{"id":226,"date":"2017-04-25T22:11:38","date_gmt":"2017-04-26T05:11:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/?p=226"},"modified":"2017-04-26T17:38:33","modified_gmt":"2017-04-27T00:38:33","slug":"malat-virtual-symposium","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/malat-virtual-symposium\/","title":{"rendered":"MALAT Virtual Symposium"},"content":{"rendered":"

The MALAT Virtual Symposium week was overall a positive and eye opening experience for me, but also gave me a lot to think about as to where education is headed in the future, which I can see is to move from traditional instructor led classrooms to fully online and open educational environments where learners will have more control and are able to lead their own learnings. Are we there yet? I would say no, but we are certainly in the right path.<\/span><\/p>\n

As an online and traditional face-to-face instructor myself, I can see first-hand how online learners can be more successful in their studies than the learners that are taking the same courses\u00a0through traditional method. In my opinion, there is a big reason for their success and that is flexibility.<\/span><\/p>\n

Location does not matter in an online model and as long as the learners have access to the internet, they can access their course anywhere in the world. Similarly, they can work at their own pace and are not restricted to a particular schedule.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, my perspective towards open education has definitely \u00a0changed over MALAT Virtual Symposium week and a big reason was the way Mr. Cormier described open education (2017, April). I was especially surprised when he compared learners\u2019 characteristics to rhizomes<\/a>. He stated that learners that are involved in an open educational environment can be like rhizomes, they can choose their own path to grow separately while still in the same learning environment. As long as there is balance in open education, even though learners are choosing their own path, they still can be successful \u00a0(Cormier, 2017).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Another helpful piece was FOLC (Fully Online Learning Community) explained by Dr. Van Oostveen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"FOLC\"https:\/\/i2.wp.com\/eilab.ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/11\/FOLC-New-HEIT-Version.png<\/span><\/p>\n

As shown in the above figure, this model is based on Collaborative Learning in a Digital Space\u00a0(Van Oostveen, DiGiuseppe, Barber, Blayone, & Childs, 2016). Learners have a significant amount of control over what they want to learn and they can have ownership over their own progressions of learning. Learners can also become actively involved in helping and instructing other learners. Long-time users can invite others to join the online learning environment and help them get familiar with the setting and how to navigate the open learning community (Van Oostveen, 2017).<\/span><\/p>\n

It was an amazing opportunity to attend all the sessions during MALAT Virtual Symposium week. I found the information very fascinating and the speakers enormously knowledgeable. <\/span><\/p>\n

Thank you Royal Road University for this opportunity!<\/span><\/p>\n

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Cormier, D. (2017, April). Intentional messiness of online communities<\/em>. In Elizabeth Childs (Chair), MALAT Virtual Symposium. Symposium conducted online at Royal Road University.<\/span><\/p>\n

Van Oostveen, R. (2017, April). Fully Online Learning Community Model<\/em>. In Elizabeth Childs (Chair), MALAT Virtual Symposium. Symposium conducted online at Royal Road University<\/span><\/p>\n

Van Oostveen, R., DiGiuseppe, M., Barber, W., Blayone, T., & Childs, E. (2016). Fully Online Learning Community (FOLC) Model<\/em>. Retrieved from http:\/\/eilab.ca\/fully-online-learning-community-folc-model\/<\/span><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The MALAT Virtual Symposium week was overall a positive and eye opening experience for me, but also gave me a lot to think about as to where education is headed in the future, which I can see is to move… Continue Reading →<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":53,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[21,20],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lrnt521","tag-lrnt-521","tag-malat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/53"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":243,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions\/243"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/malat-webspace.royalroads.ca\/rru0012\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}