There are three readings this week which I found quite interesting and cognitive.

The muddiest concepts and the idea I disagree with will be in the first article. As Stommel states (2018), “Teaching and learning have always been (and will always be) deeply subjective”. The idea of what he believes was quite vague and he didn’t give any explanation or evidence to support his opinion. From my point of view, teaching can be objective, and learning can be subjective. Because no one owns the information and the information itself is a fact. For instance, in aviation, weightlifting is the opposite of lift and it is not a controversial topic. Subjective learning allows more preference and flexibility, which provides a dynamic way to participate in uncertain patterns and developments in the course. And being subjective means personalize and customize my own way of learning.

Meanwhile, in the second article, the concept I found quite interesting was the strength of integrating face-to-face synchronous communication and text-based online asynchronous communication is powerfully complementary for higher educational purposes (Vaughan, Garrison, and Cleveland-Innes, 2013). And the goal of blending learning is to bring these all together to challenge students academically. In addition, students have time to reflect and respond effectively. I also discover that the concept is somehow related to what we are experiencing right now. Such as two major modes of online courses; synchronous (real-time, everyone together at the same time) and asynchronous (self-paced or flexible activities do not necessarily take place at the same time).

The third article discusses the privacy concerns was really surprised me, the six ethnical concerns such as information privacy; anonymity; surveillance; autonomy; non-discrimination; and ownership of information plays a vital role at the K-12 level (Regan & Jesse, 2019). And I am aware that some social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter are collecting individual’s information for other purposes. From my perspective, it’s also important to secure student data for the safety of the child. When criminals gain access to student data, the students become vulnerable to physical attacks because the criminals know where they live, or financial attacks because criminals may destroy a credit history based on access to social security numbers. As students are spending more time online, both at school and at home, managing cyber safety and student data privacy is becoming a difficult issue for district administrators, parents, students and society. And I hope there is a solution to the challenge of balancing cyber safety and student data privacy.

Reference:

Stommel, J. (2018). An urgency of teachers: The work of critical digital pedagogy. Hybrid Pedagogy.

Vaughan, N. D., Garrison, D. R., & Cleveland-Innes, M. (2013). Teaching in blended learning environments: Creating and sustaining communities of inquiry. AU Press. [Chapter 1]

Regan, P., & Jesse, J. (2019). Ethical challenges of edtech, big data and personalized learning: Twenty-first-century student sorting and tracking. Ethics and Information Technology, 21(3), 167-179. DOI: 10.1007/s10676-018-9492-2