Nicole's EDCI 339 Space

Often accessibility, usability and inclusion are close related as aspects of education. As discussed previously in the “Open Education and Creative Commons” blog post, open education, in particular, plays an important role of online accessible resources available. The basic idea of open education is to make peer reviewed resources, tools and practices available for free. However, it does not mean everyone can access neither that these resources are designed to be inclusive for all. Providing online education is beneficial but also excludes a significant portion of the population. With the expansion of open education, inclusive design and universal access became the first and main steps when designing any learning object or resource. It is becoming increasingly important to address the design and accessibility challenges that open education faces so it can be true to what it means. Some platforms and organizations follows accessibility guidelines for web resources and learning objects so that people with disabilities and less fortunate ones have access equally. Regardless, accessibility guidelines does not mean universal access. According to Gray, 2019, There is no average “student,” and all students (disabled or not) can face barriers depending on their context. And that is where inclusive design plays its role. Inclusive design means designing something that considers the full range of human diversity including other forms of human difference. It means designing something that mainly thinks about the user experience. For many, ‘inclusion’ addresses a broad range of accessibility for people with disabilities, access to and quality of internet connectivity, computer literacy and skills, economic situation, education, geographic location, culture, age, including older and younger people, and language. This paper will discuss the challenges about inclusive design and accessibility online for education and highlight the importance of creating such resources that encompass these aspects allowing users to customize their learning experience in the way that better works for them in education.

Inclusive education is about how we develop and design our schools, classrooms, programs, tools, resources and activities so that all learners participate together that meets their diversity needs. According to the IDCR, inclusive design includes the context, the user and the method. It is important to recognize diversity and uniqueness and reinforce that none of us is an average student and that everyone has different stories, motivations and passions. Using an inclusive process and tools so that participants can input some thinking into the development process can break down barriers of exclusion since we are giving them a space to be heard so it will generate a broader beneficial impact. According to Bel and Bradburn, 2008, “There are two major theoretical perspectives for meeting the needs of learners with special needs: medical and social. The medical perspective is concerned with responding to the specific needs of people with disabilities through adapting the design of a product or service to accommodate for individual needs.” However, designing tools and resources that works for the minority’s results in tools and resources that works for everyone. In other words, instead of segregating populations, it is important to treat all educational resources as a whole and usable for everyone without evidently enforcing the stigma of minorities. The inclusive design research center, 2018, developed a framework that “reframes” disability within the design context. “Rather than a personal characteristic or a binary state (disabled vs. non-disabled), disability is framed as: a mismatch between the needs of the individual and the design of the product, system or service.” It concludes by stating that, “accessibility is therefore the ability of the design or system to match the requirements of the individual. It is not possible to determine whether something is accessible unless you know the user, the context and the goal.” (OCAD University, 2018, para. 7).

Learners may be prevented from accessing online learning environments due to problems in the design of the technologies itself. There are many accessible designs that changed people lives such as curb ramps or ramps on public transports. But how can we apply these aspects to educational resources and tools? Videos are a great example of educational resources which addresses visual designs, listening skills and reading skills aspects as learners are able to add captions nowadays. However, it does not necessarily means is easily accessible in learning environments. Often when designing a resource it is essential to ask a few questions when designing an educational tool and obviously have accessibility and inclusive design factors present. Designers must think about the user interface perspective. Defining the purpose of the tool, target audience, analyses of the needs, participant’s preferences on technology, define user goals, define inclusive design and user-personalized approach to accessibility, define the delivery platform, and define the technology that will need to be used, use guidelines that can help with accessibility and plan to launch the resource in all available sort of educational platforms are keys to ensure an accessible and inclusive design educational tool. Another aspect is also conduct usability tests since is an effective method to analyze, improve and study inclusive designs so it calculates the efficiency of the tool and reviews for future improvements. This includes the factor of reuse, re-mix and revise of resources so old tools and resources can be reused and adapted to address the whole population.

Online accessibility can also be seen as a challenge that can create barriers in communications tools and interactions that exclude people from using the internet and online learning platforms and environments. Bel and Bradburn, 2008, created a holistic framework for e-learning accessibility that considers the usability of resources, pedagogical aims and infrastructural and resources issues, with the aim of creating solutions that are appropriate to learners’ needs. Another situation that focuses on “in classroom learning environment” is the Bel and Bradburn research on accessibility in a higher education setting, including online accessibility in the classroom. The survey targeted questions on definition of accessibility, roles and responsibilities and online accessibility practices. The research concluded that there is a lack of ‘inclusive mindset’ from teachers being a barrier to inclusive practices among some teachers and also suggests that teaching staff have little awareness of some online inclusive design educational resources functions and how to use them. Perhaps, providing training not only for educational designers and organizations but also institutions and staff so it creates more inclusive environment for all. Understanding both online accessibility and inclusive design is when you start connecting the points to what is necessary in education.

Online accessibility and inclusive design are all different names of approaches that largely focus on increasing the accessibility of the interactive system for the widest possible range of use. Education is a human right that should be inclusive to all populations. And it is crucial to focus on open educational resources, online learning and learning environments that aims on free and accessible educational resources that includes inclusive designs and easy accessibility. Emphasizing such practices in technological and educational organizations that develops tools, resources, platforms and other institutions to adopt practical methods for online accessibility and inclusive design should be the next main goal for open education and education itself to achieve. And also make people aware of the importance of such topic. When designing anything it is crucial to think in the user experience. The world needs more empathy and each should try to understand and be more inclusive in all aspects.

 

References

Bel, E. & Bradburn, E. 2008. Pedagogical Perspective on Inclusive Design of Online Learning. Centre for Learning & Quality Enhancement. Retrieved from https://ftp.informatik.rwth-aachen.de/Publications/CEUR-WS/Vol-345/paper5.pdf

Cooper, Martyn; Sloan, David; Kelly, Brian and Lewthwaite, Sarah (2012). A challenge to web accessibility metrics and guidelines: putting people and processes first. In: W4A 2012: 9th International Cross-Disciplinary Conference on Web Accessibility, 16-18 Apr 2012, Lyon, France. Retrieved from https://oro.open.ac.uk/35359/1/w4a-2012-p23-final.pdf

EBEATTIE. (2019). Inclusive Design Webinar Series. BC Campus. Retrieved from https://bccampus.ca/2019/03/12/inclusive-design-webinar-series/

Garafulic, N. 2019. Showcase Post: Open Education and Creative Commons. EDCI Space. Retrieved from https://edcispace.opened.ca/

OCAD University. (2018). what is Inclusive Design. Retrieved November 20, 2019, from https://idrc.ocadu.ca/about-the-idrc/49-resources/online-resources/articles-and-papers/443-whatisinclusivedesign

Open Education means participating and being involved in education without academic admission requirements. It can also be seen as a philosophy about the way people share their knowledge. Over the past 15 years, open education became popular in various countries, especially since education is considered a human right and not a privilege; however, many can argue the way around as the access to free education and resources are still a challenge, for example emerging countries such as Brazil. It is important to understand the whole spectrum of open learning since open education is life changing for a lot of people that are not able to afford paid education. In the course context, Dr. Valerie Irvine argues that there are four tiers of access that connects open education: face to face synchronous, remote synchronous, remote asynchronous and open. However, there are plenty other ways to look at OE. One of the characteristics of open education practices involves pedagogy, open platforms and open policy methods that use and manages open education resources to innovate education.

Open pedagogy is about not treating students as consumers of information and more like the creators of information. OP promotes social justice for marginalized people, improving access across diverse communities and equal access to education (Hegarty, 2015; Lambert, 2019). Bronwyn Hegarty proposed a model for open pedagogy with eight attributes that are connected with open education resources: participatory technology, people – openness – trust, innovation and creativity, sharing ideas and resources, connected community, learner-generated, reflective practice and peer review. OER is a necessary component of open pedagogy which teaches and research resources that, through permissions granted by their author, allow others to reuse, remix and revise.

The participatory technology attribute values is about people having free access to technologies tools for educational purposes and connect with others for learning. According to Blackall (2011), online communication leads naturally to the production of learner-generated content, with implications for teachers and their institutions. This attribute support the view that in a team and open participation environment, resources need to be freely accessed and shared. However, other than the challenge involving free access to technologies tools as an open education resource, materials content cannot be shared without licensing. Learners also might have issues with copyright regulations, that is why is critical to influence others to use creative commons license, so materials can be again reused. The creative commons licenses are standardized, free-to-use open copyright licenses that does not requires any fees or paperwork. (iLearnCollaborative, 2017, para. 9).

There are others options of open education resources such as textbooks, educational videos and others. Textbooks are a popular OER that has been an issue for years among students regarding the price. According to Stommel (2018), “the cost of textbooks has increased over 1000% in the last 40 years (times the rate of inflation). Over a shorter frame of 10-20 years we’ve seen other non-academic books actually go down in price while textbook prices have continued to go up.” Students are still required to pay tuition and buy expensive textbooks; however, this is also considered a social economical inclusion issue when it comes to everyone having access to education resources. After all, it is clear that a lot of resources and tools used for learning faces the issue of access, varying from technology tools to textbooks. According to McKenzie, 2017, major education publishers, including Pearson, Cengage and McGraw-Hill Education, report that the number of colleges offering “inclusive-access” programs has grown rapidly in recent years in U.S. By that, meaning that the “inclusive” aspect is that every student has the same materials on the first day of class, with the charge included as part of their tuition. But not totally free.

Another factor that also involves open education but requires a learner effort is the willingness of people to want to learn something that is not required from them. In my point of view, I believe that a lot of learners that does not have access to education are usually the ones that enjoys more the opportunity of open education and obviously those that really want to learn.

To conclude, education is vital and sustains societies, the truth is education is failing millions around the world. The basic idea of open education is to make peer reviewed resources, tools and practices available for free. It is critical to recognize the importance of open education and influence others educational institutions and non-profit organizations to adopt this method to deliver innovative open education and make resources available. Crucially, it is necessary to address the challenges that students and learners face around the world every day trying to use open education platforms.

 

References

Attributes of Open Pedagogy: A Model for Using Open Educational Resources

Author(s): Bronwyn Hegarty Source: Educational Technology, Vol. 55, No. 4 (July-August 2015), pp. 3-13 Published by: Educational Technology Publications, Inc. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44430383

Mackenzie, L. (2017). ‘Inclusive Access’ Takes Off. Inside Higher ED. Retrieved from https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/11/07/inclusive-access-takes-model-college-textbook-sales

Stommel, J. (2018, September 12). Textbooks, OER, and the Need for Open Pedagogy – An Urgency of Teachers. Retrieved October 18, 2019, from https://criticaldigitalpedagogy.pressbooks.com/chapter/textbooks-oer-and-the-need-for-open-pedagogy/

What are Open Educational Resources?(2017). iLearnCollaborative. Retrieved from https://www.ilearncollaborative.org/what-are-open-education-resources

In the past, radio communications allowed people to communicate from wherever excluding the limitations of geographical areas, which initiated new communities. “The online community allows us to be around others who hold a common set of ideals and ideas and who can validate our own experiences and beliefs. It is what gives us a sense of identity and belonging.” (Hopkins, 2015, page. 227). In today’s world, synchronous communications tools expanded throughout the years with the development of new technologies and social medias allowing people to connect anywhere in the world that may share common values as you, giving a sense of community.

Social Medias nowadays have such a strong impact in everyone’s life. The most popular programs platforms used in the present by most of the population are Twitter, Instagram, Youtube, Facebook, WhatsApp and others. From my experience, when I decided to surrender myself to social media platforms, I remember sharing a lot of stuff about my day and the mainly reason why I adopted these platforms is because it was a way for me to connect with my friends outside school. It was also when I discovered my interest for certain things which provided me a lot of learning. After a whole decade using Social Medias, I started to see with time that a lot of things were changing in these platforms. For example, Instagram before was used to post pictures mainly. Nowadays, Instagram is an online tool not only to share pictures of yourself but also is used for businesses purposes, educational use, communication and make connections with people who see the world in interesting ways or the same ways as you. On Instagram, people can also follow hashtags that identify messages and pictures on a specific topic that connects with these communities. According to Hopkins (2015), virtual communities, are based on common interests and members’ ability to work across space and time. However, that are some disadvantages that virtual communities bring as it can decrease social interactions and wrongly use of images and texts. Instagram is also a great example of leadership. People that have a lot of followers lead a community based on their interest.

From an educational platform perspective, social Medias and programs are also used for educational purposes. “In higher education, the concept of community has begun to receive attention, and research has demonstrated that learning communities— which ­ may include freshmen interest groups and linked courses, block scheduling and registration, and, at times, a living learning community, in which students are housed and take courses together— can ­enhance cognitive skills and intellectual growth, educational attainment and persistence, and moral development.”(Hopkins, 2015, page. 229). Online learning spaces are nothing more than a virtual community that focuses on learning. The UVic coursespace can be considered a type of online community, where the instructor leads the students throughout the course and shares their knowledge. Also, it makes students interact with each other in forum posts and other assignments, creating a community based sense. However, the sense of community in learning space depends on each class and how much students interact with each other.

To conclude, the concept of community has evolved in many ways along with communication tools. It is important to understand the purpose of each program and more and more online communities will be spreading out across all spectrum of life.

References

Carolan, C. (2019). READ: Focus for this Unit. UVic Coursespace. Retrieved from https://coursespaces.uvic.ca/mod/page/view.php?id=1297707

Hopkins, J. (2015). Teaching Online: A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice, Johns Hopkins University Press, 2015. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874.

Open Education means participating and being involved in education without academic admission requirements. It can also be seen as a philosophy about the way people should share their knowledge. Throughout the decades, open education became popular in various countries, especially since that education is considered a human right.  It is important to understand the whole spectrum of the open learning since open education is life changing for a lot of people that are not able to afford paid education. In this course context, Dr. Valerie Irvine argues that there are four tiers of access that connects with open education: face to face synchronous, remote synchronous, remote asynchronous and open. However, there are other and beyond ways to think about that. Open education practices involves pedagogy, open platforms and open policies methods that use and manages open education resources to innovate education.

Open pedagogy is nothing more than not treating students as consumers of information and more like the creators of information. OP promotes social justice for marginalized people, improving access across diverse communities and equal access to education (Hegarty, 2015; Lambert, 2019). Bronwyn Hegarty proposed a model for open pedagogy with eight attributes that are interconnected with open education resources: participatory technology, people – openness – trust, innovation and creativity, sharing ideas and resources, connected community, learner-generated, reflective practice and peer review. OER teaches and researches resources that, through permissions granted by their author, allow others to reuse, remix and revise.

The participatory technology attribute values where people have free access to technologies tools for educational purposes and connect with others for learning. According to Blackall (2011), online communication leads naturally to the production of learner-generated content, with implications for teachers and their institutions. This attribute support the view that in a team and open participation environment, resources need to be freely accessed and shared. However, other than the challenge involving free access to technologies tools as an open education resource, nowadays materials content cannot be shared without licensing. Learners also might have issues with copyright regulations. That’s why is critical to influence others to use creative commons license, so materials can be again reused. Another important aspect is the willingness of people to want to learn something that is not required from them. In my point of view, I believe that a lot of learners that did not have access to education are usually the ones that enjoys more this type of opportunity regarding open education and obviously those that really want to learn.

Another big OER that has been an issue for years among students is the price of textbooks. According to Stommel (2018), “the cost of textbooks has increased over 1000% in the last 40 years (times the rate of inflation). Over a shorter frame of 10-20 years we’ve seen other non-academic books actually go down in price while textbook prices have continued to go up.” Students are still required to pay out tuition and expensive textbooks, however, this issue is more of inclusion when it comes to everyone having access to education. After all of that, it is clear that a lot of tools used for learning face an issue of access, from technology tools to textbooks.

It is critical to recognize the importance of open education and influence others educational institutions and non-profit organizations to adopt this method to deliver innovative open education. But first, it is crucial to address the challenges that students and learners around the world faces every day trying to use this platform.

References

Hegarty, B. (2015). Educational Technology, Vol. 55, No. 4, pp. 3-13 Published by: Educational Technology Publications, Inc. Retrieved from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/44430383.

Stommel, J. (2018, September 12). Textbooks, OER, and the Need for Open Pedagogy – An Urgency of Teachers. Retrieved October 18, 2019, from https://criticaldigitalpedagogy.pressbooks.com/chapter/textbooks-oer-and-the-need-for-open-pedagogy/

After discussing the unmoral use of data collection by educational organizations and learning programs, many educational institutes and peers have been looking for options for online learning programs and resources that prioritize personal data privacy and blocks surveillance from companies. The EdTech website is an online space used to spread the use of ethical pedagogy and software programs that values user freedom and privacy. The website shares alternatives programs that can be used in different methods of learning by students and professors. After doing my research, I will be some sharing learning tools that I mostly liked.

GitLab is a learning application platform where students can post their coursework and learning issues interacting with the other students and educators. This application is an alternative replacement for Learning Management Systems that are commonly used by Universities and Colleges. The application can provide maximal faculty control as it can be self-hosted; meaning that, the entire instance and data is confined and contained by the educators or the course department only. The software is mostly used by technological courses but it can also be used by other different non-technical courses.

More and more students use Facebook, Snapchat and Google docs to discuss their team projects tasks. Commons in a box is an application for larger group interactions that can replace these online media platforms. The web-based program is an online space that focuses on collaboration, discussions and sharing from users that are on the same group or team. Commons in a box contains the same features as Google docs and online forums, however it differs when users are able to pick their privacy options and their information are not used for profit, as stated on the Commons in a box website.

Another optional tool used by learners’ collaboration is MediaWiki. The program is a collaborative space software that is administered by Wikipedia. MediaWiki is a great learning source in the whole spectrum for learners, students can collaborate by sharing their knowledge together regarding a specific subject. The platform also provides ownership to the actual author of the work shared.

Lastly, for learning reflection, Atom is a great program that is mostly used by software development. However, it can be used for plain text editor as it also is word processor. Atom can also produce scholarly articles, essays and presentation slides checks. The program allows students to reflect on their learning, like a private blog. It is also a great application to collaborate simultaneously.

To conclude, there are tons of available options for ethical EdTech. It does not necessary means that these applications are free of surveillance by other companies and data breach, however, they are a great platforms that focuses on the learning principle rather than profit. To find out more digital tools for learning, students can visit the Ethical Edtech website.

References

Ethical EdTech. Retrieved from: https://ethicaledtech.info/wiki/Meta:Welcome_to_Ethical_EdTech

In the digital era, more and more people want to share about every aspect of their lives. However, often people are not aware that their personal data are of great value for multiple corporations nowadays. “Every day, hundreds of companies you may not even know exist gather facts about you, some more intimate than others. That information may then flow to academic researchers, hackers, law enforcement, and foreign nations, as well as plenty of companies trying to sell you stuff” (Matsakins, 2019, para. 2). Is no secret that applications such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and others gathers our personal data and sells to companies. Online learning spaces and tools are no different from these applications. Students’ information are also in the sight of big corporations and governmental organizations.

As introduced during EDCI 339, students need to start integrating FIPPA principles in tools that we use for learning; especially, knowing that learning managements system, Moodle used by UVic (Coursespace), gathers information about all users from the course used in the application. Users are able to download information about other users, records when users visited the page and how many clicks there were which tracks how often users use this resource. Since Moodle contains a variety of sensitive personal identity data, this information is often protected by regulatory policies and guidelines in different jurisdictions. Learners and Educational Institutions should consider what type of software they want to work with, otherwise improper use of information can affect negatively users in many aspects.

Another fact is that, often educational technologies programs monetize users’ personal work. Many universities in North America have adopted Turnitin software in order to check plagiarism in students work. However, the plagiarism detection software has been causing some backlash reactions since the company was taking ownership of students’ intellectual work. According to Morris and Stommel (n.d.), we would think that big organizations such as universities would critically enforce its regulations on personal privacy data when adopting a software, after all, most educational organizations are and should be committed to the responsible use of users’ information and still a lot of the institutions are adept to this software. When universities comply with applications like that, students and teachers are indirectly allowing their information to be analyzed and monetized without their consent. Not only violates an ethical matter for students, but it also prevents teachers to exercise their pedagogical principles.

Now, it is important that students, teachers and all educational organizations learn more about the present scenario of personal data collection and resist against this type of unethical business. One of the first things that people should acknowledge is to how to protect their information online. As well as, take reactive and proactive steps to choose a software that respects learner data.

References

Carolan, C. (2019). “Read: Focus for this unit.” University of Victoria Course Space. Retrieved from https://coursespaces.uvic.ca/mod/page/view.php?id=1293518

Matsakis, L. (2019, February 19). Personal Data Collection: The Complete WIRED Guide. Retrieved October 18, 2019, from https://www.wired.com/story/wired-guide-personal-data-collection/

Morris, S. M. & Stommel, J. (n.d.). “A guide for resisting EdTech: The case against Turnitin.” PressBooks. Retrieved from https://criticaldigitalpedagogy.pressbooks.com/chapter/a-guide-for-resisting-edtech-the-case-against-turnitin/