Hey Folks,

These sections of readings in my opinion were fascinating to read through  and in summary I felt these readings discussed two important topics that come with Online learning. Privacy/management of data and overall user experience when participating in online learning.

What I really like in Lipman’s community of inquiry framework. Specifically the necessary need and purpose of social presence and cognitive presence’s for students. I would like to speak from my personal experience about online learning through Uvic. Personally I felt there were some major issues with internet connections such that video/audio was distorted with unnecessary noise or loss of data. Al through one might see it as a nitpick, I found that it hindered community engagement and focus when trying to pay attention to important detail. Often times their would be a hiccup in the teacher’s output that usually would alter my cognitive and social presence to a point where I felt it was difficult to handle complex tasks over unstable internet connection. Thus removing my sense of trust and ability to fully indulge myself in my studies as if I were personally at the university. Thus making me doubt the effectiveness of online learning as compared to being presently there.

What I disagree with is the passphrase over protective measures at keeping the user safe. I do think that it is overkill to have different passwords for different websites with the provided symbols, lower/upper cases letter and numbers. Also the fact it suggest changing each password every year is something I believe is ideal but in practice would be a chore that most users would find complicated without a password manager program keeping track of these updates. I find that it’s in fact useful for companies to verify you through other means such as using another account or even verifying through text to be more secure means at protecting users.

An aha moment was when I was reading the acceptable use policies done by uvic. I did have a sense of worry when I participated in using Zoom and brightspace to further my education as I felt Uvic was handling my information without alot of my understandings (aka making accounts that use my information on other web services) . I felt like this document was useful in seeing what exactly are they responsible for as I feel user’s don’t know exactly what their giving their information up for and what purposes.

Therefore I want to learn more about the public/private sector’s use of people’s personal information. I am starting to realize how important user’s data is for a number of reasons and some might not be that appealing. I feel like I don’t give my data at my door but I willingly give it up through a machine.

The muddiest reading was the FIPPA legislation in British Columbia. I felt like it was hard to have an overall grasp of what exactly holds my personal information and who has access to it. I feel like I don’t exactly who I’m giving my information to via the Government and who exactly within that body of Governance has access to it.

References:

Acceptable Use Policies (University of Victoria)

FIPPA legislation in British Columbia

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), 167-179. DOI: 10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2

Vaughan, N. D., Garrison, D. R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. AU Press.