June 4, 2013 Journal Entry: Reflection on Skype Web-Conference
Rhonda is my learning partner for the Trends and Roles Blog assignment. This morning we met for our skype conference to share what we had learned from our individual research into the concept of "Flipping the Classroom". Our first challenge was organizing a good time to meet, as I am 11 hours ahead as far as time zones. That worked out rather well - it was 8am for me, and 9 pm for her. Skype was the next hurtle, as Oman blocks the use of Skype. In preparation for using it for this course, I navigated the shady area of VPN's, signed up for an account, and so now since my IP address looks like it is coming from New York or Miami, I can access Skype. This is illegal in Oman, but as far as the ethics I can justify this in the name of education.
We found though we had researched the topic independently, we had ended up identifying many of the same resources. We both were surprised as to the paucity of articles in peer reviewed academic journals. Flipped teaching, Flipped Learning, Flipped Classrooms - whatever you call it - has been around for the past decade. I did source out a few journal articles, but now comes the next challenge. Since they were not full text on-line in the VCC library, and I wanted to maintain academic integrity by actually reading the full article and not just the abstract, I put in a request for the articles to be obtained from UBC. I received an email a few days later indicating they had arrived, but here's the catch: Even though VCC library received the articles electronically from UBC, some copyright law dictates that they can only pass on a hard copy to the student. The logic of this escapes me, especially in an era where very little needs to be hard copy anymore, and online/distance learning students should be able to access the same resources as warm blooded students physically standing in the library.
As an adult learner, I found that preparing for a Skype discussion was a strong motivator for really trying to get an in-depth grasp of the topic we had chosen. There is that sense of needing to hold up your end of the conversation. The guidelines for this activity specified a format - each person speaks for 5 minutes on 1 article, then summarizes for 5, then the next speaks, etc. Rhonda and I spoke for 45 minutes, however our discussion was much more interactive. I like to interpret this as an example of adult learning. We were doing it our way. Similarly teachers who are successfully leading Flipped Classrooms indicate that it can be disconcerting at first because there is a sense of a loss of control of the learning process. If you give students the freedom to navigate a path on their own with a clear learning goal, in the end it doesn't really matter how they get there, as long as they can demonstrate that the learning took place.
We found though we had researched the topic independently, we had ended up identifying many of the same resources. We both were surprised as to the paucity of articles in peer reviewed academic journals. Flipped teaching, Flipped Learning, Flipped Classrooms - whatever you call it - has been around for the past decade. I did source out a few journal articles, but now comes the next challenge. Since they were not full text on-line in the VCC library, and I wanted to maintain academic integrity by actually reading the full article and not just the abstract, I put in a request for the articles to be obtained from UBC. I received an email a few days later indicating they had arrived, but here's the catch: Even though VCC library received the articles electronically from UBC, some copyright law dictates that they can only pass on a hard copy to the student. The logic of this escapes me, especially in an era where very little needs to be hard copy anymore, and online/distance learning students should be able to access the same resources as warm blooded students physically standing in the library.
As an adult learner, I found that preparing for a Skype discussion was a strong motivator for really trying to get an in-depth grasp of the topic we had chosen. There is that sense of needing to hold up your end of the conversation. The guidelines for this activity specified a format - each person speaks for 5 minutes on 1 article, then summarizes for 5, then the next speaks, etc. Rhonda and I spoke for 45 minutes, however our discussion was much more interactive. I like to interpret this as an example of adult learning. We were doing it our way. Similarly teachers who are successfully leading Flipped Classrooms indicate that it can be disconcerting at first because there is a sense of a loss of control of the learning process. If you give students the freedom to navigate a path on their own with a clear learning goal, in the end it doesn't really matter how they get there, as long as they can demonstrate that the learning took place.