Category: Reflections

Lecture of week 11 focused on the idea of digital inequities and how people experience the online world differently depending on their background and situation. One speaker shared a helpful framework that explains injustice in three parts: economic, cultural, and political. Economic issues include not having internet, devices, or even electricity. Cultural injustice happens when certain groups or languages are not well represented in online spaces. Political injustice is when people don’t have a fair chance to be part of decision-making. The speaker gave many examples of how unfair systems can make it harder for some students to learn, especially during online learning.

Another part of the lecture talked about how oppression happens in four ways: through beliefs, systems, people’s actions, and how people feel about themselves. There was also discussion about how education systems often expect everyone to fit into one way of learning, instead of changing to support different needs. The speakers encouraged people to be more critical of how technology is used and to work toward creating a fair system that include and respect everyone.

The Zoom lecture talked about how artificial intelligence (AI) is changing work, education, and digital skills. They shared how he uses AI tools like ChatGPT to make tasks easier, such as replying to emails, writing workshop descriptions, and researching. They said it’s important to be flexible with different AI tools. He also showed how AI can help with research and organizing information. These tools can make work faster and easier, but they also bring new challenges.

The discussion also raised concerns about AI. Some people worry that AI writing is too basic and lacks creativity. Others are concerned that relying too much on AI might make people less skilled at thinking and solving problems. Another issue is that AI uses a lot of energy, which can harm the environment. These are important things to consider when using AI.

Another speaker talked about how AI can help students learn. She explained that generative AI is different from older AI because it can interact more like a learning partner. AI can make learning more personal, help students understand things better, and handle simple tasks. But she also warned about problems like false information, unfair bias, and cheating in school. She told students to think carefully about when to use AI and to make sure it helps them learn instead of doing all the thinking for them.

Overall, the lecture encouraged students to explore AI while being aware of its effects on work, learning, and society. The key message was to use technology wisely and think about its long-term impact.

In the lecture of week 8,Dr talked about social annotation and how it helps people read and write together. He explained that annotation is not just about adding notes to books but can be seen everywhere in the world, like on signs, walls, and even coffee cups. He also mentioned how annotation has been used for a long time, even in old books, and how it helps people learn and share ideas. It was interesting to see how social annotation can make reading more interactive and meaningful.

He also discussed different tools like Hypothesis, which allows students to read and comment on texts together online. He explained that this makes learning more social because students can share their thoughts and ask questions directly on the text. He also talked about the importance of privacy and how students can choose to keep their notes private or share them with a small group. This makes annotation useful for both personal learning and group discussions.

This lecture made me think about how I read and interact with texts. I usually read by myself and don’t write many notes, but I now see that adding comments and discussing with others can help me understand things better. It also makes reading more engaging because I can see different perspectives.

In week 5 we had a lecture with Dr. that helped me understand more about copyright and how to use content the right way. She explained that anything we create – like writing, music, or art – automatically belongs to us. We don’t need to do anything special to claim it, but we should decide how others can use it.

She also talked about how we should be careful when using other people’s work. Just because something is on the internet doesn’t mean we can use it for free. In Canada, we follow “fair dealing,” which allows small parts of content to be used for education, but we still need to give credit to the creator.

Another important lesson was the difference between “public domain” and “publicly accessible.” Just because we can see something online doesn’t mean it’s free to use.

Overall, this lecture showed why it’s important to respect copyright rules. It helps us stay out of trouble and also shows respect for other people’s work.

Reflection on Open Licensing and Open Educational Resources

This lecture with .. from Creative Commons helped explain why open education and sharing knowledge is so important. He talked about how Creative Commons allows people to share their work legally while still keeping ownership. This means students, teachers, and researchers can use and improve educational materials without breaking copyright rules.

One big takeaway was how expensive textbooks and learning resources can be. Many students struggle to afford them, and open educational resources (OER) can help solve this problem. These are free and openly licensed materials that anyone can use, change, and share.