Below is a link to Tianqi’s comments. My original post can be found in the social pod discussion thread. The blog was revised in a way that incorporate Tianqi’s comments and the assignment instructions.
Topic 2: History and Context of Distributed and Open Learning
One of the Edtech trends that helped students and teachers to get through the pandemic is certainly E-learning. I think constructivism learning theory fits with this particular Ed-tech trend, which I will explain below.
With the development of MOOCs (eg., various types of educational videos such as Khan Academy, Crash course, and Whiteboard videos on Youtube), students are no longer restricted by time and space, and they have many professionals that could offer them the knowledge and skills they need.
In the past, before the pandemic starts, my knowledge of open education is limited. I rarely go to MOOCs websites, and I use Youtube only for entertainment purposes. As classes moved online, and students were offered more online reading resources than ever before, and it is then I start to notice how useful these resources are. For example, I was reading John Lockes’ “An Essay Concerning Human Understanding” for course requirements, it is very dry and our teacher could not explain such complicated text in an in-depth way in just 3 hours. So instead of keep forcing myself to read texts that were full of jargon and unknown words, I searched Youtube videos that teach about this book. It took me probably 6 or 7 videos to understand Book I, but that is much faster compared to my previous pace.
As for now, after reading the theories of learning and the background of open education, I have a new perspective on open learning. I realize that open education is not only about getting to know a subject that we don’t understand in our traditional classroom but to create new ideas with others. My shifted attitude towards open learning marks my shift from a visitor to a resident of the internet.
E-learning certainly challenges many students, when reading online open educational resources, how we select, what kind of interpretations we make out of reading are sometimes entirely up to us. However, it is also a great opportunity for students, students eventually need these skills in order to do well in the digital age, the world is going to be more and more digital not backward in my perspective (see Robinson’s video for more detail). Constructivism learning theory can help students to do that.
First, constructivism lies in social interaction. According to Weller (2020): “Constructivism emphasizes the experience and role of the individual in developing concepts”; moreover: “Vygotsky (1978) developed this concept further with the idea of social constructivism: the proposition that learning is not an individual exercise but is developed through social interaction and couched in language” （Weller, 2020, Chapter 4). In this sense, if we could expand our social network through technology and talking to various people, isn’t that enhance our learning?
Secondly, constructivism values individualism, because it believes that our interpretation of something is based on our past experience (Bates, 2014). In the videos below, Ken Robinson talked about the importance of divergent thinking, which I think is central to learners nowadays.
Finally, compared to other theories that Bates (2014) discusses, and after reading Tianqi’s perspective on connectivism, I think constructivism learning theory is well developed and fits with the E-learning environment because not only it avoid the “chaoticness” that connectivism theory brings, it also facilitates collaboration while encouraging students to be unique.
References:
Bates, T. (2014). Learning Theories and Online Learning. [Blog post]. Retrieved from
https://www.tonybates.ca/2014/07/29/learning-theories-and-online-learning/
Weller, M. (2020). Chapter 4 – Constructivism. 25 Years of Edtech. AU Press. Retrieved from
https://read.aupress.ca/read/25-years-of-ed-tech/section/0442be0f-0347-40eb-9c19-de80b7e13d47#ch04
