This blog is a reflection and summary of my experiences participating in the topic 3 group assignment. I have used the prompt questions to help me reflect, you are more than welcome to comment and continue this discussion.
When considering the Topic 3 activities, which activities helped you understand online and open learning the most? Why?
One activity that I did not particularly like was the Twitter chat as it was happening, but after having a discussion with the rest of the group, we realized that it was unexpectedly useful and a fantastic social tool to use in education. I realized how well it works in the aspect of connectivism, due to the constant networking and organizing structure of hashtags/topics. I still personally do not like Twitter, but it is definitely underrated when it comes to using it as an educational tool. I also really enjoyed the OER’s. I love how easy and straightforward they were when looking through them. The two Indigenous ones that are linked in the traditional knowledge link, really do offer an opportunity to give Indigenous communities voices globally. I love seeing how anyone can access that information, and cover one of our main themes, I do hope everyone is being honest about citing from them. It is crucial to Indigenous communities that someone cites and gives proper credit, it does harm and affect these communities and over time, this devalues the knowledge that is and should still be owned by the communities. The OERcommons.org OER really opened up my eyes to understanding open online learning. The site made me feel super welcome and quite honestly, it felt like if you were to take every aspect of school and turn it into a website that’s free and open. Although geared towards more of the American education system rather than globally, I think the social hubs and open sources make it very easy to use. I think these sites need more credit because it really does rely on community, connecting, and sharing all perspectives and knowledge.
Describe your group work experience.
I enjoyed working with my group, we had some really great conversations both related and unrelated to the project. We did have a lot of confusion about the project in general but we did eventually figure it out and started rolling. It was really cool to see all of us working and practically living with each other for a week straight through discord. Trevar and I were chatting and I had brought up the fact that this project had made us virtual roommates because we would all check up on each other, make sure everything is okay and on time, food/dinner breaks, and a late-night or two of collaborative work.
Which course readings or reading from outside the course, connect to the individual and group Topic 3 Activities? How do they connect?
I really liked the V&R Mapping reading/videos. I thought that the overall reading was fun and interesting. I typically am very bored with maps/charts, but this one I had to really use my critical thinking skills in how I actually use media. What do I use them for? How often? What app or site is more important to me? Etc. I never really thought about my media usage and this reading/activity made me more aware of what I use and why I use them in that way. I think it is a great way to understand why or how we use media, educational or not, by physically mapping out our usage.
Another source that I think really helped with our project was Chapter 17, “connectivism” in the Weller Article. A lot of the activities use this learning theory and we all realized that connectivism is a vital role in open educational communities. Twitter is one tool that is based on all-around connectivity,
“connectivism is ‘the integration of principles explored by chaos, network, and complexity and self-organization theories'” (Weller. 2020. para. 2). As the group talked, via discord, I noted that Twitter is a chaotic educational tool in regards to no proper structure and mediation by a single educator like in a class, it merely is a community of learners/educators that share their thoughts, respond and connect with each other freely about any topic. Much like Live theatre scenes, you will see a bunch of people walking through what looks like chaos to you but is actually choreographed chaos. Controlled chaos still has structure and function, but in our case with Twitter, it is not guided or choreographed by a director or a single main Facilitator.
References:
Weller, M. (2020). “Connectivism”. 25 Years of EdTech. Ch. 17. AU Press. Retrieved from: https://read.aupress.ca/read/25-years-of-ed-tech/section/198057f5-1a3e-4436-a4b8-c6e1a3e0bd69
Group Assignment Summary: