Topic 2

What is a MOOC and what are the pros and cons in participating in a MOOC? What kind of aspects are there within openness in digital learning and how should we relate to this?

 

These topics are very relevant in the modern form of learning in higher education today. As I have come further into this digital course I have reflected on more aspects of online learning. It is easy to get lost in these online courses. It is important to be seen and to be active. In MOOCs you also create an event and a social network for learning that can endure even after the course have ended. MOOCs are a relatively new concepts that mainly attracts highly educated people and not the intended low educated underprivileged population it was once designed to reach (Loizzo and Ertmer 2016). However, it has become a valuable contribution in higher education and might still evolve to a tool to reach underprivileged populations in the future.

I have not yet participated in a MOOC, but I will find a suitable one and sign up for it once this course is completed. I think it would be a valuable input in my own learning as both a researcher and as a teacher. MOOCs also address the issue of openness and what content you can share freely as a teacher and not. The TED-talk (in the course literature: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb0syrgsH6M ) provided by David Wiley was nice and provided a short overview of the concept of openness in the teaching community. He said that openness is mainly to be generous, and the share your teaching material with other people. If you do not share you knowledge with anyone you are not teaching. We are not that used to be completely open with our data, but we should be more open. Today we still have a collision between the new accessible technology and the outdated reinforcement of laws and regulations regarding sharing educational content.

Creative commons (CC-licensees) enable you to see what material that you can reuse (with some restrictions) in your own teaching. It is a good tool to use when searching for accessible pictures, films or texts https://search.creativecommons.org/. I will use it when I search for pictures for my lectures, but I may also contribute in the future to this initiative with my own pictures and films that I create in my courses. I did not know about this initiative before the course and I really appreciate all the digital knowledge you receive in this course. I would like to become more open with regard to my teaching material.

 

 references:

Loizzo J, Ertmer P A,  MOOCocracy: the learning culture of massive open online courses Education Tech Research Dev (2016) 64:1013–1032 DOI 10.1007/s11423-016-9444-7.

 

Wiley D, youtube online content 2016-03-20: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rb0syrgsH6M

Topic 1

Topic 1 in the Online-course was about digital literacy and the scenario described a course participant that felt a bit lost when register and starting up the work in an online course and taking on the task of blogging for the first time. In my group, we started off a bit confused and did not know what was expected of us within this topic and within this on-line course. I felt a bit like the person in the scenario, but gradually the feeling changed. The group is very supportive and eager to learn. We started off by just expressing put thoughts more freely in a Google document, we then tried to choose four main areas to look into and two group members per area worked on the specific topic. I looked into the concept of digital footprint and the role of a teacher and blogger.

Within this topic I got to lean what a Digital Footprint is. I thought that the information on the site:  “the digital society” ( https://www.internetsociety.org/your-digital-footprint-matters)  was very useful and it describes your digital footprint as something that forms by your movements on the Internet.  It is a part of your online history that can potentially be tracked by other people or organizations. You can leave a Digital Footprint at web sites you visit or during online shopping. Some websites and retailers leave cookies on your system which can track your movement so that they can target future advertisement for you based on the products or sites you have clicked on. In social media, every like, comments or retweet leave a record.

This was very interesting and a bit scary. I guess you have to get use to that you are more visible in a digital world. Facebook is like a small town, were everyone knows everything about you and you do not have separate spaces anymore between family and colleges. Your role as a blogger is also something that you need to think through before you start. I have not talked about where I work on my blog, but if I had done so, I would have needed to be familiar with my employers digital policy and follow those requirements while blogging.

I also learned during topic 1 that a blog is a great way to self-express and self-reflect on the subjects you learn during the course (Deng and Yuen, 2011). It took me some time to find accessible research within the area, but journals like: Computers & Education is spot on. A blog is a reflective device that helps you take the leap from visitor to resident online. The course webinar on the topic of the different roles you can have online was very interesting as well as the discussion on which pictures and other material that you can or can not use in you online teaching. I have previously been active as a visitor online, but will be forced into a resident-mode though this course. Perhaps this is a good thing for me.

 

References:

Deng L, Yuen A.H.K, Towards a framework for educational affordances of blogs. Computer and education, 56 (2011), 441-451.

Internet Society, online-reference, text on the aspects of the digital footprint, 7^th of March 2017, https://www.internetsociety.org/your-digital-footprint-matters