This week we get to explore in open education through participating in a Twitterchat hosted by the instructors of EDCI 339. I have signed up for a Twitter account for several years but I have never participated in any discussion or activated much with my account. The primary reason that I’m not an active user for Twitter is because most of my friends are using other social medias such as, Instagram or facebook instead. However, after observing the conversations and discussions this week, I start to understand how Twitter can be used by learners and educators as an open source. 

 

According to the reading, with the increasing development of new technologies, the association of “open pedagogy” with student centred approaches has been strengthened in recent years concurrent” (Read Wiley & Hilton 2018). As far as I concern, there are both benefits and drawbacks of using Twitter. Social media platform like Twitter is surely one of the potential tools for open learning. Being on Twitter can let you easily network with people around the country or the world. You can simply join a discussions of topics that you are interested in with the hashtag. For instance, we had a discussion with the hashtag #EDCI 339 this week, even though a lot of us don’t know about each other, we can still share our thoughts publicly and connect to the course twitterchat. It is a great tool for people who likes to give speech and self-expression, allows us to search for posts that we are interested in. However, there is a limitation of characters that you can post for every tweet, which means you cannot offer too much information or opinion. Moreover, like all technologies, Twitter is constantly changing and updating, it is easy to get lost when things are going too fast, it is important for teachers and students to stay up to dates. 

 

While I prefer using a more closed discussion or and interaction tools within the learning management system of the University, I can still see some benefits for open learners and educators. 

 

Reference:

 

Wiley, David, and John Levi Hilton III. “Defining OER-enabled pedagogy.” International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning 19.4 (2018).133-147