Ah, the final blog post of EDCI 339. This course has flown by very quickly and I must say this was a good reading to go out on. I really enjoyed the perspectives outlined in this paper and feel like the voice of students was amplified through it. I also enjoyed the Twitter activity that was conducted yesterday evening, but I wanted to also highlight some of the ideas brought up in this week’s reading first.

This week’s reading was in my top 2 of readings throughout this course. I felt like this reading was not only focused on open pedagogy, but on amplifying the perspective and voice of students. The paper talked a lot about the different definitions of open pedagogy, and it felt like all of these definitions were focused on how open pedagogy can provide a better environment for learners. My favourite definition was probably Daniel’s (2004) who stated open pedagogy is something “that treats the student as an intellectual equal” (p.9). I honestly had goosebumps reading that line because it felt like this definition was making the point that even though students may have a different knowledge set than their teacher, doesn’t mean they should be treated any less than them. This paper not only had meaningful definitions of what exactly open pedagogy is but also examples of how teachers can make assignments more meaningful to students in relation to OERs. The idea of disposable versus renewable assignments was very interesting to learn about. I completely agree that papers feel like they don’t offer much to students since once the grade and feedback are received, the paper doesn’t offer us anymore “good”. Papers aren’t allowed to be reused for other courses and so it feels like all the hard work and research that goes into writing one feels anti-climactic once we finish it. It often feels like these papers almost suppress the voice and opinions of students, because the paper is only ever read by the student and their teacher. After all that hard work put into articulating concepts and ideas, it would be better to advocate the thoughts expressed in students’ papers to others to help other students explore different perspectives on similar topics.

Overall, this paper on open pedagogy and OERs (and examples) was really moving and made the perspective and voice of students feel more understood and appreciated. It feels as though there are professionals and teachers who are trying to make learning a better experience and environment for their students, which is refreshing to see.

Onto the Twitter activity that was conducted last night, I did participate in as many questions as I could. I tried to not respond to every single question, but rather pick the questions that I felt more passionate or knowledgeable about since a platform like Twitter gives me that flexibility and choice. Twitter is an extremely open and accessible platform (as long as you have a device that can connect to the internet), which makes it a great resource for providing an open learning environment. Just after last night’s chat, I was exposed to several different people sharing a variety of resources about access to education and open learning. This platform gave me the opportunity to explore more information related to learning, which only goes to show that Twitter is a resource that could help increase our access to education.

As many positives that Twitter brings to the table, there are some aspects that could be possibly harmful to learners and educators. All of your information that is shared in/on Twitter is stored in the US and so it can pose a security/privacy issue that people should be aware of before joining this platform. Since teachers have to follow FIPPA guidelines, it could be harmful to recommend that students join the platform since there is no control over your personal data/information. A second area that is of concern is the fact that once something has been put online, it is almost impossible to fully get rid of it. The thing learners and educators need to keep in mind with such a public platform is that ideas and thoughts posted on the internet are *forever* and so you should always think twice before you post online.

It’s hard to believe that this course is coming to an end already (even though it was a highly condensed course). I’ve really enjoyed learning more about open and distributed learning and I feel as though I’ve gained a better understanding and perspective on what exactly open and distributed learning entails. At the beginning of the course, we had to introduce ourselves to the class. One question I mentioned in my introduction was that I wanted to learn what exactly open and distributed learning was and if I had ever experienced it before. I’m happy to say that when someone asks me what open and distributed learning is, I’ll be able to give them an answer. If anyone is ever thinking about taking this course, I would highly recommend it since I think learning about this type of environment is something every student should be familiar with.

References

Daniel, J. (2004). From the triangle to the pentagon: Open universities in the 21st century. Commonwealth of Learning, 2-9. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11599/1446

Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2018). Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4).