Topic 1: Privacy and Human-Centred Learning

Topic 1: Privacy and Human-Centred Learning

Image: Lauri Rantala, Flickr.com

Things to do by July 8 (all activities for Topic 1 are available in Brightspace)

• Read Topic 1 course readings
• Meet on with your Learning Pod to discuss Topic 1 (use Zoom or another tool that you all use)
• Complete the FIPPA and Acceptable Use of Technology Quiz (10% of course grade)
• Post your Topic 1 discussion thread in Brightspace
• Reply to your Pod members’ Topic 1 threads to stimulate conversation, reflection, and critical thinking
• Discuss initial plans for the Digital Equity & Perspective Pod Project (see examples from previous courses: A, B, C, D, E – please note that these examples are of varying quality)

Topic 1 Readings

Many educators, both in public (K-12, Higher Education) and private (corporate, non-profit) education systems have found themselves in a situation that requires them to think for the first time about how their learners access learning opportunities. Due to COVID-19, most public spaces physically closed, including schools and businesses of all kinds, but were required to stay open to continue operations through some sort of technology. This led to an inevitable question:

What is the best technology for education?

Some might think it is a learning management system, like Moodle, or D2L Brightspace, Canvas, or maybe Zoom, or MS Teams. The list could go on for a very long time, as you may have experienced over the past year and half. The fact is, none of these technologies can do anything to teach. All of these technologies are completely reliant on the input of a caring and competent person to engage with the people on the other side of the ‘screen’, who are the learners. And that is a focus of this first topic in EDCI 339.

As you read Stommel (2018), think about ways that we are constrained by the technologies we use. For instance, so far we have been interacting in Brightspace? Is Brightspace an ideal space for learning? How does Brightspace and the technical infrastructure define how we interact with each other? With the content? What is the market stall analogy? How does it relate to your experience as a teacher or learner? The authors argue that the “invention of the LMS was a mistake”. What do you think? 

Second…

How can community develop in these remote and technologically mediated learning environments?

One strategy that we are employing in EDCI 339 is to have you work in Learning Pods so that you can have a smaller group of people with whom we hope you will connect and support during the course. This is a structure based on the practice of cooperative learning, a set of strategies that create the conditions for significant levels of interaction between learners in a course.

To help you get an idea of how this structure is theorized in Higher Education, the topic 1 reading from Vaughan, Garrison, and Cleveland-Innes (2013)[chapter 1], (which is a free download!) describes the idea of a Community of Inquiry which consists of three presences:

• cognitive
• teaching
• social

The article primarily explores the question: what makes good blended learning? What do you think? And, in turn, what makes good online or distributed learning? Do you have great learning experiences from the past year and a half to draw upon? Did you experience what the authors consider a community of inquiry? What is the role of the student (or, more generically, learner) in a community of inquiry and good distributed learning? How can a teacher inspire this type of behaviour?

Finally…

How should educators respond to the proliferation of “educational” technologies that are really just ways for corporations to “steal” learner work and data?

Another reading for this topic, (Regan & Jesse, 2019) (requires a login to the UVic library using your Netlink ID), explores the ethics of big data in educational environments. Why do we allow, no, why do we pay companies like TurnItIn (Did you know? TurnItIn was purchased for $1.75 billion) to scrape learners’ work (assignments) through invasive surveillance only to have them profit from your work. As a student, how do you feel about the ways in which your data is being used or could be used? Do you think about your data at all when you sign up and use online educational (or non-educational) services? This article focuses on the United States, do you think there are similar things happening in Canada? Can you find evidence of this?