We are already in a transition period about learning and teaching. But the recent tough situation of coronavirus has really speeded it up. Since the beginning of 2020, the development of online courses, distance courses, networked learning etc. is booming on different levels, from the primary school to the university. I am also responsible to develop a new distance course for an Erasmus+ master program, which topic is about bioeconomy and green market. There are some good ideas from experienced colleagues, but some questions are still bothering me. It is same as the traditional classroom teaching that how to motivate students and keep them active is always the key issue. But things are getting more complicated when we don’t meet students physically; and it can be even worse for offline courses. So for different types of courses, how should we design the course and what are the good ways to organize the courses? To find good solutions is the main motivation for me to take this course.
However, it is obvious that there is much more we need to think about. The first topic ‘online participation & digital literacy’ raised one issue about literacies to survive and thrive in the digital age. It points out that both we, as teachers, and students need some specific skills and attitudes before we can make everything working effectively. To be frank, I have never thought about this before, but it is an interesting topic.
David White proposed a simple way using Visitors and Residents to describe the range of ways individuals can engage with the Web [1]. By using this to inspect myself, I would say that I am a visitor in most of time. I mainly look for what I need and communicate with others via emails or communication tools, but seldom leave any footprint. I am not a blogger, and don’t visit social media, like Facebook and Linkedin very often, maybe a couple of times a year. Why is it like that? Actually, I tried blogs long time ago. However, it took much time to make it look nice and attractive. And after you post something, you also need more time to follow it. Due to lack of time or to save some time, I decide to stay away from such things.
Now some questions come up. ‘is this a problem if I don’t use social media?’, ‘what does it matter if I am not a resident?’ It can be too many discussions if we don’t limit the scope. So here I mainly focus on teaching and learning. Indeed, it may make communications easier when people do things in similar ways or get used to similar things. Adopting a way in which students feel more comfortable can definitely make them more active. That is also the reason for the evolution of e-learning platforms, such as Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle etc, which are integrating more and more functions similar to social medias. So maybe I have missed something, haven’t I?
Internet is changing the way people obtain knowledge or information. In David’s presentation during the seminar, there was a slide showing “Now that knowledge and networks are abundant, not scarce, the emphasis should be on connections” and “we (teachers) are the arbiter of connections”. I appreciate this very much. Students can easily find many sources and taking lectures in classrooms will not be the only way to learn, especially with the development of online courses and the availability of recorded lectures. So the role of teachers need to change. Helping students with their problems might be more important for me. Nevertheless, information in internet becomes more diverse. When conflicts appear, it will confuse students. Then who should they trust? In addition, helping students filer information will be another important task for teachers in the open network.
David White added another dimension personal-institutional onto visitor-residents. In David’s system, the quarter of resident-institutional is becoming an important source of information. For us, as teachers, we should be able to stay in that quarter in order to help students better. Again, as we are in a transition period, there are still many uncertainties and many things to be figured out. ONL201 opens a new door to me and starting thinking will be one of my achievements from this course.
Reference:
[1] http://daveowhite.com/vandr/
