Key take away - ethics before technology

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I think the most important issues that I learned concerned the ethics of open online learning. All these discussion took place in our lively ONL group 12. The ethical questions we discussed were multiple: how to protect student and faculty from cyberbullying and other sanctions when sharing; how to make sure that the tools we use will not extend electronic control on our students; how to make sure that the tools we choose do not increase students’ addictive social media use; how to ensure that when using electronic tools publicly available we know what we are making our students consent to (like pointed out by the Social Dilemma movie, if you are not paying for the product, you are the product); who are included and who are excluded when increasing open online learning as it seems that those who are well off already are the most active users of online learning opportunities; and last but not least what are we doing when we are supporting open online learning as active educational policy in other words what are the unintended consequences of open online learning locally and globally in terms of preserving/demolishing local knowledges and enhancing Western (read Anglo-American) understanding of knowledge and knowing and political practice. All in all, I think these are highly important issues to think about and I feel I am rather poorly equipped to tackle these issues. However, acknowledging the existence of these issues is the first step. I think ONL course could have done a much better job in bringing up these issues in order help educators to deal with the ethical dilemmas linked to open online learning.  

The course has been very helpful to me also in other ways, especially in terms of helping me to rethink technology use in teaching. I think I will be more active in using different technologies in my course but at the same time I am also much more careful not to use technology for technologies sake. When adding new tech for a course it needs to be informed by an understanding how it enhances learning. While it may be important to introduce students to different platforms and tools, I do not think that it is my main job. Using new tools takes always time from other aspects that needs to be learned, thus I think educators should think twice do the new tools improve learning or disrupt it.

I found it interesting during ONL to learn about the different tools available for me to use. I have decided to learn to use at least one tool properly before my spring courses like finna, storm board or badlet, the emphasis being in properly. Students will not be happy if I will use a tool that I will struggle with. The problem is that you cannot practice some of the tools without having a class/group to practice with. The tools do not function without multiple participants. I will further rework my lecture structure and give very brief summaries of the lecture contents that I have prerecorded in class and focus mainly on interactive assignments instead. I am a bit worried however, that many students will come to class without viewing the lecture recordings prior the lecture which will impact the success of the interactive sessions.

When I reflect my feelings regarding being part of the ONL community I must say that I do not feel that I am part of a community. I felt a sense of community with my ONL group though. The members of the group were fantastic. I felt that the whole ONL cohort in the shared sessions was too big, and the discussion too fragmented, thus the sense of community did not have a chance to emerge. I will use ONL site for further insight and inspiration in the future for sure, but for me that does not mean that ONL is a community, but rather a source of information.

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