Blended learning becomes more and more popular. My first impression about blended learning was that it was a mix of different teaching and learning activities. Actually, this is not how it is commonly defined. There could be different definitions, but in general it should consist of learning activities on campus and activities in a digital learning environment (online) [1]. As online learning represents the trend of future, blended learning can be considered as a transition solution.

Blended learning relies much on electronic tools. But how to use tools to realize blended learning seems not clear to everyone. Many tools or technologies have been integrated in education, however, it doesn’t mean using such tools is called blended learning. The core issue of blended learning is still the instructional design. By using the technologies, teachers can restructure the lectures in order to increase the involvement and engagement of students [2].

The benefits of blended learning are many and obvious. One of the most important is that it makes the course design more flexible and provides teachers an opportunity to customize the teaching. In my teaching experiences, it is common to see that some students cannot catch up the pace of teaching due to various reasons, and as a result, drop out. Blended learning could be a potential solution. It is possible for us, as teachers, to provide more support through restructuring the activities to the students who have problems. In the meantime, blended learning can also free up some time for students that can be used for other activities, such as problem solving activities and collaborative activities. One of the advantages of online learning is students can take the lessons many times. This can definitely help students who need more time in digesting the knowledge. In addition, blended learning can enhance the interactions between teachers and students, which can meet the demands of students in a better way.

[1] https://intra.kth.se/en/utbildning/e-larande/e-larandemetoder/blended-learning-1.841366

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD8AUfGsCKg&feature=youtu.be

Collaborative learning sounds very attractive and there have been quite many studies about it. It has been considered as a good way to deal with the challenges about how to motivate students and how to keep them active. Usually, it involves groups of students working together to solve a problem, complete a task, or create a product [1]. When collaborative learning is carefully designed, there are many potential benefits for students, such as enhanced Problem-solving Skills, Self-management Skills and Oral Communication Skills, Critical Thinking, and improved Social Interactions and Supports Diversity [2]. And since collaborative learning occurs peer-to-peer, students can feel more comfortable and be more active. When collaborative learning becomes an educational approach, it implies that it is implemented by teachers and could have some specific purpose. For this reason, I call it planned collaborative learning.

Actually, collaborative learning is not a new concept. I guess it should have been existing since the first school appeared. It is very common that students study together in a small group. When someone has problems, he/she can discuss with others and get some help. This should be the initial format of collaborative learning. This can be called voluntary collaborative learning as students study together voluntarily. They form the group by themselves and are quite clear about what they can expect from the others. Such a kind of collaborative learning is very simple and easy to be accepted. However, since it is not structured and supervised, the benefits could also be limited.

Let’s go back to the planned collaborative learning. Even though the benefits are multiple, the performance or the effectiveness of the forced collaborative learning may heavily rely on how the activities are designed and the involvement of students. Such activities need to be facilitated by teachers. Students can easily get lost if there is no proper supervision. However, I think we should not expect too much from the collaborative learning, since students are planned to join, their involvement could be low due to many issues, such as willingness, confidence, trust, confidentiality etc. The situation can be even worse for online collaborative learning, in which students need to face strangers. It is not uncommon to see that some students don’t want to study in a group. If the planned collaborative learning cannot provide what they expect, the outcome will be poor.

To summarize my point, there are different methods of learning with different advantages. For students, in different stages and when studying different subjects, the adopted methods can be different. And a method that is suitable for one person may not be suitable for the other. So the role of teachers should focus more on helping students find the problem in learning and figuring out the solution. For sure, knowing more methods and have critical thinking about different methods are always helpful to find the method.

[1] https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877042811030205

[2] https://www.eztalks.com/online-education/advantages-of-collaborative-learning.html

Going ‘open’ is a clear trend for many things, such as computer programs, tools, publications etc. The concept of open online courses (OOCs) is not very new, which is a result from the development of distance education. For example, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) were first introduced in 2008 [1].

‘Open’ is really an attracting word. But what does it mean? The most developed open-concept is probably the open source software, which can be characterized as cost free, free redistribution and free modification [2]. In general, these features are also true for OOCs. According to Wikipedia, MOOCs usually have open licensing of content, structure and learning goals and promote the reuse and remixing of resources [3]. Going open definitely has many strengths and offers many opportunities even though there simultaneously exist some weaknesses and threats. A SWOT analysis has been done in our learning groups to identify the key issues for each perspective.

Amongst the weaknesses, ‘low revenues’ is listed. Recently, we have been warned about the foreseen economic crisis in the education, due to the dropping-off of applicants for university and the increasing number of dropping out. The situation might be worsened by OOCs. The pressures come both internally and externally. Within the university, we are encouraged to develop online courses, which might be open in the future. However, at the same time, fewer resources will be allocated to each course, which implies that fewer teachers may be needed. Out of the university, the challenge of recruiting students is growing. The development of OOCs provides versatile alternatives. They will change the way of education.   

Even though OOCs are free access for students, developing and running an OCC do have a cost. Actually, after an OCC is developed, more efforts are still needed to keep the course content updated. Therefore, over-pursuing open may not be a sustainable way. In order to reach a win-win solution, innovative business models are needed. It is interesting to see that some are already existing, for example 1) fee-based courses which require students to pay a fee for access to graded assignments, 2) Specializations, a sequence of courses with a capstone project, and 3) Course Certificates (formerly known as Signature Track) [4]. It is clear that because MOOCs are free, revenues mainly come from the services around MOOCs and additional values (e.g. certification). However, these may still be far away from a successful and financially sustainable business model, which can motivate teachers and fund their work. In addition, OOCs remove most of the constraints about participants and can be easily scaled-up, so it will lead to a tougher competition amongst OOCs. For instance, it will be extremely difficult to compete with OOCs provided by the global top universities.

Nevertheless, the rapid growth in the MOOC market leads to the influx of new stakeholders and brings in new services, sponsorships, customers etc. [5]. Therefore, there are more business opportunities, from which new business models can be developed. We, as teachers, are not bystanders, but players. So we need take actions to look for our own opportunities in OOCs.

Reference

[1] Siemens, G. (2013). Massive open online courses: Innovation in education. In McGreal, R., Kinuthia W., & Marshall S. (Eds), Open educational resources: Innovation, research and practice (pp. 5–16). Vancouver: Commonwealth of Learning and Athabasca University.

[2] St. Laurent, Andrew M. (2008). Understanding Open Source and Free Software Licensing. O’Reilly Media. p. 4. ISBN 9780596553951.

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massive_open_online_course#cite_note-3

[4] https://onlinelearninginsights.wordpress.com/tag/mooc-business-model/

[5] https://bizmooc.eu/papers/business-models/

We are already in a transition period about learning and teaching. But the recent tough situation of coronavirus has really speeded it up. Since the beginning of 2020, the development of online courses, distance courses, networked learning etc. is booming on different levels, from the primary school to the university. I am also responsible to develop a new distance course for an Erasmus+ master program, which topic is about bioeconomy and green market. There are some good ideas from experienced colleagues, but some questions are still bothering me. It is same as the traditional classroom teaching that how to motivate students and keep them active is always the key issue. But things are getting more complicated when we don’t meet students physically; and it can be even worse for offline courses. So for different types of courses, how should we design the course and what are the good ways to organize the courses? To find good solutions is the main motivation for me to take this course.

However, it is obvious that there is much more we need to think about. The first topic ‘online participation & digital literacy’ raised one issue about literacies to survive and thrive in the digital age. It points out that both we, as teachers, and students need some specific skills and attitudes before we can make everything working effectively. To be frank, I have never thought about this before, but it is an interesting topic.

David White proposed a simple way using Visitors and Residents to describe the range of ways individuals can engage with the Web [1]. By using this to inspect myself, I would say that I am a visitor in most of time. I mainly look for what I need and communicate with others via emails or communication tools, but seldom leave any footprint. I am not a blogger, and don’t visit social media, like Facebook and Linkedin very often, maybe a couple of times a year. Why is it like that? Actually, I tried blogs long time ago. However, it took much time to make it look nice and attractive. And after you post something, you also need more time to follow it. Due to lack of time or to save some time, I decide to stay away from such things.

Now some questions come up. ‘is this a problem if I don’t use social media?’, ‘what does it matter if I am not a resident?’ It can be too many discussions if we don’t limit the scope. So here I mainly focus on teaching and learning. Indeed, it may make communications easier when people do things in similar ways or get used to similar things. Adopting a way in which students feel more comfortable can definitely make them more active. That is also the reason for the evolution of e-learning platforms, such as Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle etc, which are integrating more and more functions similar to social medias. So maybe I have missed something, haven’t I?   

Internet is changing the way people obtain knowledge or information. In David’s presentation during the seminar, there was a slide showing “Now that knowledge and networks are abundant, not scarce, the emphasis should be on connections” and “we (teachers) are the arbiter of connections”. I appreciate this very much. Students can easily find many sources and taking lectures in classrooms will not be the only way to learn, especially with the development of online courses and the availability of recorded lectures. So the role of teachers need to change. Helping students with their problems might be more important for me. Nevertheless, information in internet becomes more diverse. When conflicts appear, it will confuse students. Then who should they trust? In addition, helping students filer information will be another important task for teachers in the open network.

David White added another dimension personal-institutional onto visitor-residents. In David’s system, the quarter of resident-institutional is becoming an important source of information. For us, as teachers, we should be able to stay in that quarter in order to help students better. Again, as we are in a transition period, there are still many uncertainties and many things to be figured out. ONL201 opens a new door to me and starting thinking will be one of my achievements from this course.

Reference:

[1] http://daveowhite.com/vandr/

This is a test

这是一篇示例文章，最初作为 Blogging University 的组成部分发布。报名参加我们十个项目中的其中一个，立即开始撰写您的博客。

您今天要发布一篇文章。不必担心您的博客的外观。如果您还没有给博客命名或是感到不知所措，也不必担心。只需点击“新文章”按钮，告诉我们您来此处的原因。

为什么要这样做？

• 因为它能为新读者提供背景信息。让他们了解您是做什么的，他们为什么应该阅读您的博客。
• 因为这将帮助您专注于自己对博客的想法，以及您想用博客来做什么。

文章可短可长，可以是对您的生活的个性化介绍或是博客宗旨说明，也可以是对未来的宣言或是对希望发布的内容类型的简要概述。

为了帮助您开始撰写，不妨思考以下几个问题：

• 您为什么要公开写博客，而不是写个人日记？
• 您认为您会写些什么话题？
• 您想通过博客和谁联系？
• 如果您的博客成功写到明年，您想要达到什么目标？

您并非一定要受此限制，博客的一个奇妙之处在于，随着我们学习、成长和与他人互动，它们是会不断演变的，不过如果知道从何处入手以及为何开始，这将会颇有益处，并且明确您的目标可能会激发您写其他一些文章的灵感。

不知道如何开始？只需写下您脑海中闪现的第一件事即可。Anne Lamott 是一位作家，大家都喜欢她写的书。她指出，你要允许自己写出“蹩脚的初稿”。Anne 提出了一个很好的观点，先开始写，之后再去考虑如何编辑。

在您准备发布时，给您的文章贴上三到五个标签来描述您博客的关注点 – 写作、摄影、小说、育儿、美食、汽车、电影、体育等。这些标签将帮助关注您话题的人在阅读器中找到您。确保添加“zerotohero”标签，这样其他新博主也可以找到您。