Category: Reflective posts

• Identify three concepts, ideas, or issues you think are the most important and explain why.

First of all, I want to start off with a video from TED about why universal design matters. Michael will explain to us by expressing himself with sign language. That will also give us a general idea of today’s post:

a. I believe the most important concept of universal learning design is to give an introduction of your work. In the other words, the designers should know how and where to start designing the learning resources. I was impressed by Michael’s soundless and powerful speech. Therefore, I think we need to understand the  audience or the learners that we are targeting. Any design will be based on their needs and aim to help them for a better learning experience and reach the goals.

b. Preference editing tools from Floe will be helpful as well when the designer is trying to come up with a new content of learning.

There are a lot of resources available in the world of open education. Learner will be more likely to reach their learning goals when the resources are personalized. Learning should be the process of learners to dig their potentials and explore more opportunities along the way.

c. The role of Open Education Resources (OER) is an essential concept from any perspective. We have talked about OER earlier in the course. OER gives us a much wider and more convenient access to the knowledge. Whether educators or learners could take advantages of it. We could design “one-size-fit-all” learning content or personalized learning materials by using various Open Education Resources.

• Identify two concepts, issues, or ideas you are having difficulty

understanding.

a. Speaking of the techniques of Floe’s Inclusive Learning Design Handbook. I have been wondering what kind of techniques could educators or designer implement to improve the learning experiences for learners. I understand some techniques were used to enhance the overall users experience and make it more accessible.  However, It did not give us some examples of it that made me a bit confused about this concept.

b. The other concept that I had difficulty to understand is Web Games and Simulations. I personally did not use this kind of approach of learning before and I am also curious how much progress can it make for the purpose of learning. Is interactive game really helpful for learners with a much more stronger visual impression.

• Pose one question in relation to universal design that was not addressed in this module

During the process of universal design. Diversity is always one of the biggest concerns that we had. Every individual has their personal goals for learning, how to accommodate everyone’s needs and make appropriate approaches or methods of learning that can be acceptable for learners. In the module, it did not mention how or what approach that we could use or refer to. What exactly we can do to minimize the impact for a relatively more diverse learning group when we are making the progress on learning design?

Reference

Floe flexible learning for open education. (n.d.). Retrieved March 22, 2020, from https://floeproject.org/

The Most Memorable Online Learning Experience

In this reflection,  we were told to write the most memorable experience of online learning. This immediately  reminds me of another online course that I am taking this term which is called “Interactive Multimedia Learning” ( the official course website was attached). Before I decided to take that course I just barely had any learning experience from the online materials but as we are working approaching to the end of the term, what I learned from these online courses have really opened my eyes.

First of all, the very first challenge that I had in the course was we were asked to make a comics to tell a simple story. However, it was as difficult as rocket sciences to me, because I had absolutely zero experience on making animations and how can I even tell a story with it. When I was worrying about how to make the first step, some Online Educational Resources (OER) saved me. There is a software called ” Comic Life 3“(Official website was attached),  which is a software that can be installed on your PC to assist you for doing some comic works and that absolutely helped me to make the whole thing easier.

Here is a video clip of how to “Comic Life 3” to crate your own comic works:

After I had an OER such as a tutorial video to assist me to do the whole works, I wrote myself a script and I tried to tell the story by using some pictures and texts in the software. Finally, after some hours of drawing, texting and combining the pictures. I had my first comics done. That tells a story about how a college student should make a financial plan in order to save up some money and obtain the goals.

My final comic works has uploaded to the post:

Comics – Yun Chen

I have never learnt anything through this kind of method before and I was also surprised by what I accomplished when I was finishing the final version of the work. This strong feeling has pushed me to have a better understanding of our last week’s reading: “Understanding Technology In Education”. Internet is such a powerful tool that can make greater effect on education as a direct medium. Have a better understanding of the use of media and technology seemed very critical to all of us.

Furthermore, I have mastered the skill of screencasting and other things I did not have the chance to learn in the traditional class. By looking back to the most memorable online learning experience and what I have learned through this course so far, it is more like a phased summary to me. It reminds me how the theories I learned from this course to implement on the other learning obstacles.

References

A.w., Tony, & Bates. (2019, October 10). Chapter 7: Understanding technology in education. Retrieved March 6, 2020, from https://via.hypothes.is/https:/pressbooks.bccampus.ca/teachinginadigitalagev2/part/chapter-8-understanding-technology/

A. Discuss the difference between online educational content and openly licensed educational content.

Open educational resources (OER) is the free learning materials and the other techniques that you can use to teach or access to the knowledge. You might be able to  find more information about open educational resources on OER Africa. Here is also a video clip attached about the introduction of OER:

Educational resources are under the protection of copy law once they were created. Openly licensed educational content means that giving the permissions to the public to use the materials under the law of licenses.  Just for an instance, if a educational company wants to use a textbook for public to use, then the company has to negotiate with the author of the textbook or author’s lawyer. When both party all made an agreement on the use of the book, then this textbook could become an openly licensed educational resources. Online educational content where can be found online, such as streaming videos, software and online tools can assist you to get the access to the knowledge.

B. Find an open educational resources (OER) and present it on your portfolio, either by linking, embedding, or by including a screenshot.

By using the Google advanced search with the most open license allowed , I searched the key word of economics. An article is called “ Boundless Economics” by Lumen appeared in the very first place of the searching results. This site basically explains the fundamental theories of economics in a way that people can easily understand.  Here is also a video of the screencast of the site:

C. Review the OER using the evaluation guide found in the tutorial, provide a brief comment on this process in your post

Reviewing the OER by using the evaluation guide given on the OER Africa. We can conclude that this OER has a relatively high usefulness when we try to access the knowledge of economics. This guide is a very helpful tool for guiding us to evaluate an OER from six perspectives: relevance, acurancy, production quality, accessibility, interactivity and licensing. We can just simply check the boxes under each categories to make an evaluation of the OER, so we will be able to tell the usefulness of the OER. The link of evaluation guide is attached below:

Faculty-Guide-22-Apr-15

D. Discuss how you might use OER in your own life or professional work.

OER is a great tool to access to the knowledge. It gives us the full flexibility in creating a learning environment. OER also can be really useful in our day-to-day life, you can always have the permissions to see and learn the educational resources at any time you want. I will have the access to the open knowledge that I want to learn. It is different from the traditional lecture-based learning, providing us another method to obtain the goals. Overall, OER is a very helpful and practical tool to use in our daily life.

References

OER Africa. (n.d.). Retrieved February 9, 2020, from https://www.oerafrica.org/

Lumen. (n.d.). Boundless Economics. Retrieved February 9, 2020, from https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-economics/chapter/the-study-of-economics/

OER (Open Educational Resources) Introduction. (n.d.). Retrieved February 9, 2020, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFeyCc6we-s