Social media and open access online education are powerful tools for those who decide to use them. They open us to others and new information in ways that could have only been dreamt of in the past. But both of these applications of the internet are relatively new and thus are still growing and changing as we begin to figure out what works for us and what does not.
Personal and Professional Social Media
An interesting struggle that can take place when using social media is deciding what you should and should not post. This problem is compounded when you are balancing both a personal and professional/academic presence. Sometimes, when the wall between the two breaks down (context collapse) it can lead to problems. Trying to keep personal and professional separate is difficult and sometimes impossible. What you say in your personal profile to friends and family you may not want to be affiliated with your professional brand. This has led to some people even being fired for their personal use of social media which reflected poorly on the company/institution they work for or belong to. The bigger question may be, should personal and professional be separated? you are only one person and no matter what you are posting on social media, whether personal or professional, it does represent you and your character.
It is possible that some scholars are realizing that it is difficult to keep your personal and professional life separate online unless employing strict posting discipline and control or posting anonymously. I think over time people are finding it easier to not separate the two and their may be some good reason to that. It could humanize you on an academic level. It would allow others to see you as a person and not some big brained intellect who has no time for the common people. It could also open up your friends and family to understanding what you do professionally and get to know you in that regard too. Of course, this can be a double-edged sword and invite criticism and online harassment when you were not seeking it.
The Shortcomings of Online Education (MOOCs, Etc.)
The standard person may not be interested in OED or MOOCs because the are generally big, long winded courses that require time and a commitment. I believe that there is a form of education, whether legitimate or not, that is taking place in the form of short 5 – 10 min YouTube videos. The average person doesn’t want to sit down and hash out an online course. They want to solve their problem now and move on. I don’t care about the history of the automobile and its design changes over the century, I want to stop that damn ticking noise that my car makes.
The internet and media and general have trained the average person to enjoy short clips that are entertaining and then to move on. If you are going to keep people’s attention for more than 5 – 10 minutes you had better be entertaining. I’m afraid to say it but most post secondary education is not very entertaining. Often it can be a little boring and dry. It may be worth the time to reassess how MOOCs are made and the format they take. Perhaps if they were more palatable to the average person they would be more widely used. YouTube channels like CrashCourse are a good example of an engaging and entertaining way to teach bigger concepts, or at least introduce them.
Readings:
Open ScholarshipÂ
Veletsianos, G., & Shaw, A. (2018). Scholars in an increasingly open and digital world: Imagined audiences and their impact on scholars’ online participation. Learning, Media and Technology, 43(1), 17–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/17439884.2017.1305966
Open DataÂ
Atenas, J., Havemann, L., & Priego, E. (2015). Open Data as Open Educational Resources: Towards Transversal Skills and Global Citizenship. Open Praxis, 7(4). https://doi.org/10.5944/openpraxis.7.4.233
Massive Open Online Courses
Rohs, M., & Ganz, M. (2015). MOOCs and the Claim of Education for All: A Disillusion by Empirical Data. The International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, 16(6). Retrieved from http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2033
Open Access ResearchÂ
Couture, M. (2017, July 12). Academic Publishing at a Crossroads. University Affairs. Retrieved from http://www.universityaffairs.ca/opinion/in-myopinion/academic-publishing-crossroads/
The Basic Online and Offline Framework
When reading this week’s journals, I was struck by how much of online learning requires pretty much the same traditional educational methods at its core. Both require:
As a teacher, whether online or off, your goal is to design an effective program and material, have clear assessment and evaluation methods, and facilitate the course. The approaches to these concepts may differ when online compared to off but the core framework appears to remain relatively the same.
So, what does that mean for the online teacher? First it is important to use the appropriate pedagogical approach to the delivery method you have decided to use. Secondly, you need to facilitate participation dand provide validation of the student gained knowledge. Third, if appropriate, facilitate a virtual classroom or other online learning methods, promoting collaborative, active, reflective, authentic, and constructive forms of learning. Again, for the most part a seasoned educator would say this framework is very similar to that of a traditional classroom.
Struggles and Problems in Online Learning
I have taken a handful of online courses over the years and I have seen some be extremely successful and other, not so much. Nà Shé et. al. (2019) stresses the point that achieving a social presence right from the beginning of an online course is important and will ensure student presence throughout the course. This is something I have personally seen go wrong in an online course I participated in. I felt lost and less invested because I had little to no interaction with the instructor and superficial interaction with other students. There was no sense of community and limited my investment in the course. This could be said about any form of education, but I feel it goes doubly so for an online course.
I have taken online courses which required me to post a certain amount of times about a subject with a word count, etc. I am not sure how effective this was for students who had not bought in or were not engaged by the course. Most students appeared to parrot what others wrote and replies were often weak and were half-hearted agreements of what the original poster had said. I’m not sure this works very well (or maybe it’s just me).
Nà Shé et. al. (2019) further recommend that online educators post regularly (three times a week or more) and include feedback and support individual students posted offerings. This is a tall order for any instructor, and I am not sure how easy it would be to accomplish depending on the teachers work load. I agree that it is important, but I have never had a teacher/instructor do this.
When using exploratory learning in an online context, Dabbagh (2005) asserts that there is more student-generated learning via exploration and problem solving requiring limited guidance and instruction from the teacher. Through this method, students learn how to set, manage, and achieve their goals. A problem that can crop up with student generated learning is that less creative/less imaginative/more apathetic students not become engaged with the work and fall behind or even give up. Furthermore, some students can become overwhelmed with the freedom of choosing the direction of their learning and may become crippled with choice. It is important that the instructor communicate regularly and make themselves available with students to make sure this is avoided.
The Positive Online Experience
There are many online forums/websites/groups which encourage learning through sharing experiences and ideas and helping others through their projects and exploration of knowledge and ideas. Websites like www.instructables.com and www.thingiverse.com provide the average person with access to many ideas and projects (all user made) and allow others to comment and exchange ideas and critiques. This approach can be utilized in an online course setting or even as a resource to better facilitate learning by allowing students to ask questions, share their work, gain feedback, and make changes. I often use these kinds of websites with my shop classes when helping my students find project ideas and when trying to find answers to problems and questions they may run into. Students generally find them easy to explore and often can find the answers and ideas they were seeking.
The use of “educational worlds” can create an experience that could not otherwise be done in the real world or can be done for with less resources. Educational worlds can take the form of a virtual reality space where students can create avatars and interact with others and virtual objects. Being a shop teacher, I find myself more attracted to the real-life application of skills rather than virtual. There are subjects such as robotics and electronics that could lend themselves well to the virtual approach. Students could use virtual spaces to design and build robots and parts to see if they work like they think they should. I have even seen the use of games such as Minecraft used to teach electronic concepts such as binary and circuits, having students collaborate on large working electronics concepts such as a calculator or even a basic computing “machine”.
Another concept that I had never considered presented by Dabbagh (2005) is the use of role play in an online setting. The idea is that students would take on different situations and imagine themselves apart of them, making decisions as the situations change. This can take many forms and I like the idea of having the student imagine themselves as a contractor or an electrician and then going through what it takes to do those jobs. With guidance this could be a lot of fun and lead to a in depth understanding of the skills and knowledge of those positions and what it takes to be in that career and explore some of the lesser known things that those careers must take on. The roles could even be less realistic and more metaphorical in practice. This approach could be extremely entertaining and engaging for both students and teachers.
Readings:
I find the concept of massive open online courses, otherwise known as MOOC’s, to be an interesting concept. Allowing people to access college and university level courses in a flexible online manner open the door for many people and possibilities. In time, this approach to education could make a drastic change on the way some people learn and how we credit students for knowledge learned.
The first thing that came to mind when reading about MOOC’s is that they do have their limits. One of the biggest draw backs is that they require both a computer and internet connection which not everyone can afford. In time, as computers become more affordable and available, it is possible that this problem may be lessened but for now it can be a roadblock for some who want to learn but cannot afford to. Online learning can even be a struggle in the K-12 classroom as not all students have access to a computer or smart phone and schools rarely have computers for all students to use.
One thing that I had not considered about MOOC’s is that even if you do complete a course there is no means of recognizing the time and effort you put in. As far as I know there is no degree which can be obtained by taking a degree worth of MOOC courses. In theory, a person could learn an entire degree through MOOC courses but then receive no accreditation for their work, thus not opening the potential doors that it should. As MOOC courses become more acknowledged, perhaps some for of accreditation will become common. I would posit that by making that an option it would make MOOC based learning far more popular.
An interesting idea posed by Canole and Brown is the potential that in the future students could make their own degrees. Students being able to pick and choose what they learn and gaining accreditation for it instead of being forced into focused degrees sounds very appealing and could create more well-rounded individuals and unique combinations of knowledge. This could be especially useful in a future that appears less certain in its opportunities than the past did.
Readings: