Photo by DJ Paine on Unsplash

 

The MALAT program held its five day virtual symposium, to begin the course in Digital Learning Environments, Networks, Communities on April 16, 2018 (MALAT Virtual Symposium 2018). As a student / learner beginning this journey, I was keen to participate in this virtual symposium and get a well-rounded introduction into the depth of this field as well as the MALAT program itself.   The Virtual Symposium delivered 16 speakers from the industry and academia directly to my desktop, for free, along with access to a padlet exhibiting the research from current MALAT students. Guests were welcome and could access the Collaborate Ultra link in order to listen in and/or take part as a way to learn more about leaders in the industry. Throughout the virtual symposium I was able to attend eight live synchronous sessions and was able view six of the remaining eight sessions in the recordings.

During the time I spend in the virtual symposium, I saw attendees logged in and engaging, whether it was through asking questions, making commenting or sharing their ideas with the presenters of every session that I attended, synchronously and asynchronously. This level of participation exceeded my expectation and contributed to my perception of community of practice. This perception of community provided me with encouragement and a desire to attend as many live synchronous sessions as possible. As Janette Hill (2002) points out, feeling of isolation for online learners decreases when there is activity requirements such as synchronous sessions (p. 71). Although the course requirements’ expectation of interactive engagement proved, for me, to be somewhat nerve-racking, ultimately it did provide a sense of community which in turn spurred a desire to engage more actively.

However, this virtual symposium did not come without a few surprises along the way. From me to you, here are some of the surprising, intriguing and unexpected ideas I experienced while attending the virtual symposium, which I hope you can both relate to as well. I have always been intrigued by the concept of open education from a desire to change that way that social workers are trained in the field and also as a way to give a voice to persons with lived experience commonly known as peer supports. In the session Diversity, Equity, Inclusion – building a global learning commons, Paul Stacey explains open education as free and open access to education including educational resources (Stacey, 2018). As it is described in “Setting the Default to Open”, Open refers to barrier free access, barrier free education and barrier free data. As the Open Education Consortium website explains, the idea of open education is not new, however, much more attainable with the use of the medium of online learning. Our industry over the past 15 years has been heavily credentialized which has been limiting for social workers as well as peer supports. Credentialism is defined as “as a persistent trend towards ever-increasing educational requirements for jobs” (Bills & Brown, 2011 p.2). David Bills explains that the education qualifications required for jobs are higher than the skills required for the job (Bills & Brown, 2011 p.2). This trend is limiting opportunities for individuals lacking the required education. In order to make training and micro-credentials more accessible, open educational practice is essential. I was surprised and delighted to see how much this field has grown.

I have always looked for open educational resources online and mostly came across textbooks that have been scanned and put on the web as a way to cut down on the cost of books. As Lauri Aesoph explains in OER policy development tool, in 2012 the B.C. open textbook project was created to make open licenced textbooks available to learners free of charge, thereby reducing the barrier of cost to students. I was happy and surprised to see that Open Educational resources are not only accessible, but legal with a creative commons license. A creative commons licence helps to speed up the copy write process by identifying what permissions the author gives to the learning community in advance. For more information about the creative commons licence see www.creativecommons.org

I was also intrigued by the presentation from Trish Dyck on key success factors for virtual teams (Dyck, 2018). Trish laid out the factors that successful teams exhibited and barriers for team success. Trish identified that a key factor in team success is feedback and that many teams do not take the requisite time to get this feedback. Trish shared a tool from ITP Metrics that teams can use to measure the health of their team.  Trish also explained that a factor in team success is focusing on the relational process of creating safety and getting to know one another (Drue & Weingart 2003). I was especially intrigued by the concept of transactional distance (Keegan, 1993 p.38). Keegan explains in Theory of transactional distance that the transactional distance between learners and instructors can be reduced by utilizing the interactive nature of the video and audio features of teleconferencing (Keegan, 1993 p. 23). I can see how simply turning on the video in a team conference session would reduce transactional distance in virtual learning.

Prior to the MALAT 2018 Virtual Symposium (Royal Roads University, MALAT 2018 Virtual Symposium Schedule, 2017), I was considering the exit tracks and what might be the best exit for my work. I was not seriously contemplating the Thesis Track due to the fact that I may not be able to come up with a research question that would qualify for a Thesis. Through the presentation, Andrew Prince was able to succinctly deliver the necessary steps to complete a Thesis from the formulation of a research questions, gaining ethics approval to completing the research and writing the actual thesis. Through his presentation, Andrew was able to convince me that the Thesis Track is worth exploring and may not be as out of reach as one might think due to the resources and expertise available to assist you along the way.

Over all, I would venture to say that the MALAT 2018 Virtual Symposium provided me with an outstanding orientation into the course as well as the world of digital learning environments, communities and networks.   Participating in the symposium and gleaning information from the experts in the field sharing their expertise and knowledge, I have a more complete understanding of the issues and subjects that I will be researching and learning about as well as some initial understanding of what resources are available to me. The manner in which the MALAT 2018 Virtual Symposium was delivered also endowed the program and its cohorts with a perception of community, enabling the beginnings of relationships of trust to be built. I believe that we have to makings of a community of practice within our cohort that may well last well beyond the term of our learning journey.

 

References:

Royal Roads University (2017, April). MALAT 2018 Virtual Symposium. Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mQS_o-C_jO2taghriJfXKDsgfa1fUL0mTDMo2JTGSJc/edit?usp=sharing

Stacey, P. (2018, April). Diversity, Equity, Inclusion – building a global learning commons [Video file].    Retrieved from https://ca.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/playback/load/1e7524409f81435db6df3c575d115e82?platform=hootsuite

Dyck, T. (2018, April). Key Success Factors for Virtual Teams [Video file]. Retrieved from https://ca.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/playback/load/6666fcf2bbae4fee954facaa841f67a3?platform=hootsuite

Keegan, D. (1993). Theory of transactional distance. Theoretical Principles of Distance Education, 22–29.

Stacey, P. “Diversity, Equity, Inclusion – building a global learning commons.” (2018, April 17). Retrieved April 30, 2018, from https://ca.bbcollab.com/collab/ui/session/playback

Selingo, J. “The Future of College Looks Like the Future of Retail” (2018, April 16). Retrieved April 30,    2018, from https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/04/college-online-degree-blended-learning/557642/

MALAT Virtual Symposium.docx. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://docs.google.com/document/d/1mQS_o-C_jO2taghriJfXKDsgfa1fUL0mTDMo2JTGSJc/edit#heading=h.kmw524rovjn

Bills, D. B., & Brown, D. K. (2011). New directions in educational credentialism. Research in Social Stratification and Mobility, 29(1), 1–4. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rssm.2011.01.004

Hill, J. R. (2002). Overcoming obstacles and creating connections: Community building in Web-based learning environments. Journal of Computing in Higher Education, 14(1), 67–86. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02940951

Setting the Default to Open in Research and Education. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://sparcopen.org/

About The Open Education Consortium. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.oeconsortium.org/about-oec/

Aesoph, L. (2016, September 12). OER Policy Development Tool. Retrieved from https://open.bccampus.ca/open-policy-guide/

When we share, everyone wins. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.creativecommons.org/

ITP Metrics. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.itpmetrics.com/

De Dreu, C. K. W., & Weingart, L. R. (2003). Task versus relationship conflict, team performance, and team member satisfaction: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 88(4), 741–749. https://doi.org/10.1037/0021-9010.88.4.741