Okay, we’re off and running and I am writing my first blog post for my edtech/online ed independent study here at the University of Mary Washington.
The first point I would like to make is this: I am more than a little overwhelmed.
I’m essentially taking this semester to give myself a crash-course in emerging pedagogies in edtech, and even reading through the first paper I picked out has confirmed that I’m coming into this as the humblest of padawans. Fortunately my adviser, Dr. Zach Whalen, is a little like really chill Yoda, and continues to remind me that I don’t have to know everything in order to say something.
That said, I would like to add the caveat that I’ve only scratched the surface of these topics and trends. If I say something ignorant, it’s probably because I genuinely don’t know better. Yet. But eventually I will.
The first paper I’m reading for this study is “Open Education in the Liberal Arts: A NITLE Working Paper” by Dr. Lisa Spiro and Dr. Bryan Alexander. It’s serving as a brilliant introduction to edtech/online ed, and specifically the culture of openness that is evolving in those contexts. I’m currently processing how ds106 fits into the definitions of openness they describe in their work (it is certainly an open course, but how does it embody open teaching? Open coursework? Open learners? How does the openness of ds106 challenge, change, and interact with the more “traditional” aspects of UMW’s teaching?) but this section on “open assessment” struck a particular chord with me:
Open assessment: Through badges, portfolios, and other mechanisms, the open education community is developing ways to certify learning that often depends upon open educational resources and approaches. For example, Mozilla’s Open Badges program provides an infrastructure for organizations to recognize skills that people develop outside of traditional educational contexts.