Overall Reflection! (and my first Powtoon!)

We have been asked to create a multimedia self-reflection as part of the course. I have really wanted to create a Powtoon by the end of this course, and so I took the opportunity to do it here. The Powtoon above partly shows a reflection of the course, especially in terms of my personal feelings in relation to the components of the course. As I am not "fluent" in Powtoon at this stage, I wanted to add my thoughts in writing too. The written account will focus more on a) my thoughts around online learning and b) where I go from here.

Online Learning from My Perspective v.2.0

Firstly, I have learnt through this course that an honest learning journal is valuable as I don't have one to access now. Therefore it is difficult to remember exactly what I thought at the beginning, truths and gained perspectives have a way of casting a shadow over the past making you think you have always thought the way you do now. But, I do know that before I started I was sceptical to online education. I believe that it can be sensed in my first forum post. I thought online learning lacked in potential to create critical thinking, and I was overall sceptical to creating engagement online. Partly this had to do with my experience and partly it had to do with my knowledge about the tools and theories available. Whilst I started out sceptical about online learning due to the fact that it is online learning, I have arrived at a point where I don't see the challenges of it as entirely unique. I will explain.

My purpose for being in adult education is social change. More specifically it is to radically contribute to dismantling power structures and creating socially just environments. I was highly inspired by Biesta's (2016) piece on 'Responding to the Disappearance of the Teacher', where he states that education has no value in and of itself, it is our purpose as educators which brings this value to it. Based on this, critical thinking and equality of access are highly relevant issues to me in any learning environment I find myself in. I find it important that online educators use learning pedagogies which contributes to this, for example social or cognitive constructivism or connectivism, rather than behaviourism (Conole, 2008). I am fully aware of that behaviourism can be useful, however in my opinion, only when the students have consented to it. In some online courses, such as MOOCs, behaviourism is relied on in the delivery and I believe this does not encourage critical thinking. A quote comes to mind; "a lecture on a video is still a lecture" (Bates, 2014, p.147). Therefore, Biesta's (2016)point is core; our chosen pedagogy and our purpose needs to be present, online education does not have a value in and of itself. This has been a big learning for me, that online education and learning can be many things and it is possible to shape it. We have to remain observant of this, as bigger institutions will potentially be more interested in behaviourist approaches and hold them up as successful, as they produce a lot of data (Adams, Yin, Vargas Madriz, & Mullen, 2014), a big output for the amount of work done, and claimed successes. So as you can see, my scepticism or worry with critical thinking, comes not so much from online learning, but online learning has become another field where that plays out. These challenges and concerns exist wherever education is in my opinion.

There are naturally specific challenges to be met within online learning, and I can truly see through this course how I have become less scared of them and more curious of how to solve them; what can you do to make someone more comfortable with engaging online? How can you deliver an online lecture and create connection with the learners? What can be set up in order to create critical thinking? How can the person who does not own a laptop be supported?

All in all, I would say that my presentation in Week 4, is still fairly relevant and representative of my thoughts.

Where I go from here

This course has encouraged me to think more about online learning, and how to incorporate these aspects into educational contexts. Even though I don't know if I will go fully into online learning, I believe I will think much more on blended learning and its potential, and I look forward to trying to implement aspects of this.

References:

Adams, C., Yin, Y., Vargas Madriz, L. F., & Mullen, C. S. (2014). A phenomenology of learning large: The tutorial sphere of xMOOC video lectures. Distance Education, 35(2), 202–216. doi:10.1080/01587919.2014.917701

Bates, T. (2014). MOOCs: Getting to know you better. Distance Education, 35(2), 145–148. doi:10.1080/01587919.2014.926803

Biesta, G. J. (2016). Giving teaching back to education: Responding to the disappearance of the teacher. Pedagogía y Saberes, (44), 119-129.

Conole, G. (2008). New schemas for mapping pedagogies and technologies. Ariadne, (56).

#Revisit