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Author: ziweixiong

Digital Portfolio

July 26, 2022 / / 0 Comments

One of the course learning outcomes is to be able to describe the potential of human-centered learning in distributed and open learning contexts.

Throughout the course I did blog posting, peer commenting and group project to develop in meeting this outcome.

From completing these activities, I learned open and distributed learning can be very helpful and effective because it breaks the restriction of traditional teaching and learning environment and resources.

The things I learned matter to me because they changes the way I learn in this and future courses, I will use more OERs in my futre learning to raise my ability to succeed.

Part2:

Updated:Expensive Textbook and Free knowledge

Original:Topic 3

I add explaination and examples about Revise and Remix concept, I write them into the post because I found my instructor’s comment on this is very reasonable, this post should have more things besides cost.

Expensive Textbook and Free knowledge

July 26, 2022 / / 1 Comment

When I read chapter 1 of A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students, I noticed authors point out the connection between expenses and student learning, “ 67% of college students in Florida and 54% of those in British Columbia[14] cannot afford to purchase at least one of their required course textbooks”, this data shocked me, I never think these small expenses are so powerful that may decide if a student can get his/her degree successfully. Personally, this reminds me of the first time I studied in UVIC, I looked at the price of my required course’s textbook, it was 110 CAD or something near, and it was just a digital edition book, as international student, I thought I already be used to with these expensive fees(flight, course fees and rent), but when I was required to buy a 100 dollar textbook, I really thought that was way to expensive, therefore when everytime I was told the course did not need to buy any textbook or website account, I was really glad to hear that. For students who can not afford the textbook, I can imagine their situation, they have to buy the textbook from last term’s students or share with others, but no matter which way they choose, this thing will become the obstacles on their path to graduation or even pass the course. That’s why OERs are important for students, they can save their money on other stuff, and avoid to have psychological pressure from can not afford to buy the textbook.

I think for both high level education and other education using OERs is a great way to improve students’ learning, and teachers can also tell students education should be fearless and creative, using OERs can cover more stuff besides textbooks, students can revise open content to use as their textbook, one example from myself is I found my high school calculus 12 note is very effective for me to study 100 and 200 level math courses in UVIC. If I were not forced to purchase the textbook I would just revise my note or even I could find other students who have similar idea with me to revise our notes into a better one. That would be very helpful and cheap. And if we were using OER in these math courses, I could also remix them with my notes so I can use these resources in future learnings, that can save me plenty of time to review math theories and money to buy new textbooks. Using OER helps students to learn with more perspectives and open their minds.

Topic 4: Acid-base Reaction and OER Pedagogy

July 22, 2022 / / 3 Comments

After reading this week’s material, I have deeper understanding with how OER can change pedagogy further. Before I read it I thought OER are just free resources that help students and teachers to reduce the fee of learning and teaching, it is all about the cost and money, and there are no barriers for them to use OERs in real teaching, it is just find a free and open resouce and use it to replace the textbook or support it. But now I find using OER in teaching is not a simple thing, there may be barriers like  some students may have difficult to use OERs, this could be casued by hard to search the information they want among all the document on internet. However, I find using OER in teaching can bring more benefits, students can join the editing or writing of OERs and that will help other students in the furture, like when I was in high school, my chemistry and physics teachers preserve students’ project of the science fair as teaching tools, I remember someone’s group work on an acid-base reaction project, they did experiment with common foods and test their pH values or pOH something like that, and they shown the colors as their project(different pH values show different color based on the indicator used). So the chemistry teacher kept their work in the classroom and posted it on the back wall of the lab, and she used it as a visual way to teach students what is the theory behind pH value and indicator, things about reactions. I think that is a very good way to teach because it respects past students’ work and uses it to teach future students better. And that project was kind of a OER even though probably no one will update the information on it.

Topic 3

July 19, 2022 / / 7 Comments

When I read chapter 1 of A Guide to Making Open Textbooks with Students, I noticed authors point out the connection between expenses and student learning, “ 67% of college students in Florida and 54% of those in British Columbia[14] cannot afford to purchase at least one of their required course textbooks”, this data shocked me, I never think these small expenses are so powerful that may decide if a student can get his/her degree successfully. Personally, this reminds me of the first time I studied in UVIC, I looked at the price of my required course’s textbook, it was 110 CAD or something near, and it was just a digital edition book, as international student, I thought I already be used to with these expensive fees(flight, course fees and rent), but when I was required to buy a 100 dollar textbook, I really thought that was way to expensive, therefore when everytime I was told the course did not need to buy any textbook or website account, I was really glad to hear that. For students who can not afford the textbook, I can imagine their situation, they have to buy the textbook from last term’s students or share with others, but no matter which way they choose, this thing will become the obstacles on their path to graduation or even pass the course. That’s why OERs are important for students, they can save their money on other stuff, and avoid to have psychological pressure from can not afford to buy the textbook. I think for both high level education and other education using OERs is a great way to improve students’ learning, and teachers can also tell students education should be fearless and creative, using OERs can cover more stuff besides textbooks, it helps students to learn with more perspectives and open their minds.

Reference,

Mays, E. (Ed.). (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. Rebus Community.

Topic 2

July 12, 2022 / / 5 Comments

After reading this week’s materials, my understanding of open education and it’s structure and history. Like the open course that Alec Couros did in mentioned by Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice by Major, C. H. (2015), open courses can be really helpful because it attracts people who really interested in the topic to share their ideas and help students who are formal learner to understand the topic better. Just like when Alec Couros called on internet for mentors, those profs and teachers came to join the course as “outsiders”, they are rich in experience on the field and knowledge on the topic, people who were interested in the course and get a chance to learn, without the restriction of who can join and who can not join, both formal/nonformal students and those outsiders were benefited, that challenged the traditional teaching ways.

Honestly I did not read Openness and Education: A beginners’ guide by Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017) deeply, there are too many informations, but one thing I noticed is the development of learning education was with the development of technology. New technologies were used and created new opportunities, new platforms and tools were introduced. But I wonder is the developing of open education is the inevitable phenomenon or it was inspired by new communication technologies? Like what if internet was never invented and will open education still appears? If so, how? What tools and platforms will be used? If these conditions are really unuseful, will open education still exists? (imagine if people needs to take days and weeks to receiver others’ message, depends on distance). Personally, I enjoy the open learning,  more options are possible for me to search information and find help, that makes the learning easier and more interesting, kind of to learn actively rather than follow the textbooks.

Reference:

Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 76-108)

Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017). Openness and Education: A beginners’ guide. Global OER Graduate Network.

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