There are two articles this week which areĀ Openness and EducationĀ andĀ Teaching Online. The first web article mainly talked about E-learning and online education. And the second article was talking about online teachings, such as college and university teaching, distance learning, and technology in higher education.Ā 

After reading the articleĀ Openness and EducationĀ andĀ Teaching Online, I have noticed that E-learning and online education are rising over the period, just like what Jordan and Weller (2017) mentioned that online learning is technology-enhanced learning. What I reckon the authors got wrong is that there are some challenges of online learning for students who didnā€™t have good study habits. Many students believe that online learning might decrease the quality of instruction, especially for an intensive course. Students might feel so overwhelmed that they couldnā€™t understand what the instructor was talking about, and couldnā€™t fully pay attention to the class. And due to the different cultural backgrounds, students might need to get up at 3 AM to attend an online class.Ā 

The second articleĀ Teaching OnlineĀ is highly noticeable in teaching online as instructional change. When teaching online, technology as a context for instruction, it functions as the place where teaching and learning happen. Cyberspace is where instructors and students interact, exchange information, ideas of the course. Technology not only illuminates instruction but also gives it a place, and in so doing becomes part of the instructional experience itself (Major, 2015). I also noticed that technology can replace interactions between humans with a human-like interface. For instance, a student receives an immediate response or grade after an exam, the technology serves as a humanlike interface distributing a grade.Ā 

After reading the two articles, I have realized that some concepts are somehow related to EDCI339. For example, E-learning, students participate in an online learning environment, and communicate with classmates, sharing ideas, asking questions virtually. And we use an online blog, learning pod to participate effectively in this course.


Reference:

Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017) Openness and Education: A beginnersā€™ guide. Global OER Graduate Network.

Claire Howell Major. (2015). Teaching Online ā€“ A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 88-105)