The Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association Conference

Survivors of Complex Trauma as Adult Online Learners

Hilary Schmidt — 2024-12-14

Complex trauma is both a product and a source of significant multidimensional inequality, including profound disruption to survivors’ educational trajectories. Nonetheless, educational researchers have not previously engaged with adult survivors who study online, contradicting the key principle of collaboration within a trauma-informed approach. This qualitative instrumental collective case study explored how adults with a history of complex trauma experience postsecondary open/online learning. Findings included participants’ struggles with executive functioning, challenges regulating emotion and dealing with a heightened perception of threat, re-experiencing trauma, negative beliefs about the self, and difficulties navigating relationships. These trauma impacts affected not only participants’ learning and course experience, but also their experience of applying, registering, and accessing financial aid. Nonetheless, participants are demonstrably skilled in managing the impacts of their trauma and are driven to learn, placing the highest intrinsic value on education. Top priorities for the implementation of trauma-informed educational practices identified by participants included establishing safety; trust and transparency; and empowerment, voice, and choice. Implications include enhancing equity and inclusion for survivors of complex trauma through the implementation of trauma-informed educational practices in open/online postsecondary contexts.

Planning, Living, and Adding to our Plates: K-3 educators' Experiences of Curricula in Virtual Learning Environments (VLE)

Melissa Bishop — 2024-11-23

Virtual Learning Environments (VLE) have interested scholars since the late 20^th century, with much of the research focusing on secondary and post-secondary instructors and learners (Brown, 2010; Dabbagh, 2007; Fuchs, 2020; Proserpio & Gioia, 2007). With the onset of VLEs in elementary education due to the COVID-19 pandemic and the continuation of synchronous virtual learning thereafter, VLEs have become commonplace in K-3 contexts across Ontario. Yet, as we contend with the ubiquitous nature of technology in early elementary, a paucity of literature exists regarding teachers’ and early childhood educators' (ECE) experiences of planned and lived curricula (Aperribai et al., 2020; Ferdig et al., 2020; Muldong et al., 2021) in VLEs. Adopting a narrative methodological approach, I reflected on themes unearthed through narrative interviews with five educators (Clandinin, 2006; Clandinin & Connelly, 1988, 1996, 2000). Early narrative analysis suggested four narrative threads: time, parent relationships, classroom community, teacher presence and engagement, and technological barriers. Each thread explored how teachers navigated the entanglements of planned and lived curricular experiences in VLEs. Further, the threads exposed critical elements to be considered in future VLE policy and curricular reform in the K-3 context.

The Power of Role Play and Imagination in Online Learning

Lisa Hammershaimb — 2024-11-24

Asynchronous capstone courses often lack clear opportunities for students to gain confidence in applying skills they’ve learned throughout their program of study. To counteract this, I developed an HR capstone simulation course. Through the experience, I learned the power of low-tech role play to reinvigorate the online capstone experience. To accomplish this, the course author and I created Jade Stone, a fictional home décor and accessories company and the site of an eight-week simulation. Students entered the simulation as Jade Stone’s new HR manager and were required to solve increasingly complex issues. I leveraged my design background to make branding assets and emails, further immersing students. The course author and I developed engaging avatar videos, discussions, and assignments to prepare students for HR careers by integrating academic knowledge with real-world applications. Student feedback showed the continuity of story arc and practical application made this coursework highly engaging. Developing the simulation was intensely collaborative, requiring meticulous planning to seamlessly embed content without disrupting the fictional world. Though the course took much creative planning, it resulted in a delightful capstone experience that allowed students to gain confidence as they imagined themselves as HR managers.

Role of Social Media in Addressing Educational Inequality

Daeun Jung — 2024-10-09

Although digital technology is valorized for its promises in empowering individual learners and democratize educational opportunities, such hopeful imaginaries need to be critically revisited. What is the role of social media in addressing educational inequality? This study aims to unravel the question by examining the role of social media in the college choice system of potential first-generation college students. The study adopts a multiple case study approach, engaging with eleven high school seniors, whose parents did not complete a four-year college/university. Two interviews and a week of social media diary data were collected. The themes revealed the teens’ contradictory views toward the role of social media in their college choice system: (a) abundant but insufficient information, (b) helpful but not impactful for college choice, and (c) inspiring but distressing experiences. The contradictions uncover the important role of in-person support system and resources embedded in marginalized teens’ college choice system, underscoring the pre-existing inequalities in their social contexts. Based on the results, I critically discuss the role of social media in addressing educational inequality, particularly the optimism around digital informal learning, and provide suggestions for formal schooling to enhance marginalized teens’ college access.

Exploring Playful Hybrid Teaching Practices in Higher Education

Sandra Abegglen — 2024-11-23

The Playful Hybrid Higher Education project [https://playhybrid.education/], based in the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape at the University of Calgary (Canada) and funded by the Imagination Lab Foundation, explores how play and creativity can be integrated into hybrid classrooms, particularly in response to the shift to blended learning during COVID-19. Through interviews and surveys with Canadian higher education stakeholders, the project aims to provide urgently needed best practice guidance to enhance staff competency and improve student outcomes. This paper presents the preliminary outcomes of the project, with a specific focus on (re)imagining a creative blended university that fosters student success. By sharing initial findings, the paper offers inspiration on how playful and creative approaches can enrich the hybrid learning experience, ultimately contributing to a more engaging and effective higher education environment.

Considering a Reboot

Christopher Marsh — 2024-10-16

The gaming industry, expected to exceed $300 billion in global revenue by 2025, offers unique challenges and opportunities for academic programs and the traditional collegiate curriculum development process. This research discusses how game design curricula can evolve to meet those demands through sustainability and preparing graduates to be skilled and conscious of their impact and opportunities in the field.

Evolving our Understanding of Technology-Integrated Assessment

Colin Madland — 2024-09-27

In this paper, we review the literature on technology in assessment in higher education and compare how the literature aligns with the assessment in a digital world framework (Bearman et al., 2022). We found themes in the literature that were not present in the framework (e.g., academic integrity and faculty workload) and constructs in the framework not evident in the literature (e.g., future self and future activities). Additionally, we consider other gaps in both the framework and the literature evident in day-to-day practices and government legislation or mandates, such as considering legal or ethical aspects of duty of care and the integration of Indigenous worldviews. We then developed the technology-integrated assessment framework to help instructors and administrators consider a broader range of constructs when planning assessment strategies in technology-integrated learning environments and to serve as a basis for further investigation into how the different constructs within the framework contribute to how we design, implement, and teach about assessment in digital learning environments today. We present an introduction of this technology-integrated assessment framework and discuss future research goals and opportunities.

Developing Scales of Learner Modality Preferences and Perspectives on Online Learning

Valerie Irvine — 2024-09-22

While the COVID-19 pandemic significantly transformed post-secondary course delivery formats, little attention has been paid to post-pandemic learner preferences. To address this gap, we designed two scales to advance our understanding of learner preferences for online learning modalities: the Modalities of Digital Education – Learner Preference (MODE-LP) scale and the Perceptions of Online Learning Scale (POLS). In this proceeding, we describe the development and piloting of these scales, including how they can provide a nuanced understanding of learner preferences for online programs, courses, and course designs and the key underlying factors that impact them. We conclude with a snapshot of preliminary results and a discussion of future research.

Designing Cyberinfrastructure for Knowledge Sharing

Sarah Vela — 2024-12-18

FishSounds (https://fishsounds.net) is an online portal that provides open and user-friendly access to academic scholarship regarding the sounds made by fish species. It is the result of an international collaboration between students, scientists, and information professionals, and has become a resource used around the globe for research, education, journalism, and general interest. This website is just the first instance of a new approach to sharing knowledge and an emerging cyberinfrastructure for open scholarship. The codebase behind FishSounds was designed to be reusable with other datasets, and in the coming years additional portals will connect users to knowledge from varied subject areas across academic disciplines. This discussion examines the development and reception of FishSounds as a case study for the creation of these websites, called Searchable Online Catalogues of Knowledge, or SOCKs. An examination of the lessons learned from different audiences accessing FishSounds will be used to guide the development of the SOCK platform as it is publicly released.

The Importance of Showing Up (Virtually)

Danielle E. Lorenz — 2024-11-24

Although online discourses about dissertation writing (i.e., you should be writing memes) offer students levity, they function in stark contrast to how dissertation writing is treated in real life. Canadian education scholars with PhDs have examined the student-supervisor relationship (McAlpine & Weis, 2000), collaborative writing spaces (Eaton & Dombroski, 2022; Ens et al., 2011), and the overall difficulties of the dissertation process (Bayley et al., 2012; Walter & Stouk, 2020), but we have yet to locate literature on the perspectives of Canadian education PhD students who have generated online communities of practice to engage in their dissertation writing. To obtain better understanding of our personal relationships to writing and virtual communities of practice, we established an online writing group during the summer of 2023 where we wrote our respective candidacy proposal and dissertation chapters while also reflecting on and responding to prompts about the process of writing. This reflection on our writing practice concludes that if PhD students feel un(der)supported by institutional writing communities, or if said communities are not available, constructing their own community will be beneficial to their writing goals

Creating Capacity for Digital Transformation of Education

Hongran Cui — 2024-09-30

Canadian institution currently provides a PhD program in educational technology. While requirements for flexible access is a global trend, no doctoral programs with a specific educational technology focus are available online and only 15% of PhD programs in Education offer online or blended formats overall. While this review excludes the EdD pathway, we did find two EdD programs in educational technology that could be accessed entirely online plus one blended program. As technological and conceptual shifts of entire sectors that prioritize digital learning and digital literacy (e.g., BC Digital Learning Strategy), there is significant demand for PhD qualified individuals to lead, execute, or support these initiatives. As such, this paper concludes with a reflection on alternative options for accessible PhD study of educational technology.