Category: ONL232: Jan Akmal

Author: Jan S. Akmal (jan.akmal@aalto.fi)

The onset of digitalization and information technologies has set a new stage for learners and educators alike. Today, addressing all learning preferences — on the spectrum of conventional in-person setting to digital online learning — remains a priority. Navigating this spectrum in a manner that takes advantage of both ends may be the ideal blended learning model for a contextual basis. Blended learning can include synchronous and asynchronous activities both online and offline.

The Covid-19 pandemic caused a global surge of demand for online learning. During this pandemic, my teaching responsibility shifted online in its entirety. I conducted lectures online synchronously assisted with communication, collaboration, and web-based classroom participation tools, i.e., Microsoft Teams and Presemo. I also recorded the lectures for students to flexibly engage with the content asynchronously. In addition to holding in-person exercises online, I was inherently compelled to hold at least one in-person exercise session offline when the university policy permitted it through special grounds under exceptional circumstances. This is because I believe that it is critical for learners to learn by doing and feeling through active experimentation and having concrete experiences (Kolb, 1984) in for example design-oriented problem-based learning (Savin-Baden, 2014).

Today, though the Covid-19 pandemic restrictions have been dismantled, I have continued to live-stream and record my lectures even though they are primarily held in-person offline. This is because the graduate-level curriculum can sometimes be overwhelming, and the positive impact of self-paced learning has been repeatedly highlighted in learner feedback and reflections.

I have been using the Kolb’s experiential theory (Kolb, 1984) to ground and underpin my teaching practices. This ensures that learners undergo all the necessary steps, i.e., having the actual experience (exposed to new knowledge), reflecting on the experience (expanding existing knowledge), learning from the experience (concept development), and experimenting what has been learned with hands on activities (accommodating in real-world).

Within the Open Network Learning course setting, I was intrigued to further learn about the community of inquiry framework that seeks to create profound learning experiences through cognitive presence, social presence, and teaching presence (Garrison et al., 2000). I found the instructional activities put forth by Fiock (2020) to be highly useful. The author outlined them as a function of community of inquiry framework presences and seven principles of good practice for the online environment.

The webinar on “Thriving Online in Higher Education” (Kay, 2023) had insightful suggestions on designing online courses with a strong focus on AI chatbot—ChatGPT. The speaker confirmed the validity of ChatGPT responses based on 15 years of personal experience — an advocation leading to the AI-empowered paradigm shift (Ouyang & Jiao, 2021). An interesting observation was the graduation rate of synchronous learning which was 95% as opposed to 55% for asynchronous at Ontario Tech University (MEd). A blend of both modes equipped with pedagogically underpinned ICT tools would be the way forward to thrive in today’s digital landscape.

References:

Fiock, H. S. (2020). Designing a Community of Inquiry in Online Courses. In International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning (Vol. 21).

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical Inquiry in a Text-Based Environment: Computer Conferencing in Higher Education.

Kay, R. (2023). (796) #ONL232 Topic 4 webinar with Dr. Robin Kay – YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slHey7ochNY

Kolb, D. A. (1984). Experiential learning: Experience as the source of learning and development (Vol. 1). Prentice-Hall.

Ouyang, F., & Jiao, P. (2021). Artificial intelligence in education: The three paradigms. Computers and Education: Artificial Intelligence, 2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.caeai.2021.100020

Savin-Baden, M. (2014). Using Problem-Based Learning: New Constellations for the 21st Century. The Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3 & 4), 197–219.

Author: Jan S. Akmal (jan.akmal@aalto.fi)

Humans are inherently social. We are accustomed to collaborating and learning from one another — to a narrower sense in small groups and to a broader sense in communities. Community of practice is formed when historical learning develops into an informal and dynamic social structure between participants who share a common interest and engage in collective learning and knowledge sharing (Wenger, 2010).

I still remember witnessing the power of collaborative learning when I was a student. Together with my friends and classmates, we worked in small groups to maximize our individual and each other’s learning. Bringing our distinct expertise together, this allowed us to save an immense amount of time and effort to learn. The multi-perspective approach deepened our learning, actively filling blind spots. Our constructive arguments balanced our biases and made the whole experience enjoyable. Considering the theory of connectivity, learning is not just about accessing information, it also incorporates ways in which we take on different perspectives and test our knowledge (Siemens, 2008). I believe this is the underlying mechanism of collaborative learning.

With the onset of digital technologies and transformations, the emphasis on the use of technological tools in teaching has been increasing while the pedagogic underpinning remains elusive. Nevertheless, digital technologies can allow for a vast network of learning communities comprising a virtual space for collaboration, exchange, and reflection on learning. This opens opportunities for connecting both pedagogic theory and practice enabling practitioners to focus on and capture the process in addition to the summative outcome.

Within the Open Networked Learning course setting, I have been experiencing the benefits of collaborative learning coupled with digital tools first-hand. Owing to our functional group dynamics and social facilitation, the challenges remain insignificant. This has been an effective approach in streamlining my learning. I can envision setting up a social media channel, e.g., Appropedia, and embedding digital tools, e.g., MIRO, within a course to connect participants and facilitate learning within and across groups.

The webinar on “Learning in communities — networked collaborative learning” (Alexandra Mihai, 2023) was informative that provided a great overview of collaborative learning in the context of  planning, managing group dynamics, role of teacher, assessment and reflection, and the use of technology. As a collective outcome for this topic, we as a group decided to step outside our comfort zone and compile our first podcast covering the scope of learning in communities. Here is our podcast (~13 min), hope you enjoy it as much as we did.

References:

Alexandra Mihai. (2023). #ONL232 Topic 3 webinar with Alexandra Mihai – YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XrGG76vtdC0

Siemens, G. (2008). Learning and knowing in networks: Changing roles for educators and designers. ITFORUM for Discussion, 27(1), 1–26.

Wenger, E. (2010). Communities of practice and social learning systems: the career of a concept. Social Learning Systems and Communities of Practice, 179–198.

Author: Jan S. Akmal (jan.akmal@aalto.fi)

The facade of my open learning journey started with open access publishing. This is perhaps one common ground for researchers and educators to understand the importance of open learning and sharing. The basic principle that underpins innovation and knowledge is the availability of existing knowledge to be accessible to anyone who wishes to scrutinize it and develop it further (Costello et al., 2019). Standing on the shoulders of the giants is a popular expression in sync to this principle. Evidently, restricting access to knowledge in anyway, e.g., paid subscriptions and fees, contradicts this. Costello et al. (2019) argue that following this pursuit can create elite groups with access that may not necessarily build the knowledge further.

My university follows the open access principles. Within this scope, researchers are encouraged to adopt the creative commons CC BY 4.0 license, to publish in parallel in the University repository, and to evaluate the integrity of the journals using for example Publication Forum. To tackle the challenges of article processing charges (APC fees) through negotiated agreements, my university is also a member of FinELib consortium. I have strictly followed these principles for my publications as these can also yield more readers, potential collaborators, and further knowledge creation.

A few years ago, I was also introduced to the concept of open source hardware which essentially projects the concept of creative commons licensing to tangible artifacts. I have also co-authored a publication entitled “Additively Manufactured Parametric Universal Clip-System: An Open Source Approach for Aiding Personal Exposure Measurement in the Breathing Zone” that follows the principles of free and open-source scientific hardware for significantly reducing the costs of scientific hardware and allowing scientists to manufacture components using digital and general-purpose technologies (Kukko et al., 2020). Back in 2018, I also remixed a design to calibrate 3D printers parametrically, which to date has had over 900 downloads. Assuming each download was used to calibrate a 3D printing machine, the outcome is rewarding. Here is a link to printable part sources.

In general, the two weeks spent on this topic were quite interesting. The discussions on the emergence of AI tools raised valuable insights and concerns on the authenticity and legality of the underlying data set that AI tools use. I was fascinated to read about the Responsible AI License (RAIL), that empowers developers to restrain the use of AI technologies to prevent irresponsible and harmful applications. I enjoyed becoming familiar with a greater scope of openness covering multiple facets. I admired the framework and principles of open education resources, practices, and policies. These have also been extensively covered within the open science and research policy of my university. The library of open educational resources provided by the Ministry of Education and Culture and the Finnish National Agency for Education contains open educational resources from all levels of education. Further, I found the resource collections provided in the topic brief to be highly useful. Together with my team, I acknowledged that openness comes with challenges and can potentially lower the barriers to misuse. Navigating this domain responsibly is of utmost importance.

References:

Costello, E., Huijser, H., & Marshall, S. (2019). Education’s many “opens”. Australasian Journal of Educational Technology, 35(3). https://doi.org/10.14742/ajet.5510

Kukko, K., Akmal, J. S., Kangas, A., Salmi, M., Björkstrand, R., Viitanen, A.-K., Partanen, J., & Pearce, J. M. (2020). Additively Manufactured Parametric Universal Clip-System: An Open Source Approach for Aiding Personal Exposure Measurement in the Breathing Zone. https://doi.org/10.3390/app10196671

Author: Jan S. Akmal (jan.akmal@aalto.fi)

Thank you for the opportunity to participate in open networked learning. This course has been hailed as extraordinary by the facilitators. Already living up to its reputation in the first topic, I have started to experience the glimpse of the extra knowledge transcending the ordinary approach to teaching.

Upon reading the scenario presented in topic 1, I could envision myself booting up into this course containing a plethora of digital tools. Here, I must thank my group, in particular the facilitators in keeping me up-to-speed. The scenario represented a good testament to potential experiences that students undergo through different modes of learning in courses within their curricula. Employing the FiSh model (Nerantzi and Uhlin, 2012) collaboratively within my group assisted in collecting and structuring our thoughts and learning process. I found the Visitors and Residents concept (White & Le Cornu, 2011) introduced in the webinar to be a very interesting and effective method of structuring our presence on the web. Not favoring one mode of engagement over the other, the dynamic nature of the concept was particularly appealing in which an individual can be in multiple regimes using even identical platforms. As opposed to being strictly platform specific as one may be inclined to perceive, context and motivation predominate. To focus on our problem context, we created a problem statement and intervened through creating three focus areas — transition from visitors to residents, structural approaches to amplify online participation engagement and sharing, and finally creating online safe spaces. The readership is directed to PBL Group 1 Topic 1 for our main findings.

My group dynamics were smooth, which assisted the evolving behavior of our collaborative inquiry. Consistent feedback from the facilitators ensured that we were moving in the right direction. Though I have been somewhat familiar with problem-based learning, Savin-Baden (2014) added a whole new dimension by classifying problem-based learning approaches according to problem type, form of interaction, knowledge focus, form of facilitation, focus of assessment, and learning emphasis. Following the breakdown, collaborative distributed problem-based learning would potentially be a good fit here. I found author’s arguments of mapping problem-based learning according to theories and activities for new conceptualization of curriculum with pedagogical underpinning as opposed to technology determinism to be highly insightful. The seven elements of digital literacies (Northumbria University on behalf of Jisc., 2014) broadened my understanding of digital behaviors, practices, and identities supported by diverse and evolving technologies. Surprisingly, the landing page for “Developing digital literacies (2014) JISC guide” in the ONL232 course is hosted on the waybackmachine — an internet archiving portal that stores pages that may not even exist at contemporary times. This has served as invaluable in my past experiences.

References:

Nerantzi, C. and Uhlin, L. (2013). Flexible, Distance and Online Learning (FDOL) FDOL131 – Design. https://fdol.wordpress.com/fdol131/design/

Northumbria University on behalf of Jisc. (2014, October 11). Developing digital literacies—Jisc infoNet. http://web.archive.org/web/20141011143516/http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk/infokits/digital-literacies/

Savin-Baden, M. (2014). Using Problem-Based Learning: New Constellations for the 21st Century. The Journal on Excellence in College Teaching, 25(3 & 4), 197–219.

White, D. S., & Cornu, A. L. (2011). Visitors and Residents: A new typology for online engagement. First Monday. https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v16i9.3171