Hey folks,

 

For my blogpost  showcase I really wanted to show my topic 2 discussion on Major’s reading because that’s the first thing that came into my mind when reviewing my experience with EDCI. Therefore I believe this topic readings for this week had more of a lasting impact on my critical thought process when handling EDCI near the end of it’s course (since this is the second blog so half way) as I managed to shape my horizons in terms of educational knowledge.

Ryan actually commented on this topic 2 discussion and I’m really grateful as I think this might be the only comment I gotten from him I really appreciate and like Ryan’s comment about how he liked my connections that online education had to my personal experiences at Uvic. It really did help me understand the concepts when I provided examples from my past experience.  I have never enrolled in a Open for Massively Open online courses (MOOCs) but it does seem something I might be nervous too. Mostly because of the scale as I liked uvic for it’s small student size as opposed to UBC. Thank you for asking because I do agree that they are pretty common in programming and could serve as a way to learn a new language or to access additional learning resources to supplement courses you are already taking. Since you said that however I’m happy I mentioned in my education and reflection about how I’m helping my friend further expand his service with online educational by providing what I learnt in first year comp science to a more younger audience! As mentioned in the reflection I commented about Moore’s  5 organizational elements: enrolment, amount, timing, platform, and pathway (Major, 2015). Enrolment mentions open and closed enrolment. These helped dive into bigger discussions on how to convey information to people just starting out as I felt similar of confusion and a sense of being lost in my first year of comp sci when reflecting with my teaching friend. It’s not exactly MOOC but it can be if enough interest is held!

 

Also Ryan, I also liked what you said about the element of timing, Especially how you suggest that it’s more about whether or not all students need to attend at the same time, rather than about the time management of the instructor. I agree on it being a problem that can occur in any course structure. Synchronous means all at the same time. One pro that comes from having the meeting all at one time allows a time discipline set by a school educator for students to be rigid with their time and use of it. It does work if you believe that discipline brought by outside force is necessary and that live meeting benefit the students the most as it allows teacher’s to in the moment evaluate misconceptions of student. I find it however synchronous classes affects students freedom and creativity to find ways to make the use out of their own understanding of education as I believe the con is it assume everyone learns a certain way. I believe certain classes were boring and not straight to the point as I think personally I could watch a video and skim the parts that would make the most concrete sense of what I need to know about the topics. Thus giving more dependence on the student for their own success. Where this could be a con of lacking responsibility, I believe we as university students should be trusted with the responsibility of handling our own education in terms of course delivery and if so choose I think would benefit more with Asynchronous  learning in general. Especially since i managed to do better with the Asynchronous type of learning brought to you by Ryan in EDCI 339 as I was able to understand better at my own pace and thus not be as much stressed. Thanks again Ryan for your comments I really appreciate them.

 

In general I don’t think I would change my original post as I still agree with it alot. Especially on how Zhaotan describes his comment about how I describe pathway as a convenient tool. Also Zhao had similar ideas with you that open learning is effective for students to which I really appreciate and thus couldn’t find much wrong with my post. I just wanted to mention how this study expanded conversations I had outside the class and wanted to answer Ryan’s post as I thought his comment was really insightful and took alot of time to create so I wanted to spend some time responding to his questions.  For further inquires I might read more online news articles and other journals about open education and teaching online strategies as it will help further guide my friend in his teaching of comp sci.

 

Overall I enjoyed this topic discussion reading the most as it’ll have the most impact on me from my understandings here in EDCI 339. I like to thank Ryan again for his awesome delivery of online class and I hope him more success in the future!

 

References

Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 76-108)

Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017). Openness and Education: A beginners’ guide. Global OER Graduate Network.