useful and good design should enable “portability of personal information among different services and allow users to easily access their data and move it to their desired location either online or offline” (Floe Inclusive Learning Design Handbook). I feel worried about that if the portability of personal information may increase the risk of privacy disclosure. Also, how can users protect their personal information from third-party data collection? We will never know when our browsing history or device IDs will be shared with third parties and how the third parties will treat our personal information. Therefore, for the concept of design for privacy protection, I still have a few confusions.

“If you are unique (and aren’t we all), numbers are not our friends”

The second concept that I am having difficulty understanding is from the topic “if you are unique (and aren’t we all), numbers are not our friends”. In this part, the author refers to an opinion that “counting determines such fundamental qualities as truth and worth” (Floe Inclusive Learning Design Handbook). In the author’s opinion, the number can impact people to measure potential profit, popularity, and even truth. Generally, the bigger number can make your effort become more valued. However, if the value you create is not quantifiable or if you are a small number, you will only receive little attention. In my opinion, it will be difficult to receive the attention of others if you are in a small number, but it does not mean you are not the truth or the value you created is not important. Therefore, I cannot totally agree with the idea from the author.

From the reading material in week 11, I have known three different educational tools, which are about the first discovery tool, the preference exploration tool, and my Lifelong Learning Lab. However, my question is that are there any effective examples of using the tools respectively? In my opinion, successful examples or learning experience can help learners to better understand the tools.

References

Inclusive Learning Design Handbook from OCAD University https://via.hypothes.is/https:/handbook.floeproject.org/

Flexible learning for open education (FLOE) Project website https://floeproject.org/

March 8, 2020 Distributed & Open Learning, Reflective posts Post a Comment

Reflection 3

My most memorable online learning experience is the online course: EDCI 337 I took last year as one of my electives at Uvic. It was my first time taking an online course at Uvic, and the topic is interactive and multimedia learning. It focuses mainly on introducing the theory and application of multimedia learning in an interactive learning environment (EDCI 337, 2019). The course is aimed to help educators to create the educational material by using different kinds of social media platforms and tools. In this online course, there were four main challenging projects: comics, screen-casting, whiteboard animation, and interactive multimedia elements. For each project, we could decide to either work individually or work in a group of 2-3 people corporately. Also, each project should be uploaded and shared in a specified forum before the deadline so that all the classmates can engage in a semi-synchronous discussion and provide feedback to the projects that they feel most interested in individually. Here is an animation project that my team made to teach other people about “Color theory“.

This course contains rich media, including animation, video, audio, reading materials, and images. Detailed instructions and a helping tool have been provided to benefits on learner’s learning experiences. There are many theories in last week’s reading: “Effective Practices in Distributed and Open Learning” can be connected to the design of EDCI 337. First of all, the entire course design and assignments are clearly stated in Course Syllabus in the first class. This action provides a lot of flexibility to students to arrange their time and work on their own speed and space. Furthermore, in Crosslin’s theory, ‘humanizing’ as an important element in an online class, the process to eliminate the distance between instructor and student should be provided to engage the connection (Crosslin, M., 2018). Online discussion forums in this online course as an example of communicative media or technology have significance engage in building strong communication and interaction between learners and teachers (Bates, T., 2019). In my EDCI 337 experience, instructor has provided a few useful forums, such as “introduction and final reflection forum”, “sharing cool finds forum”, “help forum”, and “respond to requests forum”, to help students to communicate with each other, learn from each other, and interact with each other. Students are also encouraged to ask questions via email.

Photo from Article “*What Type of Online Forum is Right for My Community?*” by Carrie Ure

By my observation, this online course also has designed to reflect on two main communication types in Crosslin’s theory: student-content and student-student. For each project, students should read class materials and watch the relevant videos by themselves beforehand to understand how to complete the course successfully, which is student-content interaction. On the other hand, after upload and share our own project on the designed forum for each project, students need to interact with other students by commenting on their posts and reply to their comments. Last but not least, as a semi-synchronous online course, the instructor did not provide any synchronous interactive sessions, such as live sessions, but he encouraged students to work in a group and use online synchronous tools to communicate with each other.

References

Bates, T. (2019). Understanding technology in education. https://via.hypothes.is/https://pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadi gitalagev2/part/chapter-8-understanding-technology/

Crosslin, M. (2018). Effective Practices in Distributed and Open Learning. https://via.hypothes.is/https://uta.pressbooks.pub/onlinelearning/cha pter/chapter-5-effective-practices/

EDCI 337:Interactive & Multimedia Learning. (2019, May 14). Web.Uvic.Ca. https://web.uvic.ca/calendar2019-09/CDs/EDCI/337.html

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February 9, 2020 Distributed & Open Learning, Reflective posts Post a Comment

Reflection 2

Since we were talking about “Open(ness)” become an important part in educational filed, I’d like to share a YouTube video about “Why Open Education Matters” at the beginning of this week’s reflection:

Difference Between Open Educational Resources And Openly Licensed Educational Content

Open education is an academic practice that “stresses a philosophy of sharing freely and openly the ideas, knowledge, methods, platforms, tools, and materials used in learning and teaching” (Mossley, 2013). As the foundation of open education, open educational resources (OERs) stands for teaching/learning educational materials or resources that allow learner/educator to be used, adapted, and shared with others freely based on rules that cleared by intellectual property license. Openly licensed educational content is the resource that authors allow users to take and use to the public under the term of the permission or license freely. Our reading material, “Finding Open Content Tutorial” has pointed out that “open licenses reserve specific rights and relax others making it easier for educators and course designers to use the resources”.

Examples of OERs: OER Commons

OER Commons is a free, accessible, and open online library that allows instructors to search and discover different types of open educational resources (OERs) and available instructional materials or resources. This social media platform supports knowledge sharing and access to learning or teaching resources, materials, strategies, and curricula online. All the materials on this website are reviewed for quality and shared primarily using Creative Commons Licenses.

Evaluation of OERs

According to the weekly reading material, “Finding Open Content Tutorial”, there are six parts of evaluating open educational resources: relevance, accuracy, production quality, accessibility, interactivity, and licensing.

Relevance

The information on OER Commons directly addresses different class objectives. Many different subject areas with different educational levels, materials types, and standards can be discovered on OER Commons. It is very useful and easy for users to discover and find relevant materials.

Accuracy

On the page “About OER Commons” of the website, it shows that “OER Commons is based on alliances with providers of high-quality OER” and all the learning materials or resources are reviewed for quality and alignment to standard. Also, most materials are peer-reviewed and have rating options, this design provides more guidance for users to select their interested courses and get more accurate information about each course.

Production Quality

OER Commons is a user-friendly website where its layout and interface are clear, well-structured, and easy to follow. User may adjust their search result based on different subject areas, educational levels, languages, material types, and media formats on the left-hand side filter panel. Many different types of multimedia are included in the searchable result, most audio or video are high-quality.

Figure 3: Screenshot of Search Result for keyword “Mandarin”

Accessibility

The resources are available in alternative formats, but users should create an account in order to download the files successfully. Some video or audio resources have subtitles or transcripts, but some of them do not have. However, users can use the filter tool to find courses in the language they prefer to participate in.

Interactivity

Using the below OER course (Mandarin) as an example, Learners can participate in discussion by creating an account on the top-right hand side. However, I do not find any embedded questions on videos or any short quizzes in the materials, so I do not think it provides any opportunities for learners to test their understanding of materials.

Licensing

Most learning materials on OER Commons are allowed for users to reuse in education. All the materials on this website are shared mainly using Creative Commons Licenses and users can find the license from each material directly as well.

Figure 5: Screenshot of detail information for OER: Chinese (Mandarin)

My Use of OERs

I like using OERs to participate in online courses, such as OER Commons and Khan Academy. In my opinion, there are many advantages to using OERs. First of all, most OERs are free to download, affordable to use, and easy to access, so the costs of the textbook are no longer a barrier to education. Moreover, the key feature of accessible, convenient, and flexible brings great benefits for rare place learners/educators to get the most up-to-date educational resource. Also, as a third-year student who is major in Economics, I can also use open educational resources to find many relevant courses in order to develop knowledge of my major. Therefore, I think open educational resources will be very important, useful, and significant for my own life and study.

Reference:

David, M. (2013). Open Educational Resources and Open Education. Retrieved from: https://www.advance-he.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/open-educational-resources-and-open-education

Finding Open Content Tutorial: OER Africa. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.oerafrica.org/book/finding-open-content-tutorial

Video: Ope Bukola. (2012). Why Open Education Matters [YouTube Video]. In YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHQp33rbg5k

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January 26, 2020 Distributed & Open Learning, Reflective posts Post a Comment

Reflection 1

“Open(ness)” has become a keyword in the context of education, the theory and method of delivery Education have shifted a lot in the past several years. Reading “On the role of openness in education: A historical reconstruction” has pointed out that, student-driven education has started from the late middle age (Peter & Deimann, 2018). From the 17^th century, open teaching and self-education start taking an important place in learning where people could more easily get access to knowledge and information they want to learn (Peter & Deimann, 2018). In the 20^th century, education has continuously “open” and aimed for everyone to have access to knowledge. The format of learning has shifted from Open Educational Resources (OER) to videos to blog and later, MOOC has become popular for self-education. The shift of education format has also led the shift of learning style, there are 3 topics has been discussed through readings about teacher-centred vs student-centred education, Asynchronous vs Synchronous learning, connectivism in education.

Teacher Centered vs Student Centered

Teacher centred learning is leading by a teacher, where he/she tells the student what to do. On the other side, student-centred learning is more student-driven where the teacher is acting a support role to guide the student to learn.

From the article: Which is Best: Teacher-Centered or Student-Centered Education?

In the article by Crosslin (2018) has discussed as MOOC has been introduced in Education. Teacher centred method of teaching has more limitations in this learning environment. Since MOOC class usually has thousands of learner’s access from all over the world. It is not possible for an instructor to provide 24/7 support and guidance to all students. The nature of student-centred learning become more fit for MOOC. The design of the class will need to be more focusing on how to guide the learner to learn by themselves and from each other.

Through my learning experience, EDCI classes are the most student-centred learning method. Usually, instructor provides resources and guidance for students to learn and help encourage student conversation online for them to learn each other. Meanwhile, traditional lecture class is a more teacher-centred learning method where students highly rely on instructor’s lecture knowledge. I personally think university class should combine two methods together in teaching. In that way, the student will learn method of how to learn by themselves and get knowledge and support from the professor.

Asynchronous vs Synchronous

In Crosslin’s article, he also has discussed the asynchronous and synchronous learning. Traditional lecture class is a very typical synchronous learning where the learner will “meet each other and instructor in real-time and in the same space” (Crosslin, 2018). Usually online courses can represent an Asynchronous class where students learn at their own space and pace. However, in my learning experience, these two methods have been combined in my university life. After we finished the lecture learning, usually we will have group work where student working together asynchronous to finish one project together. Synchronous are very fit for university class but asynchronous learning methods will provide convenience for students who want to learn extra skills after graduation or who don’t have time fore, traditional class.

Connectivism

With the shift of learning method from teacher-centred to student-center and from asynchronous to synchronous, connective between learners are become more important in learning. However, the connectivism in education can be expended wider where to connect instructors or learner with other experts in the field of knowledge. Student gets to learn how to work with others through group learning activities.

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Reference

Crosslin, M. (2018). Basic Philosophies of Distributed and Open Learning. https://uta.pressbooks.pub/onlinelearning/chapter/chapter2-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

Peter, S., & Deimann, M. (2018). On the role of openness in education: A historical reconstruction: Open praxis, vol. 5 issue 1, January–March 2013, pp. 7–14. Distances Et Médiations Des Savoirs, (23) doi:10.4000/dms.2491

Weller, M. (2018, July 2). Twenty Years of Edtech. Retrieved January 27, 2020, from EDUCAUSE Review website: https://er.educause.edu/articles/2018/7/twenty-years-of-edtech

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