EDCI 339

The topic 3 readings got me thinking more about the concept of ‘Digital Redlining’ and the affect that has on how accessible educational resources are to you and how it begets the possibility of discrimination occurring based on how these resources are prevented from being accessed. Digital Redlining essentially creates boundaries/limitations on the knowledge that is made available to students due to organizational policies put in place by administration at learning institutions. These arbitrary boundaries are seemingly predatory as the article examined the inequities that occur between community colleges and other post-secondary institutions. Namely how ‘Digital Redlining’ reinforces class boundaries as information that may be readily available at a university with more prestige can be hidden entirely in the context of a community college due to filters blocking the online access of those materials.

Source

I believe that digital redlining is a very ominous occurrence that discredits the education you ultimately receive. As someone pursuing a post-secondary education this is a practice that feels entirely dishonest and can end up having a huge ramifications on your future goals and career choices due to the limitations placed on your capacity for learning.

Digital Redlining and Accessibility

This introduces the danger of perpetuating misinformation and discrimination based on socioeconomic/demographic factors. This can also guide a student’s knowledge and educational journey unbeknownst to them as they are unaware of the information that is inaccessible; meaning that to them that source of information on a topic essentially does not exist. This is an ironic practice in the sense that an institution that is dedicated to educating the masses at the same time places limitations on how much education they are able to receive. It places a glass ceiling on the upper limits of learning and stifles a students’ creative processes by pigeonholing their access to ‘open’ educational resources available on the internet. This also begs the question of how much are you willing to spend in order to get a formal education that is free from outside controlling factors?

The Digital Divide

There is an assumption that goes alongside the argument for OER-enabled pedagogy which is that all students have reliable access to the internet and the necessary technology to access those online educational resources. This digital divide brought on by an individual’s socioeconomic standing brings to light how the implementation and approach of OERs needs to be carefully monitored as there exists the risk of exacerbating current existing inequalities further.

Further Implications of Digital Redlining in OERs

According to Munro (2019) there are certain inequities that are built into many digital algorithms, namely in this context algorithms that exist within search engines that compile and present scholarly output to the public (i.e., Google, Bing, etc.). Munro further adds that these inequities can also become prevalent within academia, and subsequently OERs, as the existing scholarly communication infrastructure is reliant on said search engines and other technologies that make scholarly content available to student researchers. This calls for the careful monitoring of the underlying processes within these technologies in order to eliminate barriers to equitable resources for students. Administrative policies must be put in place in order to stay diligent and not recreate environments which perpetuate existing biases and stereotypes.

Here is a useful link which is coincidentally an OER that expands further on the history and concept of Digital Redlining. I found this to be an excellent supplementary ‘lesson’ that helped to round out my knowledge on this matter.

Digital redlining

References:

Gilliard, C., & Culik, H. (2016, May 24). Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. Common Sense Education.

Munro, K. (2019). Renewing the system: Thinking broadly about equity, diversity, and inclusion in scholarly communication. College & Research Libraries News, 80(7), 374. doi:https://doi.org/10.5860/crln.80.7.374

This week’s reading helped to round out my understanding of OER’s and their current state/functionality in an educational setting. The reading touched on the concepts of renewable and disposable assignments which really stood out to me. It got me to thinking on my past educational experiences and led me to evaluate certain classes I took which had an abundance of ‘disposable assignments’ and I was only able to recall information for those classes I had interest/was engaged in. All the other classes I need time to remember the materials covered as I was just completing assignments to essentially cross them off a list and wasn’t really exploring the topic at hand. I feel that this was a direct result of  assignment instructions that stifled your creativity by setting out strict guidelines and parameters for the grading criteria (more apparent in STEM courses). However, at the same time you do need that minimum ‘benchmark’ to be made apparent for what is to be expected for an assignment because otherwise a student might miss out on the intended result of that lesson if they end up going off on a tangent in their assignment. A question I would ask on this would be, in what university faculties would ‘renewable’ assignments (OER-enabled pedagogy) be a more feasible/improved upon practice in overall course work?

The four-part test mentioned in the article is what allows us to determine if an assignment/learning practice can be considered a renewable assignment. I believe that a good example of this  from my own educational experience would be the blog posts we create in this course. We as students are able to  create new ‘artifacts’ in the form of blog posts and are also given the opportunity to revise an existing blog post for our digital portfolio assignment. The created blog posts also have value beyond supporting my own learning as it promotes discussion among my classmates, which in turn supports their learning as well. We are all also given the option to publicly share our WordPress blogs so that they appear in search engine results, etc. and are given the option to openly license our specific blog sites.

The proposed research question I choose to answer from the article goes to ask: “Do students assigned to create, revise, or remix artifacts find these assignments more valuable, interesting, motivating, or rewarding than other forms of assessment?”. In my opinion this style of assessment is more rewarding/beneficial as it promotes creativity and allows for students to fully express their thoughts on a topic in a more unfiltered manner. This leads to higher levels of engagement as there is more pride being taken in the work as it is a direct reflection of your current understanding of the subject.

Reference:

Wiley, D. & Hilton, J. (2018). Defining OER-enabled Pedagogy. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 19(4).

The topic 3 readings got me thinking more about the concept of ‘Digital Redlining’ and the affect that has on how accessible educational resources are to you and how it begets the possibility of discrimination occurring based on how these resources are prevented from being accessed. Digital Redlining essentially creates boundaries/limitations on the knowledge that is made available to students due to organizational policies put in place by administration at learning institutions. These arbitrary boundaries are seemingly predatory as the article examined the inequities that occur between community colleges and other post-secondary institutions. Namely how ‘Digital Redlining’ reinforces class boundaries as information that may be readily available at a university with more prestige can be hidden entirely in the context of a community college due to filters blocking the online access of those materials.

Source

This introduces the danger of perpetuating misinformation and discrimination based on socioeconomic/demographic factors. This can also guide a student’s knowledge and educational journey unbeknownst to them as they are unaware of the information that is inaccessible; meaning that to them that source of information on a topic essentially does not exist. This is an ironic practice in the sense that an institution that is dedicated to educating the masses at the same time places limitations on how much education they are able to receive. It places a glass ceiling on the upper limits of learning and stifles a students’ creative processes by pigeonholing their access to ‘open’ educational resources available on the internet. This also begs the question of how much are you willing to spend in order to get a formal education that is free from outside controlling factors?

Reference:

Gilliard, C., & Culik, H. (2016, May 24). Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. Common Sense Education.

Link to pod#5 WordPress Site: https://edci339pod5.opened.ca/

Before this week’s course readings and activities, I vaguely knew that open learning was both free and online, but I had no idea of its potential in education. Open educational resources (OER) are oftentimes initially used by instructors as a way to minimize costs, however, it can also be leveraged to improve pedagogy as well. Edits, and other changes can be added to OER due to it having open licensing. These resources can include any type of teaching material ranging from textbooks to the entire course.

I strongly feel that open access textbooks are a great resource for students as it alleviates both academic and financial concerns for students and allows for education to be more readily available to everyone. Another resource and component of education that strongly resonates with me are open access research articles. Students should also be able to access journals most relevant to their research/studies and not be limited by the selection of journals that their campuses are able to provide. From just these examples it becomes evident that open learning differs from online (distributed) learning in accessibility and cost. Distributed learning is not accessible for all students as this type of learning is tied to an institution that requires a certain set of standards before granting admission that can’t be met by every student wishing for an education. There are no such requirements for students wishing to continue their education through open learning. Despite these key differences, both open and distributed learning are still uniquely similar in providing students flexibility. Both types of learning styles lack face-to-face interaction that traditional classrooms encompass as they are both delivered online.

With this mode of delivery, students don’t have to travel far to participate in a classroom environment, they are free to interact with course material at a distance the utility of this was well demonstrated with the shift to remote learning this past year. Moreover, depending on if an online class is synchronous or asynchronous, they both also allow for students to learn at their own pace as lectures were recorded via Zoom. There is clearly a lot of potential and value in open learning as it breaks geographical and financial barriers in education. This would, hopefully, influence an instructor when considering OER or OEP as their course material will be more accessible to a wider range of students with little to no cost. I wonder what types of changes we will see in the delivery of education as open learning becomes more mainstream moving forward.

References:

Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017). Openness and Education: A beginners’ guide. Global OER Graduate Network.

My name is Gurbir Brar, I was born and lived in Kent WA until my family settled down in the Fraser Valley (Abbotsford). I’ll be entering my fourth year at UVIC in the HINF program and should graduate next year barring any setbacks. Once I graduate I’m planning on applying for a work position at a former co-op post I held last semester for Island Health.

My free time is taken up by playing basketball, hanging out with friends, and justifying the next addition to my home gym. During the pandemic I’ve also enjoyed exploring the outdoors and have had the time to go on a few camping trips with my bubble friends around the lower mainland (Nearby Cultus Lake).

My current understanding of the terms “distributed learning” and “open learning” is that they are different methodologies in the approach of disseminating educational materials. A distributed learning platform would be similar to how Courses are delivered through BrightSpaces, essentially remote learning facilitated by the use of technology. I would then take open learning to mean the open access to educational materials by anyone, an example would be educational resources such as Khan Academy were the learning is more self-directed by the user. To summarize Distributed Learning is a more rigid methodology within the confines of an organization whereas Open Learning is a more flexible methodology.

Looking forward to learning more on this subject with the rest of you!