Before this week, I did not know what Open Pedagogy was. After reading the first reading, I have and better understanding what it is. In many of my class, research paper topics were optional. This could lead to many different ideas and thoughts. I was able to research the topic and find outside sources to support my argument. This is an example of Open Pedagogy. In other words, Open Pedagogy is when students engage in open education. This is to allow for students to be the center of their own learning and “democratizing vision for the educational process” (Mays, 2017, p. 10). Students may be more engaged with their learning when they are given more freedom in topics. This is why open learning is beneficial to distributed learning. Students can use outside sources to find a topic and further educate themselves on it. If there was not open learning sources, the sources would be limited.
Moreover, I was surprised to read about the privacy concern from Gilliard & Culik (2016). The alarming of the “inappropriate” material (Gillard & Culik, 2019), shows that teachers and professors are watching what students are doing on the computer. There is no privacy for the students research what they would like without the teacher knowing. This reminds me of Brightspace. Professors can see how many times a student has logged on, how much they have read, replied, and started discussions. This learning management system, does have privacy concerns. In addition, the system features benefits the professor to easily keep track of the students in the class. It shows who is active and who is not without reading through the students work. This makes me wonder if I have privacy when connect to school WI-FI. People should be able to research what they would like without getting alarmed or having others see what one is doing.
References
Gilliard, C., & Culik, H. (2016, May 24). Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. Common Sense Education.
Mays, E. (Ed.). (2017). A guide to making open textbooks with students. Rebus Community.
Hi Rianne,
Thank you for re-explaining what open pedagogy is with examples. I think I finally have grasped the idea of what it is. It is learner-driven which I think is so important for students to really understand what they are learning, It also gives students freedom of choice. I wonder if all learning in higher education was learner-driven if more people would want to go to post-secondary school?
I never really thought about the fact that our school could have access to our data if we are on school WIFI. I think of first-year where I lived on campus and I was on the school WIFI the entire time if there were things I wasn’t able to google but just did not know or if they had my data somehow. Everyone should be aware of this possibility.
Hi Rianne,
Great post, thank you for sharing your thoughts and feelings.
In my experiences I have enjoyed when I was given the freedom to explore topics of my choice for school. When I was first introduced to this idea, I thought it lacked structure and clarity, but that is kind of the point. It is there to allow us to explore and learn about content we are interested in. This is definitely a strategy I would use in the future when teaching older grades!
I know we talked about this in our group chat, but it was so interesting to see Brightspace from Ryan’s point of view. If this tool is used properly it can be very beneficial for the student and the teacher. It allows for the teacher to check up on their students and make sure they aren’t falling behind, but it also can be used in a negative way and maybe teachers will assume a student is “slacking off”, but in reality they could be having issues with their computer.
Thanks again,
Kayla
Rianne,
Your privacy concerns reminded me of something that happened during this past school year. One of my profs told our class about how teachers are able to see just how much students are engaging with the content on Brightspace, from what they have opened to how long they opened it for and the whole class had no clue. It was odd to find that out, and felt a bit intrusive. On one hand, it’s great for profs to see where their students are at and how much they are engaging with the content but on the other hand I don’t see why it’s super necessary as we are accountable adults in charge of our own education. I don’t recall agreeing to any terms/conditions where data about me like this can be accessed, but I am wondering if somewhere along the line I did.
Thanks for your post,
Kiana
Hi Rianne!
Thanks for your thoughts this week. I also hadn’t really heard of Open Pedagogy before this class either, aside from OER’s. It was really interesting to read about the shift that is beginning to happen. With how teachers are adapting more of these views and striving for a more open educational future. I am definitely on board with it, and I hope to see some bigger shifts in our future.
I also had some of the same thoughts as you about privacy. It’s alarming when we uncover just how much information and data gets collected on every platform we use. I mentioned this in our Mattermost chat, but I think that learning how much the prof’s can see us doing on Brightspace was definitely scary, but then I thought about it some more and I realize that it is for educational purposes. This was really eye opening for me though, to think about all the other non-educational platforms, like our Instagrams or TikToks that collect the same amount of data – Crazy!
Thanks Rianne, good work! 🙂