Month: February 2020

Open Educational Resources

Online Educational Content is any kind of content designed to teach a person or group of people something. However, it is different from openly licenced educational content, in that the former has a number of restrictions placed upon it, potentially including, but not limited to, limits on the number of people you can share it with at once, copyright limitations, or requirements for permission from the author. Openly licenced educational content comes in many forms, but creative commons licencing is the most frequent.

One such example of this kind of content is an informational site about Japanese Religion, which has the minor restriction that anyone sharing or modifying the material has to share the source they got it from.

The information contained within presumably meets the education requirements of the class, and while it is rather simplistic, the information provided is fairly accurate. Likewise, there are no spelling or grammar errors, however the information does not cite sources, and there are no indications that it has been reviewed by other sources. While a few of the sidebar links encourage further learning, most of the material is geared for passive learning, with basic facts being memorized. The goal behind this resource seems to be fulfilling the education criteria, rather than educating the students about the religion and culture of Japan. Thankfully, the resource allows for modifications to make it more useful, however the base material is so simplistic, even for the high school level it is purportedly aimed at, that it would be better to find a different starting point.

The process of reviewing the material to the standars of the BCOER was interesting. While I initally thought the material was good enough, a deeper look at it began to reveal inadiquacies.

I would most likely stick to physical books, or online technical manuals for my own education, but OER can provide a decent starting point to educate others.

Reflection One

The history of western education contains many innovations and shortcomings, this much is clear to almost every observer. Certainly, the issue of accesability is front and center in this conversation, whether in terms of affordability of knowledge, the disruption or outright distruction of indigenous ways of knowing and learning, or special needs in education.

The documentary Most Likely To Succeed, is provided for free through the Uvic webportal. I had the opportunity to watch this movie for a different course this term, and it outlines a blend of different teaching techniques, but fails to address most aspects of accessability. However, it does relate to some of the other questions posed for this week’s readings.

The documentary demonstrated student-centered learning, and highlights some of the benefits and drawbacks of it. While it does help students get more invested in the material, it is also a big adjustment to make, and can often cause a little uncertainty in students. I know that going to a self directed highschool led to me floundering in certain courses, as I was often uncertain what I was supposed to be learning.

However, I feel like High Tech High also requires a great deal more sychronisity, as much of the teaching and learning occurs in the moment, and that isn’t possible to capture or reproduce for later students, or students who aren’t able to attend class on a regular basis due to chronic illness or other issues.

Bringing the conversation back to the readings, Twenty Years of EDTech shows a little of the progress that has been made on the side of asynchronos teaching, but in my opinion, it still has a long ways to go. VR is perhaps the most promising technology for teaching, as it allows some practice of hands on learning in a safe environment, but the cost of the technology is still prohibatively expensive, and has many accesability issues that have yet to be addressed.

Furthermore, the Open Praxis article shows how the scale of education has changed over time, while the methods have largely remained the same.

Finally, in regards to connectivism, while the accumulation of knowledge from random sources around you resonates with my personal experiance, I have also ran into circumstances where I have been unable or unwilling to engage with this kind of learning. It might work better in different topics, or be beneficial for certain domains of knowledge, or just not be effective for certain people.

It’s difficult to have a universal standard, as humans are wildly diverse in physical, social, mental, and spiritual fields. Where one person might be content to wander from topic to topic, another might have a laser focus, and move from area of interests in a straight line, or stay in one area for their entire life. To have one standard for both of these people is also to fail each of them in some fundimental way, to say nothing of any of the thousands of other people who engage in learning for one reason or another.