I did not know much about this topic before doing the readings this week. However I felt that the readings were clear and I was able to follow along easily. In the Roberts et. al. reading about Open Educational Practices (OEP) and blended learning, I recognized some of the philosophers of education that were mentioned such as Lev Vygotsky, Paulo Freire and John Dewey who I have learned about in previous courses. This allowed me to understand and draw my own connections to previous readings and courses.

While reading Bates’ blog I was intrigued by his explanation of connectivism. I had already learned about behaviourism and constructivism but connectivism is a new theoretical approach for me. He mentions that this theory of teaching is controversial so I am very interested in doing more research to hear both sides of those who support it and those who do not. From what I learned I think this approach to teaching is similar to how inquiry was presented to us in our courses in second year of the Elementary Education program.

While reading I thought about why it is important to learn about the history of distributed and open learning. I would say it is the same reason we learn about any type of history. It is valuable to understand the context and how we got to where we are today. It is also important to learn from our mistakes that have been made in the past and to avoid repeating them when possible. When creating new ways to educate audiences it can be beneficial to go back to the roots of education and expand from there, rather than adapting from where we currently are. The roots of education are similar to a base of how we got to where we are today.

I hope to learn more about how edtech was previously taught since I believe I am in a newer advanced era of edtech. I believe this would give me ideas of what to try as an educator that has worked in the past and some things I can learn to avoid. Advancements in technology move so quickly in our era that I would rather not treat my students like guinea pigs. I would prefer to use sources that have been proven over time to be beneficial and enhance learning and that I have been taught how to use safely and while keeping privacy in mind as well.

Sources:

Bates, T.(2014). Learning Theories and Online Learning. [Blog post]. Retrieved fromhttps://www.tonybates.ca/2014/07/29/learning-theories -and-online-learning/​. 

Roberts, V. , Blomgren, C. Ishmael, K. & Graham, L. (2018) Open Educational Practices in K-12 Online and Blended Learning Environments. In R. Ferdig & K. Kennedy (Eds.), Handbook of research on K-12 online and blended learning (pp. 527–544). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University ETC Press.