Author: yoyozhuang

Open education resources
Nowadays, educational materials are extensively available on multiple platforms. Unlike the situation before, people could find the learning resources they need from so many different channels. On the one hand, there are much more educational materials open to the public, which is definitely a helpful thing for people who wants to acquire additional knowledge. On the other hand, without a clear direction from a course or subject instructor, people might get confused so that they would be able to maximize their study outcome. The problem comes from the abuse of open learning materials which are not playing the same role as the traditional teaching method. There has been a constant discussion on how could we improve the efficiency of open educational materials as an educator. However, the problem is getting worse since there are so many diversified open education resource, the educators could not instruct dated learning channels and materials as they do in classrooms. In this article, I will explain the reasons of the current situation and discuss the possible solutions to improve the efficiency of open educational materials.

The definition of open education resource is publicly accessible materials and resources for any user to use, re-mix, improve and redistribute under some licenses (Bell, 2017). The media spreading these material are largely depending on the development of modern technology. For instance, the internet is the most important channel that is sharing learning materials and resources with people who doesn’t enrol a relevant course. The diversified learning context is appearing on the internet in different forms including e-books, audios and videos. This provides simple access to all sorts of resources that people require without going to school and asking for help from an instructor. However, the convenience might not be the only thing brought by the internet. Sometime it could be hard to achieve similar study outcomes comparing to traditional on-campus classes. There are three possible reasons. First of all, it is difficult for students to utilize the right and suitable materials without teachers’ direction. Secondly, students do not always comprehensively understand open education resources. Finally, student would not always turn their new learning into practical knowledge. Even with the easy access to all sorts of knowledge, students are not getting a decent learning outcome comparing to studying on campus with a clear direction from an experienced instructor.

Even students are struggling with getting a same studying outcome as they do on campus, open education resources have been helping people to acquire necessary knowledge without going to school. Online libraries allow people to search textbooks and scholars that are academic and reliable. By reading these materials, they are going to understand the theory and scenario by using their learning ability. In addition, there are tools and communities available for students to think, research and discuss relevant open topics. Social media and context sharing platforms are common tools for learners to ensure that their new learning is practical. But open education resources could not always ensure a satisfied study outcome as it was discussed in the previous paragraph. What people is trying to do to compensate the lost is that they are seeking for advices and directions from those who have learning or teaching experience. This act seems like an alternative for asking a teacher, and it becomes an indispensable step when students are using online open education resources. But is it enough to guarantee a similar result? I believe that there are side benefits brought by in-class courses including the time saving on looking for the right materials, the accurate and timely answers from authoritative institutions as well as the additional knowledge that makes all information practical and usable.

In summary, there are pros and cons of using open education resource. As mentioned above, using open materials brings more education opportunities for those who are not able to take the course on campus, because these materials are easy to access, relatively cheaper and flexible. Nonetheless, people might not always get a same learning outcome as they do on campus. Without a clear direction from licensed instructor, it could be difficult to find the suitable materials and comprehensively understand them. Moreover, the lack of examples and case studies is an obstacle when students want to transit the knowledge from theoretical to practical. Without explanations from an educator, students could get confused and bored by reading e-textbooks. It seems like using open education resource could be a controversial learning method. But in virtue of the benefits brought by technology development, we are more likely to solve the disability in the current situation. First and foremost, there are more and more colleges and universities are providing distance learning course open to the public online, with a clear instruction on what should be read and where to find them. Without an expansive tuition fee or time/space limitation, students are able to utilize the open education resources available online in a more efficient way. Secondly, there are so many online academic communities for people to skim and look for the suitable materials form them to learn. Moreover, after reading through the available context, there are social media available for students to discuss in an interest group. By raising questions and discussing the topics in the group, they could understand the knowledge from different angles and views, and share experiences with people from all over the world. In addition, on these social media, enormous original contexts and KOLs are giving people a chance to aggregate different voices. Modern technology such as advanced search engines make the dream of time saving comes true. Even with a short period of time, people are able to access and learn additional knowledge just like they would on campus.

Bibliography:
Bell, Steven. “Research Guides: Discovering Open Educational Resources (OER): Home”. guides.temple.edu. Retrieved 2017-12-05.

The increase in the price of textbooks is not simply due to inflation, there are many more other reasons such as the bundle of online materials. Is it acceptable? Or is it inevitable? In this article, I’ll explain why students and teachers have to endure the high price, and what we could do to overcome the inefficiency and to fulfill the course requirement.

Inflation is not the only reason for the increase in the price of textbooks. The increase is much higher than inflation, because students are buying different products. Nowadays, buying a textbook means buying a book, access to online materials as well as a formula table. Students are definitely getting more, even something they don’t need. However, in some units of study, the textbook is a must so that they are forced to spend the money without a decision-making process, which allows presses to bundle unnecessary learning materials in order to set a higher price. Moreover, authors have become increasingly treasure their own intellectual property such as copyright. Presses are paying more to authors and context (sources). As a result, books containing more intellectual properties would be charging more than those aren’t.

Nonetheless, students shouldn’t be paying for this reasonable increase in price, because it is not inevitable or efficient for their study. There are several things to do to reduce the influence of high price. First of all, teachers could be more prudent when selecting textbooks. If the textbook is only used for additional reading, it would be efficient for students to buy second-hand or digital copies to skim. Secondly, students should be able to use modern learning tools including social media, digital books, and study communities to counteract the cost of textbooks. These new sources would compress the profit space of traditional presses. I think it is a process of education that allows all parties in this economic behavior to find an equilibrium point, which makes them better off. In addition, sharing economy is also a good spark to inspire students to be beneficial from group study by sharing expensive textbooks and its accessorial digital materials and tables.

In summary, I think the increasing attention to intellectual property and accessorial materials (both digital and non-digital) are main factors that cause the price to rise. But accompany by using modern learning materials and channels, students are less likely to be influenced by the unaffordable price setting of textbooks.

Social media is not only a platform to entertain, but also a useful tool that student could learn from the community on it. It has become an indispensable channel where I acquire additional knowledge and share with others in the same study group or who have a common interest. Google Doc and YouTube are two examples of community where I get encouraged and supported to achieve better study outcomes.

Google Doc is an extremely useful learning tool that supports students to build a community where they could share ideas and edit files even when they were separated by space and time. It is an online platform that students could upload their files such as Word, Excel and PowerPoint Presentation, and edit a file by different group members at the same time. If there are only two students sharing and collaborating a Word file, email would be enough to achieve. However, I found this difficult to gather file and ideas from more than two people. It usually ends up with a work full of mess and misunderstandings. On Google Doc, students are able to see where and when the file was edited by whom. The consecutiveness and logic brought by google doc are critical to give students a sense of encouragement and support when they work in a group.

YouTube is another handy tool/platform that I like to utilize when I want to learn additional knowledge. There are enormous KOLs who are actively sharing academic knowledge and building their own community to spread open topics to discuss with people who have a common interest. I am interested in geography and engineering studies so that I found a few KOLs to follow and subscribe, including Geography Now! and Engineering Explained channel. Geography Now! is a series of short video introducing countries and regions around the world. By watching this channel, I have learned a lot about different cultures and history that develop my interest in exploring corners and natural phenomena. In addition, I am keen to share my thoughts, ideas, and experiences in their comment area and community, and discuss and exchange with others. The interaction encourages us to acquire additional knowledge in a more interesting way rather than reading the textbook. I have been using YouTube to learn for a couple of years and I’m still into it.

In summary, I believe that online tools are helpful to build study communities that encourage and support students to acquire knowledge in a more efficient way. Google Doc and YouTube are good examples that showcase how modern platforms enable a group of people to be beneficial from social media when they are learning something. Google Doc allows me to share my work in my study group without the limit of time and space; YouTube provides users a place where they could learn and share in the communities. Social media is playing an important role in today’s learning methods.

Mobile applications have become an integral part of our daily life. The homepage of many people’s browsers, including mine, is Google. In addition to being the biggest search engine, our daily life is inevitably using applications from Google such as Google Maps, Google Translate, YouTube, etc. By reading the topic of post 2 and the reading material, I’m wondering how much information Google has gained from me.

I found the website https://takeout.google.com and https://adssettings.google.com/authenticated. On the adssetting website, I got a profile of myself about age, gender, hobby, even the content I browsed. What is even more shocking to me is that, in the downloaded personal data from takeout website, I saw all my browsing history on YouTube, including browsing history and search history; also, I saw all the places I have been on Google Maps. Modern technology applications have indeed brought great convenience to my daily life, but it is scary to find that so many private data are recorded. After browsing some news, I found that Google’s privacy policy has been criticized more than once. Google claims that “combine the information you submit under your account with information from other Google services or third parties in order to provide you with a better experience and to improve the quality of our services.” As an ordinary user, I have no idea where they will use my data. All I could do is trying to use private mode on the browser and turn off the location data.

When we talk about common websites, LinkedIn is also inevitable for most people. LinkedIn is a leading workplace social networking platform that people could connect with other people with their workplace identities. It serves over 600 million workforces from more than 200 countries. On the platform, a user is able to demonstrate his or her employment information including name, gender, industries, employers, experiences, educational background as well as contact details. To develop workplace social relationship, people are keen to showcase their veritable private information which is usually utilized for commercial purposes by LinkedIn. People like headhunters or sales see LinkedIn as a reliable channel that provides real leads. However, it also becomes a channel of trading privacy. By finding out or searching for your employer, you might easily get involved in commercial espionage activities such as a leak or inside-trade. Moreover, connecting with your peers or colleagues is not necessarily to be a helpful thing, you are more likely to unconsciously expose some sensitive information to people you don’t know.

Living in the era of big data, privacy protection has become a hot topic in our life. The technological development and the results of data analysis have indeed brought a lot of convenience to our life, we cannot ignore the threat it poses as well.

Google privacy policy is subject of backlash

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/google-privacy-policy-is-subject-of-backlash/2012/01/25/gIQAzwZCRQ_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.483682729cb8

Google’s no-opt-out privacy changes and the end of the anonymous Internet

Contribute a better translation

https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/compost/post/googles-no-opt-out-privacy-changes-and-the-end-of-the-anonymous-internet/2012/01/25/gIQAtZuUQQ_blog.html?utm_term=.2d1d08aedb14&noredirect=on

Google Privacy & Terms

https://policies.google.com/privacy?hl=en&gl=ca

With the development of technology, more learning tools appear in our student life, make our study more convenient. Other than tools like Moodle, Blogger, etc. mentioned in Claire Major’s chapter, I’m here to introduce two online tools that accompanied my student life: Coursespaces and Turnitin.

Coursespaces is a UVic’s learning management system (LMS) to assist regular face-to-face courses and deliver online courses. As a UVic student, I’ve been using this platform since the first class in college until now. It’s easy and useful.

Personal Coursespaces main page demonstrates different courses student registered in the current term, by clicking into the individual course page, students could get course materials such as syllabus and handouts from it like all learning management system. Also, there’s a calendar block on the right of the page, mentions upcoming events. We could take online quizzes and submit assignment easily on Coursespaces by using the quiz function, post questions or discussions through the forum function. Moreover, there’s a search engine on the page to search for everything on the page.   The only inconvenience of Coursespaces is that all functions are asynchronous, unable to implement real-time conversation. However, as this system is serving the university, students could go to the instructor’s office hour or send emails to complete synchronous conversation.

The other tool that I want to introduce is Turnitin. Turnitin is an online plagiarism detection platform that can collect papers, assignments as well as other forms of homework online, and evaluate the ratio of plagiarism and identify the unoriginal part of the article. Turnitin has served more than 30 million students in over 15000 academic and none-academic institutions since 1997. It allows students to submit their assignments online instead of hand them in physically. This supports the flexibility and efficiency of distance learning. For instance, students could submit homework pretty much anytime, anywhere. Since I am a traveler who would not be Victoria all the time, I am able to submit my homework and check plagiarism remotely, which supports my plan of traveling around the world before getting into the workplace. Moreover, Turnitin provides a marking function that enables students to view their marks and feedback online. I would suggest Turnitin integrate the functions of Grammarly that correct spelling and wording mistakes before submitting.

These two tools provide more flexibility and possibilities for both face-to-face and distance learning. I believe that with the development of technology, more tools will be applied to the field of study.