submit a forum post with ideas on how these technologies can be used for educational purposes.
Flickr: As a former Photography student myself, I see educational value in using a photo sharing platform, such as Flickr, to help students,and emerging artists, with organization and publication of their work. This platform provides a space for students to showcase a digital portfolio of their work, which opens opportunities for fine arts courses to move to a blended learning environment to help improve accessibility for more students who might not have the available time for traditional face-to-face learning. In my current job, I work in Environmental Science, where our students are classifying and identifying different species of plants and animals in their classes. Flickr could be incorporated into an online discussion forum where photos and identifications of their research could be shared with all students in the class. It could also be used as a method of collaboration and group projects, where research could be collectively shared between students on a specific topic of interest, in a similar format as Pinterest.
Canva: This platform is a creative tool to encourage design thinking, which is especially important for visual learners. This tool encourages problem solving and collaboration. Teachers can use this platform to design their own lesson plans, lecture slides, collaborate with other teachers, or find inspiration from other educators. Students can utilize this platform for a number of beneficial methods as well. Canva helps students create learning portfolios, which helps them become more aware of their own learning process, and build design skills. This platform is also interactive and collaborative for group projects, where students can interact with each other, and provide feedback and idea sharing within a group, which is an essential component of the learning process.
YouTube: This social media and educational video sharing platform is one of the most popular sites on the internet today. YouTube contains educational, political, entertainment, how-to, tutorial, and many other types of videos, which has information for all types of learners. Videos are an essential component to multimedia learning, in order to build visual representations for new ideas and concepts. This technology helps address accessibility issues for disabled students, or those with temporal constraints, where learners can access content on any device and at any time of day or night. Some schools create YouTube channels which ensure the content is relevant to the curriculum, and also keeps students engaged with the events happening on campus. This method of content dissemination ensures that proper videos reach the target student population.
Apple iTunes: iTunesU is a dedicated free section of Apple based m-learning tools that provide K-gray educational content for both students and educators. This platform allows teachers to build lessons, grade assignments, host class discussions, or provide one on one questions and feedback. Audio and Video files are available from universities, museums, and public media, as a valuable learning resource, free of charge.
What are the benefits, risks, and potentials of seamless learning, which may include online, hybrid, flipped, MOOCs, game-based, virtual-reality, augmented-reality, or mixed-reality-based learning?
The articles provided for this week’s discussion forum incited many valuable perspectives on the topic of online technologies used in education. One of my biggest takeaways from the reading was the complexity of the learning process, and that it’s not a “one size fits all” scenario. There are many formats of learning that are designed to fit specific learning styles for each unique learner. Seamless learning occurs when collective and self-directed efforts, over a period of time and various learning environments, produce continuous learning in and out of the formal classroom. In addition to learning styles, such as visual, auditory, kinesthetic, or reading, there are also psychological preferences of introverted and extroverted attitudes about learning. The role of technology in online learning, is to provide a space where learning can occur for any student. Studies have shown a wide range of responses in students perceptions of online learning environments and it appears that the psychological attitude is a large contributor towards a students experience. While some students appreciate online discussions where they can think through and thoughtfully curate their responses, some students need to receive visual cues and body language in order to feel engaged in dialog. These technologies help bridge that gap in online learning, by providing the proper blend of engagement, collaboration, simulation, and stimulation to learning environments. The benefits to this technology includes accessibility on a global scale. Virtual reality has the ability to overcome cost and distance barriers and provide a learning environment that can mimic time travel, in order to learn about ancient history, while building empathy and experience through the simulation of being in a virtual space. Although this technology is still evolving, high immersion experiences such as this can result in the risk of simulation sickness. At the other end of this spectrum is the introverted thinker, who prefers multiple perspectives and the opportunity to clarify thoughts. This learner could excel in a MOOC course, where engagement between numerous students was encouraged, and there were many opportunities for expanding ideas.
Lin, L., Cranton, P., & Bridglall, B. (2005). Psychological type and asynchronous written dialogue in adult learning. Teachers College Record, 107(8), 1788-1813. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9620.2005.00542.x
Lin, L., & Cranton, P. (2015). Informal and self-directed learning in the age of massive open online courses (MOOCs). In Measuring and Analyzing Informal Learning in the Digital Age (pp. 91-104). IGI Global.
My Journey Through Instructional Design 