[Week6] Reflection:Open education, how it open to public?

In this week, I choose the option 3 activity in terms of Open education and explored the world of the MOOC. After few of research, I decided to experience this new education approach by using the edX website. The experience of taking design courses on edX stimulate me to consider the real meaning of ‘open’, which is one of the most important concept in open education. Almost everyone realized the innovation of the open education is that it more ‘open’ than traditional education, but how it open? Dose that indicating that everyone could access to the open education?

Open education is relative to the close traditional education. It is generally accepted that open education has a few basic characteristics. Firstly, it more focus on the interaction of learners and teachers instead of just pay attention to the subject that teachers instruct. Students and their learning process turn to be the central part of the education cycle; they are the manager of their learning experience. They are free to make the decision like what do they want to get, how do they want to study the subjects, even when they prefer to learn. Compare to the passive learning style of close education, students in the open education would become more active. Besides, using multiple approaches to promote students study and collaborate together also is suggested by “open up” education. It means there is no limitation about the form of learning style. Students could learn from video, article, communication and even collaborating with others. For example, in the edX, students could use a variety of amazing tools and methods to help they learn, such as design course suggests students to start their user-central design through recording the morning routine and making interesting video. Some engineering courses also provide some game-like labs and videos to stimulate students thinking the process of the project. In addition, open education encourage almost everyone join to learn, whatever their age, occupation, region, education background. There are not a lot of restrictions, as long as they are the learners who inspired knowledge and meet the requirements of the certain course. Most the programs of open education have no academic admission requirements, and free to follow. For example, I could easily take the course from Princeton University online but no need to pass their entrance examination. Although sometime the cost of acquiring a certification may be a barrier, there are still many open education institutes offer free certification schemes accredited by organizations like UKAS in the UK and ANAB in the USA where others offer a badge. (stateUniversity.com, 2010)

                                                    open education

Ideally, open education concentrate on eliminating every limitations and obstacles in students’ learning process. However, there are also some barriers to entry. Open education not open to everyone, actually.For example, distance learning, the main format of open education, is not ideal for all learners. Not everyone is an ideal candidate for online learning. If people know they have problems with motivation, procrastination and needs lots of individual attention from an instructor they may want to think long and hard before enrolling in an online learning program.(distancelearningnet.com,2015) My friends always told to me they usually cannot find time to complete the online course. In addition, because the openness and freedom of open education, it is also could hardly build the quality assurance systems for educators or materials in some programs, which will result in that some employers don’t accept the degree from the open education program. Therefore, the learners who want to get authority certificate maybe need choose their program in open education carefully.

Reference:

http://education.stateuniversity.com/pages/2303/Open-Education.html

http://www.distancelearningnet.com/advantages-and-disadvantages-of-distance-learning/

ImageSource:

[assignment 1]: Persona reflection(Update version)

Before I take IFN612 unit in this semester, I have never considered deeply the relationship between the social media and I, also, the persona is the concept with which I totally unacquainted. I always confused about what is persona, why it useful for user experience analyzing, and how to build up a well-organized and effective persona. Besides, the most important issues is that how to reflect user’s social media experience upon the form of persona. For completing this assignment, I have done lots of research and finally make clear sense of persona and social media. According to Shlomo Goltz, persona is a kind of approach that aim to model, summarize and communicate research about people who have been observed or researched in some way(2014).An effective social media persona could represent some basic groups of people that we probably engage with in social media.

How do I use ‘research’ to create my persona?

To begin with my persona task, the structure and content of persona should be discovered, but more fundamental task is that I need analyze behavior, feeling, and altitude of my client regarding her use of social media, and experience user-central design research as well. I keep with the social media almost every day and more and more depend on it. It is evolve into not only the dominating social communication style of me, but also the platform where I could access to the outside world and learn something amazing. So far various social media application has been consumed by me for almost 13 years. When I grow up, social media also was renewed and updated, but it always played a significant role in my life. I just act as an information seeker who actively looks for the latest technology, something that she interested and the moments of her family and friends.

Firstly, as for an international student who comes from china, so it is necessary that I use social media keep contact with my family and friends who live in my country. WeChat is the most popular social app in china, and it has almost 7 hundred million users (baidu,2013).Even some people who not familiar with latest technology like my mother and father also installed this app in their smartphone. Therefore, WeChat is the main way that I contact with everything about my hometown. I usually use that take voice call or send message with my family members, it’s for free and easy to use. I just teach my mother how to use that function one time and then she can call me by herself. Besides, it is my first time study aboard, so sometime I still could not deal with some problems like homesick and loneliness. Whenever I missed my home and friends, I would seek the moments or news about them through WeChat as much as possible, which would make me feel better. Although information seeker like me always browses other’s share, I’m not always writing comments for them. I belong to the great silent majority, just like a “lurker”. I prefer to be my friends’ loyal readers or visitors, instead of an active commenter (Heidi Cohen, 2012).That is one of the reasons that I just group myself under Information seekers.

Besides, I’m studying master of IT in QUT. As I said before, I cost most of the time on WeChat, but this also make me in trouble sometimes because In Australia people rarely use that social media to communicate with others. The users of Facebook, Twitter and Google+ occupy the largest percentage of the population in Australia. However, I had never used these social media, because these servers could not available in mainland china. What these social media platform mean to me is that a complete new world where I could experience different culture, meet new friends, and interact with my tutor or classmates for academic purpose. For example, some of my friends come from Japan always chat with me on the Facebook; I was really enjoy browsing their moments and exploring interesting culture of them. Follow some topics that I’m interested in on the Facebook and Google+ also is one of my favorite things to do. I could easily know what’s going on in the world, and become more critical by looking comments of people from all over the world. What’s more, in this semester, I have two units in which tutor ask us use social media as collaboration approach. I have never experienced this kind of learning method before. After join in the community a period time, I could feel the power of social media and truly realized their positive influence. Such as, In IFN 660,we created a Facebook group called script maters for our project team. we share what we have done and the problems that we meet. All team members engaged in our project process and learn together as well. Google+ community is refer to IFN612, students post blog and share their altitude about common topic, which is wonderful for me practicing writing and getting more idea. Well, an information seeker like me would so appreciate that I can get a chance to gather and absorb a wide range of input through these social media.

After constructing the client’s typical character and describing her user story about social media, an effective persona still need point out clearly the goals and needs of the client. To consider my user story and character, I look forward to using social media keep contact with my family and friends, experience different cultural, improve learning efficiency, keep follow the rapid development of Internet, and even could find an amazing job or start my own business on internet after she graduate from QUT. I’m an information seeker and I prefer to always access to the information from social media, the social media that have good interaction design and could quickly get things what I’m interested would suitable for me. It will be better if there is plenty of technology news and useful software or website information. If that social media have lots of ads, detractors or political commentaries, and probably some privacy exposure problems as well, the information seeker like me will feel uncomfortable when I use it.

How do I feel on the use of personas in user centered design?

Now, my first persona would be created after I organized all the information of my client: myself, “an information seeker”, which is a not easy but interesting task for me. Through this activity, I recognized that what is the user-centered design and experience the whole process of how to building a persona. User-Centered Design (UCD) is the process of designing a tool, such as a website’s or application’s user interface, from the perspective of how it will be understood and used by a human user. (Usability,2013) Designers could not always avoid biased, since they are also human beings. They need some practical way to assist they realized what is best. Persona, one of the effective approaches, represents the real users and plays an important role in design process. In this assignment, it costs me lots of time to consider the relationship between the real user and social media. Such as what is the character of the user refer to social media, what is in user’s best interest in. The outcome product persona would help designer make right decision relatively, keep honest and become mindful of whenever they are design for others or themselves.(Shlomo Goltz,2014)

Reference:

1.http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/08/06/a-closer-look-at-personas-part-

2.http://heidicohen.com/social-media-personas-what-you-need-to-know/

3.http://www.usabilityfirst.com/about-usability/introduction-to-user-centered-design

[assignment 1]:persona reflection

Before I take IFN612 unit in this semester, I have never considered deeply the relationship between the social media and I, also, the persona is the concept with which I totally unacquainted. I always confused about what is persona, why it useful for user experience analysing, and how to build up a well-organized and effective persona. Besides, the most important issues is that how to reflect user’s social media experience upon the form of persona. For completing this assignment, I have done lots of research and finally make clear sense of persona and social media. According to Shlomo Goltz, persona is a kind of approach that aim to model, summarize and communicate research about people who have been observed or researched in some way(2014).An effective social media persona could represent some basic groups of people that we probably engage with in social media.

How do I use ‘research’to create my persona?

To begin with my persona task, the structure and content of persona should be discovered, but more fundamental task is that I need analyse behaviour, feeling, and altitude regarding my use of social media, and experience user-central design research as well. I keep with the social media almost every day and more and more depend on it. It is evolve into not only the dominating social communication style of me, but also the platform where I could access to the outside world and learn something amazing. So far various social media application has been consumed by me for almost 13 years. When I grow up, social media also was renewed and updated, but it always played a significant role in my life. I just act as an information seeker who actively looks for the latest technology, something that I interested and the moments of my family and friends.

Firstly, as for an international student who comes from china, so it is necessary that I use social media keep contact with my family and friends who live in my country. WeChat is the most popular social app in china, and it has almost 7 hundred million users(baidu,2013).Even some people who not familiar with latest technology like my mother and father also installed this app in their smartphone. Therefore, WeChat is the main way that I contact with everything about my hometown. I usually use that take voice call or send message with my family members, it’s for free and easy to use. I just teach my mother how to use that function one time and then she can call me by herself. Besides, it is my first time study aboard, so sometime I still could not deal with some problems like homesick and loneliness. Whenever I missed my home and friends, I would seek the moments or news about them through WeChat as much as possible, which would make me feel better. Although I always browse other’s share, I was not used to make comments for them. I belong to the great silent majority, just like a “lurker”,I prefer to be my friends’ loyal readers or visitors, instead of an active commenter (Heidi Cohen, 2012).That is one of the reasons that I just group myself under Information seekers.

Besides, I’m studying master of IT in QUT. As I said before, I cost most of the time on WeChat, but this also make me in trouble sometimes because In Australia people rarely use that social media to communicate with others. The users of Facebook, Twitter and Google+ occupy the largest percentage of the population in Australia. However, I had never used these social media, because these servers could not available in mainland china. What these social media platform mean to me is that a complete new world where I could experience different culture, meet new friends, and interact with my tutor or classmates for academic purpose. For example, some of my friends come from Japan always chat with me on the FaceBook, I was really enjoy browsing their moments and exploreing interesting culture of them. Follow some topics that I’m interested in on the facebook and Google+ also is one of my favourite things to do. I could easily know what’s going on in the world, and become more critical by looking comments of people from all over the world. What’s more, in this semester, I have two units in which tutor ask us use social media as collaboration approach. I have never experienced this kind of learning method before. After join in the community a period time, I could feel the power of social media and truly realized their positive influence.Such as, In IFN 660,we created a facebook group called script maters for our project team. we share what we have done and the problems that we meet. All team members engaged in our project process and learn together as well. Google+ community is refer to IFN612, students post blog and share their altitude about common topic, which is wonderful for me practicing  writing and getting more idea. Well, as an information seeker, I am so appreciate that I’m able to get a chance to gather and absorb a wide range of input through these social media.

After constructing the client’s typical character and describing her user story about social media, an effective persona still need point out clearly the goals and needs of the client. To consider my user story and character, I look forward to using social media keep contact with my family and friends, experience different cultural, improve learning efficiency, keep follow the rapid development of Internet, and even could find an amazing job or start my own business on internet after I graduate from QUT. I’m an information seeker and I prefer to always access to the information from social media, the social media that have good interaction design and could quickly get things what I’m interested would suitable for me. It will be better if there are plenty of technology news and useful website information. If that social media have lots of ads, detractor’s post or political commentaries, and probably will exposure to privacy as well, I will feel uncomfortable when I use it.

How do I feel on the use of personas in user centered design?

Now, my first persona would be created after I organized all the information of my client: myself, “a information seeker”, which is a not easy but interesting task for me. Through this activity, I recognized that what is the user-centred design and experience the whole process of how to building a persona. User-Centered Design (UCD) is the process of designing a tool, such as a website’s or application’s user interface, from the perspective of how it will be understood and used by a human user. (Usability,2013) Designers could not always avoid biased, since they are also human beings. They need some practical way to assist they realized what is best. Persona, one of the effective approaches, represents the real users and plays an important role in design process. In this assignment, it costs me lots of time to consider the relationship between the real user and social media. Such as what is the character of the user refer to social media, what is in user’s best interest in. The outcome product persona would help designer make right decision relatively, keep honest and become mindful of whenever they are design for others or themselves.(Shlomo Goltz,2014)

Reference:

1.http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/08/06/a-closer-look-at-personas-part-

2.http://heidicohen.com/social-media-personas-what-you-need-to-know/

3.http://www.usabilityfirst.com/about-usability/introduction-to-user-centered-design

[week 6]play: find more about MOOC

After browsing three option of week 6 learning activities,I decided to do some research about MOOC that I ‘m really interested in. I just hope this will make some new idea come to my life~

MOOC stands for Massive Open Online Courses.(www.bdpa-detroit.org) This is a kind of model that represent the educational delivery(EDUCAUSE,2013).A MOOC is a course,is open, is participatory , is distributed, and is a ports of life-long networked learning. But the MOOC is not a school, not just an online course. It’s a way to connect and collaborate while developing digital skills. May be most importantly, it is an event around people who care about the same topic and get them together , work together, and talk about it together in a structured way. (What is a MOOC,2010)

Actually, it is not the first time that I access to this concept, when I studied my bachelor degree in my country, I used to take some programming courses  from Princeton university by using iTunes U. I could enrol a course, take the lecture online and communicate with people who are interested in the same topics. In my opinion, this is based on the MOOC model and  I was really appreciate to use this way to learn and collaborate.  

Image 1: Itunes U

EdX is one of the website that based on a MOOC. It has clear and perfect layout,simple, easy on the eyes and yet functional as well.so I’m glad to try it out!

  Screenshot 1: edX main page

Firstly, I just signed in by using my google account, (it is still convenient if you choose other way to register, such as facebook.)then get into my dashboard. In the dashboard, I could manage your personal detail, link to the google or Facebook, and look my current enrolled courses as well. edX provide lots of helping information to assist people who want to be an edX students，It all reflect the thinking of MOOC, such as make the high quality and quantity classes localized and accessible , use variable ways to let everyone participate into the learning process, can learn everywhere and anytime, and  also engage students collaborate and share with each other and build up a learning network environment.

Screenshot 2: my dashboard

Screenshot 3: feature of edX

Now, are you ready to start studying and have fun ?  It is really easy to use when I want to select a course,just choose the category of refine the search on the right side. I was more prefer something about design, so I found what I desired finally: Delft Design Approach~ Click the image of that course and more information will be shown.As the picture below, there are lots of useful information like the introduction,  the prerequisites  and some course detail. Also I can share this course with my friends~

Screenshot 4: course detail

In the courseware part, I tried two sections and really enjoy studying by using this way! As I said before, edX have friendly interactive design. I could find enough welcome video or some posts to help me familiar with this tool as soon as possible. there are some fantastic features that I think will help students a lot:

1.Some tools associate with video

Screenshot 5: video tools

Speed option: I can speed up or slow down the video player with the speed option button when I am watching the videos.For me, It is really useful. As an international students, English is my second language so some time I can not follow the speakers if they said so fast.And also, I think there are still some students want the video going faster so that they can save time. speed option is the practical function that will make learning more personality.

Transcript: I can see the transcript of the speaking on the right side of the video, this will follow along with everything that the speaker said, and click on any of the words, the video will jumps to that word.This is another great feature. Because of this transcript, I can always focus on the lecture easily and even practice my english! what’s more, I can make notes while I get some idea from video without worrying about the words that maybe I am not sure how to spell.

Speed option and transcript are the practical functions that will make learning more personality and suitable for different user needs.

2.Learning structure

In this course, I just finished the week 1 workload. the course learning structure attract me and it make me get good understanding of the way and concept of design in general by using interesting approach .For example,  recording own morning rituals is the first practice, (morning rituals just like what are you usually do in the morning). It suggested that  creating morning rituals could stimulate designer consider how to design for valuable and meaningful experiences.

Screenshot 6: leaning example

3.Communication

There are also lots of ways that students can participant in their courses and collaborate together. In the discussion parts, students could post their idea and browse the work of their classmates as well.  Every one could join in the discussion home of this course and  share their thinking, question, work and comments. In addition, I can also use other social media such as twitter to join the community of Delft design course.

Screenshot 7: course discussion

Screenshot 8: course community

The feature of what surprises me most is the map show the participating students in this course by putting the markers on their location. By browsing through the map, I can explore that how many students doing the selected question in Brisbane and even find their exact location，when I click the marker,  the text box opens containing the student’s answer to the current question！I just browsed some final presentation by click the marker, which is really interesting and promote me to thinking a lot.

Screenshot 9: map location

Screenshot 10: marker text box

4. Course Progress

Although this is just a free and online course, it still need their measure approach and criterial. In this parts, the study progress of course will be recorded and then it will generate a chart to suggest the final results of students. It is a kind of motivation that stimulate students to complete their course as much as possible and do the better work. It will make me get the sense of achievement if I get high mark in this course~

Screenshot 11: course progress

In summary, I’m glad to accept the MOOC to be my new learning way, it makes me feel no gap between me and the course,  this is just like an academic events that gather people who are interested in similar topic and then share and collaborate with each other!

Reference: 

Click to access ELI7097.pdf

http://www.bdpa-detroit.org/portal/index.php?Itemid=20&catid=29:education&id=57:moocs-top-10-sites-for-free-education-with-elite-universities&option=com_content&view=article%20

Image sources :

https://www.edx.org