ETEC523 has adopted a deliberately broad scope to the topic of Mobile and Open Learning and an experimental approach to its delivery. Was it a valuable experience? Was there a useful balance of mobile, social, open and flexible learning concepts? Do professional networks and collective curation provide an appropriate context for learning? Your thoughts on what works, what doesn’t and how it could be improved are all welcome.
Please provide your concerted thoughts, and take the time to peruse those provided by your peers, and to recommend those you find particularly important.
INSTRUCTIONS:
- Read through a set of the existing responses below. Use the Thumbs Up tool to recommend any within your set that you believe are exceptionally valuable, or that you strongly agree with. Use the Thumbs Down tool only if, in your opinion, the response does not add value to the discussion.
- If you have something new and valuable to add, use the Comment (“Leave a Reply”) field at the bottom of this post to contribute your original thoughts, or click on Reply to any existing Comment to contribute to that thread.
This is one of the best MET courses I have ever taken, and I am close to the end of my studies. I don’t think any other course will push ETEC 540 and ETEC 523 from their respective first and second-best places in my personal ranking.
What makes ETEC 523 so special? My answer is its broad focus, experiential nature, and individual approach. I have come from European higher education, have the highest academic degrees, and am interested in a lot of things that Canadian university education can suggest. The amount and value of the information the ETEC 523 WordPress site provides are just to my liking. I have read as much as possible here, and I am planning to continue doing it after the course is over, and till they block me.
I haven’t understood the system of ETEC 523 assessments yet, but we will go there too.
Currently, as an author of several university courses myself, this is what I would recommend doing to make the course even better. From my point of view, most ETEC 523 experiential learning is happening during Weeks 5-12 when one fascinating group artifact follows another. However, the end of this intensive knowledge streak feels somewhat weak – all of a sudden, students have to switch to A3 and forget about those fantastic small group projects altogether.
I would advise having a medium/bridge week between the last group project and A3 (probably, to have seven weeks of Mobile Feast instead of eight, with one or two groups of three participants?) for ETEC 523 students to be able to reflect on what they have created in pairs, and what they have learned from their peers. Ranking of Mobile Feast projects would be nice, and students can be asked for arguments – why they consider those projects best.
For example, for me, A2 Project 1 “Mobile Collaboration” of Week 5 (Vithu and Robyn) was very inspiring and eye-opening, and I immediately created my A1 based on it. The thoughtful Week 7 A2 Project about AI got me acquainted with ChatGPT for which I will be forever grateful to Meagan and Ritu. Finally, Catriona and Vicki explained to me in detail what a teacher and a designer have in common in a beautiful A2 “Experience Design” Project of Week 10 that will be beneficial for any teacher transitioning to technology.
I am sure that educators among us will agree that it is very effective to reflect on the recently acquired knowledge, especially if this scholarship is massive. At the very least, it helps memorize new things better. So, my recommendation is to shift students’ attention from A3 to A2 a bit, to strengthen the middle part of the course instead of the very end of it. Teachers know well that students have less energy at the end of the semester, so I expect ETEC 523 learners to be grateful to work with what they have already done /understood /enjoyed instead of quickly processing something completely new.
Please don’t get me wrong here because the idea of predicting the future in A3 is excellent, and some of this semester’s A3s are the real gems. However, it takes only a week to discuss A3, and this week is the final one. That is why I would really prefer to center more on the well-done Mobile Feast instead of predictions. So, my suggestion is of organizational, pragmatic, humanitarian, and compassionate nature – to analyze Mobile Feast (A2s) more and to have fewer tasks for Mobile Forum (A3s), i.e. to make the end of the course more pleasant for everyone.
Other than that, ETEC 523 is brilliant, and I truly appreciate its unique form and its liberating, unpredictable, and constantly evolving content that has mobile education, mobile culture, and mobile technology as its solid foundation. I consider myself lucky to have become a participant in this process of concentrated knowledge exchange. ETEC 523 deserves to be a part of a Doctoral school curriculum too.
I have no doubt that our wonderful professor is greatly enjoying this course semester after semester as well, and I wish him all the best in his work. I thank David and my talented peers for creating and enjoying this educational masterpiece together.
Reading over some of these comments, I would tend to agree that I am super happy I am taking this course near the end of my time in the MET program. Although a very interesting course, if I had taken 523 during my first semester, I think I would have felt a bit overwhelmed. A course in mobile technologies is so relevant in our world today, especially after experiencing a mass redirection of how we taught when the pandemic occurred. The Moveable Feast and the Mobile Forum were so interesting and informative. It was fun to think about how mobile education could evolve in the future.
ETEC 523 is an experience course at heart. The format here was an excellent learning experience in a simulated open medium of education and I appreciated that; in McLuhan’s terms “The medium is the message” and in this case that message of “how do you experience open learning?” made for an effective course. The assignments were all effective learning experiences in this realm. One major disappointment for me in this class is the speed at which it operates as a professional network. The WordPress backbone is partly to blame for this, but in modern social networks I’ve become accustomed to having instant notifications when a post is commented on which this course couldn’t do. I’m not looking for the endorphin-kick of mobile phone addiction here, but I did miss that ability to respond quickly to post and to create a text-based back-and-forth that I get, and love, from platforms like Twitter. This course had those back and forths, but they were carried out over weeks and lacked the sort of conversational nature I appreciate from my other professional learning networks. Last, I want to expand on some below comments that say that 523 is not a great early MET course. This is my second MET course after ETEC 500 and I had a blast. Was it overwhelming at first? Yes. But I never thought “I don’t have the ability to engage with this” because there were so many ways to make this course your own.
I would be interested to see the course take more of a direction into creating demo products. Applying our learning by creating prototypes. I guess I am envisioning a cross between a Masters program and Y Combinator.
My experience with this course is generally positive. I find that it was engaging to discover the power of mobile learning with my own curiosity and interest. It was also eye opening to see the opinions and the thoughts of others in the program as they have more experience with MET I do. The A3 was especially powerful as it forced me to think beyond the scope of what technologies are currently out there and required me to think critically about the future. However, being my first semester in the program, I found the format of the course to be a bit jarring as it was unlike other courses that I have taken before. It took a while before I was able to get into the rhythm of the coursework. The A2 assignment definitely helped with settling in though.
I think this course was very difficult for new students entering the program. They have not completed the important components of the core courses within their MET degree or certificate program. It would likely be better if students were granted entrance once they have completed at least 5 courses within the program. I understand the need to have a course such as this. We like to discuss the importance of student centred learning, but when we are the students in that position, the actuality becomes more real and not as simple as we thought. A maturity level is needed to do well in this class. A student achieves this maturity at the graduate level when they have worked through the fundamentals. For the MET program this is achieved through completing related courses and working thought educational problems with technology.
ETEC 523 was my 5th course in the MET program, and one thing I’ve learned about myself is that I’m probably best described as a traditional learner. I enjoy doing readings, conducting research and writing papers. I think class participation is very important both as a means of demonstrating and acquiring knowledge, however I’m not convinced that online forum posting is really the best way to do it. I appreciate how this course was constructed, but I think it might be useful in the future to really focus in on this participation aspect and explore some ways where students could be encouraged to participate beyond posts and comments. In this day and age, everyone has access to a device with a camera and microphone, so I think maybe encouraging actual discussion- via zoom, skype or similar platforms could be a big plus. It wouldn’t have to be every week, maybe just once or twice per term. The course instructor could moderate discussions. I think this could add an extra dimension to the participation component and lead to better learning outcomes from traditional learners such as myself.
This was my first semester in the MET program, and as such was one of the first 2 courses I took. Coming from a non-educator professional background, trying to participate and add valuable material to this course felt a lot more difficult to do without also being provided assigned readings, guided research, etc. This is especially difficult when many of my classmates are educators, they share similar knowledge and interests that are very different from mine. What many of them rated and viewed as highly valuable, I didn’t, and vice versa. I definitely would have preferred more assigned readings and guidance to develop a more broad and deeper understanding of mobile learning prior to having a create content. Perhaps this is reflective of my lack of professional experience as an educator, my preferred learning styles, or the fact that it is my first semester in the MET program.
I also found that the dominant cohort profession (K-12 teacher) steered course content in a way I didn’t find valuable at times. Ratings likely reflect this disconnect, as you say, downplaying the minority interests. I haven’t been able to come up with a solution but some recognition of the potential school teacher bias would improve a cohort-lead course like this.
I should mention I found the A3 Mobile Forum SO interesting. It really pushed us into new territory and I didn’t feel the K-12 focus nearly as much. It was also much easier to engage with others with shared interests. Maybe because each A3 essentially created a break-out group for niche discussions more than the A2s do, for example?
Having been through this course and the similarly organized ETEC 522 (Ventures in Educational Technology), my concern is less with the content and more on the question posed of, “Do professional networks and collective curation provide an appropriate context for learning?”
In regards to this, I had some concerns and suggestions.
First, I’m curious how comfortable this professional network felt offering up necessary constructive criticisms to each other. There seemed to be a sort of cognitive dissonance when looking at anonymous ratings and the non-anonymous reviews for posted projects, where the ratings said “this is okay” and the reviews said “this was great”.
Second, I found the volume of posted materials and comments to be a bit overwhelming. At the time of posting this, there have been a combined 2,723 individual comments and 533 posts. Obviously within that, there was a great range between classmates and their contributions, with some classmates adding an extraordinary volume of commentary (which isn’t a bad thing, but when you earnestly try to read through everything, it becomes a bit much).
Finally, I really don’t feel as though the ratings and upvotes/downvotes were utilized effectively, as evidenced by the lack of upvotes that some postings would have, despite the volume and tone of discussion that followed.
I think my biggest suggestion would be a bit more intervention throughout the course. Even if it just came in the form of quick reminders to strive for concise comments, or to remind us to upvote and rate more often, I think it could help with the concerns outlined above. I think it would also be nice to have a bit of additional moderation, where as there are still some posts out there that are miscategorized and therefore may lead to confusion. Finally, if there is some way to default to replies being sorted by upvotes, I think it would encourage that whole upvoting system and quickly attract viewers to some of the best commentary.
I agree with James on a few points and would like to elaborate:
1. The majority of written feedback we have given each other in the course is overwhelmingly positive with very little constructive criticism. I’m not sure everyone feels comfortable giving constructive feedback that could potentially be perceived as negative. Perhaps this is a limitation of the course being open, as our commentary is available and lives on.
2. The volume of posts isn’t an issue necessarily, but having to go back to each individual post to check in to see whether anyone has responded to you to respond back is tedious and time consuming. Honestly, I think there should be more exchange of commentary, but a better way to see everything or be notified.
3. Ratings and upvotes/downvotes aren’t being used in a consistent way to be effective. I believe I personally utilized upvoting and used star ratings when appropriate, but I can’t recall if I ever downvoted anything. I realize downvoting is a critical, objective way of giving feedback that is valuable, but it feels almost meanspirited to use it.
I question the authenticity of the star rating system. Any post’s rating is always visible and updated and it is absurd to think that viewing a post’s current rating does not influence our rating of that post. We can try our best to be objective, but it is so easy to raise or lower our own rating of a post upon seeing what is already there. This leads to post ratings being highly influenced by the very first rating it receives and a tendency for the overall rating to be in the mid-range. The anonymity of the rating system is not guaranteed either. When seeing a comment, one automatically wonders if the rating, then, came from that person. For similar reasons, it is extremely difficult to provide critique to anyone’s post. There is a sense that a post’s rating might influence our grade in the course, so there is a conflict of interest: we will provide overwhelmingly positive feedback to everyone in the hopes that we also get positive feedback.
Well, good for you, James, to have enjoyed ETEC 522. I am envious because I tried to enroll for two years and failed.
Regarding ratings and upvotes/downvotes, Mitchell Way (above) is right to call ETEC 523 an experience course. As a person familiar with Facebook administration/moderation, I find ratings and upvotes (likes) quick and easy, and use them without thinking. I guess these features make ETEC 523 even more comfortable for me.
But I support your idea of having some results of those assessments too. I am also happy to point out that ETEC 523 moderation options improved in 2023 due to David’s effort. Thank you for reading, my dear future groupmates! Regards, Anna
I also enjoyed the ETEC 523 experience overall. It was really valuable to connect with others in the course and see the different viewpoints and possibilities in mobile and open education. However, I wish that there is a better way to organize all the information and posts. As Katlyn mentioned, the Knowledge Mill is overwhelming. The rating system was not heavily utilized especially during the resource mining stages in the beginning. Because of the way things are laid out, it is really easy to miss some items, like this week’s discussions. I think a class email as a reminder for due dates and discussion pages would be nice.
My feelings for this course is like a little kid visiting a library for the first time. I feel excited about the massive information and knowledge, but sometimes I feel myself lost in the ocean of ideas. However, not like a library that has a catalogue of all the books for visitors to search, this course may need the same thing for generation and generation of students to build their knowledge maps of mobile and open learning. From this perspective, I agree with Matt about the frustration of missing the direction.
I remember in ETEC 510: Design of Technology-Supported Learning Environments, students were invited to use a wiki to organize all the links to one of the assignments. All the links are categorized by using keywords under different themes. I don’t think that course is designed better, but if there is a page that presents/organize all the topics that have been discussed in this course and provides links, it would be much clearer for students to navigate their assignments and research interests. Using an online mindmap such as MindMeister can be another choice.
This is a very informational and eye-opening course. I created a new fold on my digital notebook to collect those excellent ideas and resources I have encountered in this course. I really appreciate the selflessness of all my peers to share their ideas and stories.
Thanks to everyone and our instructor Dr. Vogt.
Yi
This course really showcased the social aspects of cognition. As is mentioned by many, we appreciate that the design of the course fosters an environment to help us to achieve the goals set for the course through meaningful and productive social interactions. I agree with Matt, “we could have spent more time unpacking and discussing what ‘exemplary mobile learning’ actually is”. I know it is kind of old school, but I would also appreciate the recommendation of some MUST readings in the field despite the relative recency of the topic.
I found this course to be a valuable experience in independent and personalized learning. I appreciated the ability to explore and review my peer’s A1 and A3 assignments. It was great to see everyone’s interests and passions for individual aspects of mobile technologies. I learned a lot about the topics, but also through their choices in how they presented. I am interested in trying out my own Adobe Spark page after so many colleagues gave them such engaging presentations.
I found the movable feasts to be highly beneficial to my job as a teacher. I learned through collaboratively working with a group under really tight timelines (I was in the first group). There were many different opportunities to participate in a variety of discussions about each topic. Overall it was a valuable experience. I believe the course could have included more Open Learning resources, whether through the moveable feasts or in one of the earlier discussion topics.
I agree with you, Kristin, and with Ceci above as well; some recommended reading or resources on both mobile and open learning would have been very valuable. Also activities or exemplars of open technologies would help us see where we are now and where we need to go in the near future.
Yes, I also think that perhaps a summary at the end of the discussions every week from Dr. Vogt to highlight points that we could look into or if the conversation was missing a key component.
I valued the openness of this course, putting more responsibility on participants to make their own learning from the resources and connections provided. Given the focus on peer sharing, instruction and review I think there could be much stronger systems in place to improve connection and communication between participants. I would not consider this WordPress site a model example of mobile learning given the incredible amount of text based communication. Integrating the ability for actual verbal discussions perhaps with common themes/reflection items shared in this forum for later digestion would be beneficial. The group project was a highlight because of the need for regular discussion, debate and reflection, and that communication happened largely through video conferencing and chats.
Given the specific focus on mobile learning in particular, I feel we could have spent more time unpacking and discussing what “exemplary mobile learning” actually is, and given there is some concept of what that represents, I think it would be good to introduce some level of structure and guidance/reflection around the topic as we progress to prevent students from going too far off track.
I’m not certain the answer, but I did find the layout and organisation of information in this course a significant challenge. Keeping track of timelines, finding the instructions was challenging. One improvement would be to actively link sections to one another by pasting links into the content. If a section is referring to the “assignments” post, it should contain a link to that post. If it refers to guidelines for participation, it should contain that link. This would make following a thread of thought much easier. I wasn’t able to use the Previous/Next buttons effectively at all because there wasn’t a clear link to what might be “Next” in different contexts in the course.
Even with these struggles, and the feedback offered, I valued being lost at times, and having to take greater responsibility over the direction this course led me, I think it is conducive to a more independent learning approach and perhaps some of the challenges I experienced myself were related to becoming more accustomed to being offered a single, clear path to achievement. Yes, professional networks and collective curation do provide a powerful context for learning.
I agree with Matt, completely.
I think it’s also worth noting that, in its current form, the blog will value older material more than newer material because it will acquire more “thumbs-ups” than newer material, even if the newer material is more relevant. As content reaches a point where it’s not possible or reasonable for users to read every post, which it’s pretty close to now in some threads, it will be difficult for users to find the most relevant or useful posts.
I’d also like to restate Mark’s request for links between pages. I found it really helpful when others traced their steps of inspiration from other posts and started doing it myself. It’s not currently a course requirement but would improve the content context.
Additionally, I think it would improve idea-sharing and collaboration if we could tag each other in posts. We often mention the name of a poster or classmate we think would be interested in the topic but they may never know. There would be a new energy to discussions where posters with a specific realm of expertise or interst could be tagged into a discussion they were not part of to weigh in.
I loved being able to see and engage with other people’s projects. I would have liked to see a bit more focus on the challenges, opportunities, and trends with open learning specifically. It seems like we mostly focused on mobile learning (which, in some ways, is just more flashy and exciting), but open learning has really blossomed in the last 10 years and is also a big game changer in education.
A2 and A3 for me were awesome learning opportunities, because of the collaboration and group aspect, and I enjoyed visiting my colleagues’ work and seeing different perspectives and approaches to our course topics. The fact that we have the choice to go down any path gives the most value to the course. However, my A1 was fairly stressful and isolating, as I had no one else to discuss the material with. I feel so fortunate and grateful that Pascaline reached out to me to work on our A3 together, as we had completed a group assignment in another course on neuroscience, and we shared a similar interest. This made the A3 much more valuable for me, as we had time to discuss from different perspectives and fine-tune the project. So far, it has been my favourite collaborative project in MET. I would encourage students to connect with a likeminded colleague to work on the A3 together.
I think we needed more of a primer on mobile learning and open learning to shift our thinking from mobile learning as just using mobile devices in the classroom or in formal education to the potential and possibilities that exist beyond, and this limited us to some extent. We got there gradually, but I think we need an opportunity to shift our thinking toward the beginning of the course so that our assignments could have been more exploratory. Open learning did not get as much consideration or discussion, and it should have.
The WordPress site has limitations in displaying need to know information, navigating and finding things, as others have mentioned. I realize we should all be on top of our course duties, but we all missed W13 discussions until a colleague created a post, and if everyone in the course missed this until the day before the course ended that’s problematic.
Hi,
I do not agree that everyone missed it. I did not. Thanks.
Overall I found the experience of Mobile and Open learning to be positive and valuable. There are some aspects that I enjoyed more than others when it comes to the style of how the course is set up.
I found the professional network and collective curation of the Moveable Feast to be highly engaging and really pushed me to learn a lot about mobile collaboration. I would say I gained the most knowledge from the A2 group project due to the nature of working together and being responsible to share information with peers.
At times I found the number of posts within the Knowledge Mill to be slightly overwhelming however this did provide a variety of information on mobile and open learning that I would not have considered on my own.
I really enjoyed the sharing of the A1 and A3 projects. Having an audience motivated me when completing the projects and I throughly enjoyed reviewing other projects to learn about topics that I wouldn’t have thought about. This challenged my understanding of mobile and open learning and allowed me to reflect on it.
I agree on so many points here – the (slightly) overwhelming number of posts, the motivating factor of having peers review our projects, and that the A2 experience was exceptional because of our totally awesome group (I may be paraphrasing on this last one).