Photo by James Sutton on Unsplash
Welcome to Week 6!
- I have given you all some feedback on your blog post #1 of 4 – which makes up Assignment #2. Some things to consider for future blog posts: The blog posts must integrate and connect to course content & resources which includes your weekly reading, the webinar recordings & the interactions with your social pods. For blog posts #2-4, please ensure you have added some kind of evidence that you have connected and interacted with your social pod in order to expand upon your original blog post. Each week, you have been asked to connect with your social pods. Evidence of these “meetings” (whether comments in your blog post or reflections about an informal social pod meeting) NEED to be integrated into your blog reflections. Please ensure you interact and connect with your social pod EVERY week in your own way. For Topic 3, we will be completing group projects with our social pods.
- Another idea is to split your social pod up into “social partners” each week. That way only one person has to give you feedback and you only give one person feedback. Your social pod can switch up the partners each week ? This should help ensure EVERY person gets and gives feedback?
3. I have included some examples of blog posts from other students in my other courses for you read in your feedback. While it is important to integrate some of the themes and topics from your reading, it is more important to connect the themes and topics to your OWN personal ideas and learning experiences. Consider writing your blog with an informal tone. The integration of digital media, creating infographics or digital artifacts to summarize the key themes from the course, is highly recommended.
4. Connect your blog post to the course learning outcomes and main topics that you are focusing on form the course. I am looking for evidence of your reflective analysis and synthesis of the course content and how you are meeting the course learning outcomes.
Weekly Course Reading
This week we will be transitioning from the history of educational technology and online learning, to the history of open learning. Please ensure that you have listened to the recordings of the #edci339 course webinars. Please consider integrating ideas from the webinars into your blog posts.
In this week’s reading, Jordan, DeVries, Rolfe and Weller summarized a wide selection of open literature. They were able to theme the literature in their presentation and article:
Weller, M. , Jordan, K., DeVries, I & Rolfe, V. (2017). Reclaiming our history: Citation analysis of historical open and distance learning research. Presentation at the ICDE World Conference on Online Learning, 16-19 October, Toronto, Canada.
This week’s reading is a summary of the presentation and original article, with overviews of the major literature for each theme. it is an essential reading for anyone who wants to learn more about open education.
Openness & education: A beginner’s guide
Ironically, you will notice that Dr. Martin Weller is one of the major contributors to this week AND last week’s article. Dr Weller is a globally renowned research in distributed (online) and open learning. He not only influences the readings in this course but has widely contributed to the literature in the history of online and open learning in Higher Education worldwide.
As you read through this week’s reading, please take note of the major topics:
Open education in schools
Distance education and open learning
E-learning and and online education
Open access publishing
Open educational resources
Social Media
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
Open practices
Blog Post Questions:
In you weekly blog post, consider the following some of the following questions. What are the three topics that resonated with you the most? How would you describe the historical and theoretical trends in open and distributed learning? What did you already know, what do you know now based on the course readings and activities, what do you hope to learn? What is one topic you might consider to expand upon for your final project? What are the similarities and differences between online (distributed) learning and open learning?
Supplementary Readings for K-12 Distributed and Open Learning Contexts:
Roberts, V. , Blomgren, C. Ishmael, K. & Graham, L. (2018) Open Educational Practices in K-12 Online and Blended Learning Environments. In R. Ferdig & K.Kennedy (Eds.), Handbook of research on K-12 online and blended learning (pp. 527–544). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University ETC Press.
Barbour, M & Labonte, R. (2018) An Overview of eLearning Organizations and Practices in Canada. In R. Ferdig & K. Kennedy (Eds.), Handbook of research on K-12 online and blended learning (pp. 600-616). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University ETC Press.