March 2020 – michaelli’s Uvic Site

Final review paper

Open and distributed learning in 2040

Open and distributed learning is a successful and necessary innovation that can help people who cannot afford school tuition and books to get the same opportunity as other learners and have the platform to enrich their knowledge and life. As more and more people start to accept the concept of open and distributed learning, more and more people are willing to use it and contribute to this community, a community without boundaries and everyone can access and edit it. I believe that open and distributed learning will be the main way for people to get education in the future and there will be a small number of schools that are still opening. Educational platform providers try to “encompass as many user practices as possible, leading to classrooms on platforms rather than platforms in classrooms. Artificial intelligence will increasingly become the engine of education, and student data the fuel” (Selwyn 1).

Today is 23 March, 2040. I am trying to get my second degree, the degree of commerce. I have been learning it for 2 years. At the same time, I am working in an EdTech company. So basically, I do everything at home both work and study. Everything I need to study from lower levels to higher levels is available OER, MOOC and many other large main online education platforms for free. Most people are using the way of open and distributed learning. I click on the commerce tab on a random public educational website which I have been using for over 5 years. All the materials and videos show up and they are all under the common right which is so convenient. There are also professors online who can help learners by appointments. The whole system is almost completely perfect and all should be thankful for the disaster that happened decades ago. 20 years ago, when there was the coronavirus outbreak, the global economies were shaken by the effects of the virus, and the circuit breakers halted US stock trading 3 times in one week which was very surprised, because over the past 31 years, the circuit breakers only halted once and it is in 1997. Most schools, banks, restaurants, and many other stores were closed. I still remember that all of my six courses were canceled and the teachers started to teach online by posting all the materials and videos on coursespace. Also, all the finals were either canceled and replaced by assignments or became an online style final exam which was a new different experience for me. Due to this COVID-19 outbreak, people start to pay more attention to open and distributed learning. The government cuts the budget to “DTUs (distance teaching universities) have further contributed to the decline of part-time demand in some countries. Leaders of open universities should define new potential target groups” (Baron 1). Nowadays, most people do not go to school, students are studying online at home resources are thousands of online platforms that are providing the study materials and resources online either for free or for the need to be paid. In addition, the number of teachers is decreasingly changing due to the emergence of artificial intelligence. In the past, there was only one teacher in a class with 40 to maybe 1000 students. It is impossible for a teacher to answer every student’s questions during one class, but now, people are using artificial intelligence to replace teachers and they can answer learners’ questions at any time. It is like a personal tutor that can teach the learner anything at any time and location where with the network. In 2020, on average, students in the U.S. spend about 600 dollars buying textbooks per year; students in Canada spend about 385 dollars on textbooks per semester which can increase student debt. Now, with AI and open and distributed learning, learners do not need to buy physical copies and there are many free resources are available out there on the internet which will save much money. Open and distributed learning is able to provide an adequate learning environment to satisfy learners’ urge of easily getting access to free, updated resources. In 2040, open and distributed learning has become the mainstream of way for learners to study.

When there is a demand, there also a supply. As the demand for online platforms keeps growing, more supplies will come up which means the business will also expand and grow fast. There was a report predicted about “the most profitable EdTech businesses will most likely emerge from ‘new’ markets such as China and India” (Selwyn 3). In 2040, this prediction has come true. China and India are the first and second largest population countries. Much more people are using online platforms technologies, so the marketing is huge and needs a lot of investments. Right now, China and India’s business of EdTech has taken over 40 percent of the online platform business. People who are investing in this industry are making a really good profit. In addition, the business in China and India is also the top of its industry. With many Chinese and Indian users, China and India are able to make the expensive platforms to the lowest point of price. Also due to this fast-growing industry, many governments have made many regulations in order to protect the public education system. Because many resources are freely shared on many large platforms and many private platforms are stealing them are making a profit from them. The governments also formed an organization which takes reports from reporters to protect other people like, authors, teachers, educators and users’ right and profit creating a civilized and safe online environment.

Everything I mentioned here is aiming to high schools and universities. Open and distributed learning is very successful at a high level of education. Schools like primary schools are still operating. Due to elementary school students’ lack of self-control, they cannot regularly and temperately follow the pace of normal primary schools. They cannot finish the arranged work and assignments on time. But in order to make the completed education cycle from a low level of education to a high level, everyone is trying to come up with a design of platform or application. So far, people are using AI as primary school students’ personal teacher and the test result is going well. AI is also using open resources as its foundation. Parents can select different timetables for their children and the timetable can be changed at any time by parents. Ai is installed on tablets and will punctually supervise to open the app and study the materials the AI delivered. AI will also check on students and see if they are still paying attention to the video or materials by either asking questions or a verification code. There will also be some interesting games that can help students to engage with the content and fully understand the content. In addition, students can ask AI any questions they have and the AI will search the answers from the open sources, then conclude them to answers giving back to students. This system is based on an open and distributed way, the difference is AI is playing the role of researching materials and answers for primary students. The success of this innovation can also prove the usefulness of open and distributed learning. Education in 2040 is not a problem for anyone. Everyone has the adequate opportunity to choose their path in the future and education will not be the barrier that limits their gifts. This is also the beauty of open and distributed learning. Everyone is willing to help others who are in need of the study. Things like open educational resources, open universities, MOOCs and many other important sources and platforms are playing an extremely significant and inseparable role in open and distributed learning. Maybe in the longer future, all the resources will be stored on a chip that can directly insert into a human’s brain and people can get everything they want from reading the chip. There will be no more physical books. Books are only for historical relics for the museums. I am so looking forward to seeing this coming true, and people do not need to speak but only share information by radio waves. I believe that will happen one day.

By doing research and making up a story, I am able to well engage in the topic, open and distributed learning and better understanding the meaning and importance of this topic. Learning openly and in a distributed way can bring people to a higher level of learning. This is a really exciting stage to achieve in the future and I believe the things I have made up(predicted) will come true in the future, because the education system is not impeccable enough right now. Everyone should have the right and opportunity to learn and they should not be limited by poverty and disabilities.

Baron, C. (n.d.). ProQuest Research Library. CC Advisor. doi: 10.5260/cca.199462/ https://search-proquest com.ezproxy.library.uvic.ca/docview/2317585492?accountid=14846&pq-origsite=summon.

Selwyn, N., Hillman, T., Eynon, R., Ferreira, G., Knox, J., Macgilchrist, F., & Sancho-Gil, J. M. (2019). What’s next for Ed-Tech? Critical hopes and concerns for the 2020s. Learning, Media and Technology, 45(1), 1–6. doi: 10.1080/17439884.2020.1694945

Showcase Post

After finishing studying an open educational resource I felt that it was a very flexible, convenient way to learn. For example, as an international student with 6 courses in one semester, it is very hard to devote all the time to one subject or concentrate on one subject for a long period of time. But with an online course (I call them open educational resources) no matter how much content they, I am able to split the work into many parts and digest them at any time I want. There is no time limit, unlike the other classes which require attendance at a fixed time. If I miss the class, I will miss the lecture from my professor. Open educational resources relieve my workload giving me more time and energy to slowly digest new knowledge. I think OER is a very successful way to create an opportunity for everyone from any country to access free resources and exercise the right to learn knowledge. It allows people who cannot afford the latest learning materials and school tuition to have the chance to access free, updated resources so that they can get a quality education. On average, students in the U.S. spend about 600 dollars buying textbooks per year; students in Canada spend about 385 dollars on textbooks per semester which can increase student debt. Today, more and more people have accepted this practice and have started to use open educational resources to study, revealing the potential of OER.

The open educational resource is a lecture for me. It is a one-way media that requires critical thinking skills. Plenty of time is needed to understand the material in order to fully get the gist of the content. That is also a disadvantage of open educational resources, there is no way to ask questions. OER could provide us with a convenient and friendly platform for students to communicate and ask questions. Help from an EDCI professor through email could also improve the system to a two-way media that is communicative media. Any questions can be solved right after I finish reading the materials alone by either discussion or help from the professor. The image I attached below is creative in that it has many hands come out of the book which symbolizes help. With some changes, Open Educational Resource could allow people to reach out to either help or receive help with no distance limit and time limit. Sometimes the learner can receive several hands from different people of different countries and they can give different ideas and opinions based on their knowledge which in turn can enrich a learner’s mind and broaden his/her perspective.

I think most people would think OER is asynchronous. People can access it at any time freely. But it could also be synchronous when a time limit is added on to it. For example, if an assignment is going to be due in a week, OER could become synchronous by having everyone share the same due date, forcing them to read the material within the 7 days. Compared to a shorter time-fixed class, the online course just has a longer time-fixed class. Many people have the habit of leaving the assignment to the last minute, OER demonstrates many people are reading the material within the same time frame but at different rates of progress.

The richness of media is very broad. It can be performed in many ways: video, audio, context and more. So far, the richness of OER is already very broad; I have seen many versions, videos, voice over, contexts, and maybe a few pictures. It is important to avoid being monotonous and to have different forms of teaching which can stimulate learners’ interests and thinking. The richness of media really gives OER a new life and helps people to engage in the content, therefore aiding them in understanding the materials better. My experience is that after reading a long context, it is better to have a picture or short video to conclude or demonstrate what the article or paragraph is trying to tell the audience. There are always pictures attached between paragraphs while I was reading the content on the open educational resource. It is very helpful to have the richness of the media to effectively teach the learners. OER is a very good example. To make my post look better and easy to understand, I also embedded multimedia in the content so that readers can have a deeper understanding. I hope that more people can have the opportunity to know more about OER.

#4 Reflection

1. Every learner has his/her own way to learn new knowledge.

Because people have different characteristics which develop the diversity of learning style, for example, some people think it is better to read out loud and some think the other way. Some people like to make notes while they are reading, some people do not. There is no right or wrong, better or worse way of learning things. There are only suitable ways of learning for learners. So, it is very important to find a learning style that is suitable for the learners which contribute to my second point.

I have this experience that when I was in China, I forgot to put my name on my example paper. The teacher from the other class was able to recognize which was the teacher of mine when everyone was doing the same paper out of many different sections of the same subject. From here, we can see that the style of answering questions can be passed on by teachers. The same applies to the style of learning.

Why is it important to find a suitable way of learning for every learner?

Because an appropriate, good method of learning can save much time for learners. For example, some people are good at summarizing content out of a long article, and some do not. It will be a better method for the learners with the better-summarizing skills to conclude the materials they have read (Hypothes.is would be a good app for them to conclude the content as an annotation). People with weaker summarizing skills can read the materials several times instead of misunderstanding or guess the meaning of content.

Through OER, learners can easily find or develop their personalized ways of learning.

Because it is a flexible, free and easy-access source which better for the learner to discover and develop their personalized study method. It is important for the learner to have a flexible and easy-going environment. There are applications or websites like FLOE designed for diverse learners. It has many tools for learners to use, first discovery tool, preference exploration tool, and so on. It is a really good open-source.

1. “If we had easy-to-use tools, we’d all make our content more accessible”. What does this concept mean? It is a bit rough and general. What does this sentence try to tell us in a more logical way?

2.” The goal of education is to support learners in reaching their full potential”. “Full potential” What does full potential mean? What kind of aspects does it include? Full potential is too broad and impossible to achieve. The potential of human is infinitive large. So, I am confused by this sentence or perhaps I want to know the details.

The module in week 11 mainly talks about the how and why the Universal Design for Learning. I wonder more about the what is the Universal Design for Learning. There should be more information or history about the universal design. It will be more helpful for people to contextualize the content. And perhaps have different understandings on the same content.

#3 Reflection

After finishing studying an open educational resource, I felt that open educational resource is a very flexible, convenient and good way to learn things. For example, as an international student with 6 courses in one semester, it is very hard to devote all the time to one subject or concentrate on one subject for a long period of time. But with an online course perhaps I call it open educational resources, no matter how much content it has, I am able to split the content into many parts and disgust them at any time I want. There is no time limitation, unlike the other classes which require attendance at a fixed time. If I miss the class, I will miss the “broadcasting” from my professors. Online learning (open educational resource) relieves my heavy burden giving me more time and energy to slowly disgust the new knowledge.

The open educational resource is a “broadcasting” for me. It is a one-way media that requires critical thinking skills. It needs plenty of time to understand the materials in order to fully get the gist of the content. That is also the disadvantage of open educational resource(one-way) that has no way to ask for questions, but as we join some group discussion, for example, Hypothes.is provides us with this convenient and friendly platform for us to communicate and ask for questions. Also, the help from EDCI professor through email also improves the one-way media to a two-way media, communicative media. Any questions can be solved right after I finish reading the materials alone by either discussion or help from the professor.

I think most people would think OER is asynchronous. People can access it at any time freely. But sometimes it also could be synchronous when we add a time limitation on it. For example, if an assignment is going to be due in a week, somehow it becomes synchronous because everyone shares the same due date and has to read the materials within the 7 days. Compare to a shorter time-fixed class, the online course just has a longer time-fixed class. Especially, many people have the habit to leave the assignment to the last minute which also means many people are reading the OER at the same time but with different rates of progress.

The richness of media is very broad. It can be performed in many ways, video, audio, context and more. So far, the richness of OER is already very broad, I have seen many versions, videos, voice over, context and maybe a picture. It is important to have different forms of teaching because it would not be monotonous and stimulate learners’ interests and thinking. My experience is that after reading a long context, it is better to have a picture or short video to conclude or demonstrate what the article or paragraph is trying to tell the audience. There are always pictures attached between paragraphs while I was reading the context on the open educational resource. It is very helpful to have the richness of media to effectively teach the learners. OER is a very good example.