The 2018 Royal Roads MALAT symposium was held during the week of April 16 to 20 with new learners hearing from both experts in the field and learners finishing and presenting their MALAT research findings.

The article “The Future of College Looks Like the Future of Retail” (Selingo, 2018) that was shared by Vivian Forssman in her panel as part of the symposium was very interesting to me in that it shows a lot of the ways that tradition is being flipped around by digital disruption. The idea that all industries need to be looking at the effect of digital really fit well when looking at the wide variety of learners in the MALAT program. Digital is here to stay and not looking at it’s effects will cause industries to be left behind.

In listening to Dr. Jaigris Hodson in her presentation ‘“Mindful” social media engagement in an age of Cambridge Analytica” for the 2018 MALAT virtual symposium, I found it quite interesting to explore the topic of social media in education.

As someone who has used social media personally and professionally for many years there were aspects of this discussion that I would not necessarily have thought about. The idea that by using social media within a class you were forcing learners to give up some of their privacy and data by using these tools. I realized that because I was willing to give up privacy and data, I was not looking at what I was getting others to give up.

Listening to Carolyn Levy discuss her work within design and culture was very intriguing to me. I have had the opportunity to work regularly with those from other cultures (mainly Japanese and Southeast Asian) and found that a small amount of forethought can help a lot with delivery. Hearing from Levy and Anita Fahrenbruch (in the symposium discussion) that even New Zealand, where they spoke the same language, had different motivations for learning that affected how the instruction would be developed.

I thought that a common thread that I heard a few times, sometimes directly but also touched on lightly, was the idea of not always being the expert. To me this was refreshing to hear because it’s not something that I feel is often allowed in the education workspace. It has always seemed that the person standing at the front of the room should always be expected to know everything and that’s not always a reasonable or the best assumption. The idea that even the educator can make mistakes or learn is something I think should be explored to get more perspective and a better understanding. This idea worked well with the discussion of design and culture from Levy and by using this idea of not being the only expert, I feel it gives the ability to learn not only the content but improve the understanding by getting ideas and knowledge from others.

Sources:

Forssman, V. (2018, April 17). Strategic Directions for Online Education: Is Online Program Management Coming to Canada?. Retrieved from https://ca.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/playback/load/24ceca1000fe45ddb7dba21702d3207c?platform=hootsuite

Hodson, J. (2018, April 16). “Mindful” social media engagement in an age of Cambridge Analytica Retrieved from https://ca.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/playback/load/e16f96d22ad14deeae1326cfa2b0ba81?platform=hootsuite

Levy, C. (2018, April 20). Design and Culture. Retrieved from https://ca.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/playback/load/605b4f67a39848f4b739384350b6c69c?platform=hootsuite

Selingo, J. (2018, April 16). The Future of College Looks Like the Future of Retail. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/04/college-online-degree-blended-learning/557642/