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Cybersecurity in Online Learning: Innovations for Teacher Training and Empowerment
Get PDFPCF10 Sub-theme: Inspiring Innovations // Recent technological advances in teaching and learning provide dynamic tools required to meet the educational needs of the digital era. However, teachers and other educators are increasingly experiencing cyber threats while teaching online, thereby affecting the quality of teaching as well as learning outcomes. In recent times, there have been reports of learning disruption caused by cybercriminals using attacks like ransomware, denial of service and data theft. In this context, teachers need to be able to harness the right tools, resources, and instructional practices to ensure not only continuity but also quality and effective learning. In this paper, we use the Cybersecurity Training for Teachers course series as a detailed case study to determine the cybersecurity challenges that educators faced when they moved their classes online, and how the knowledge and skills gained from the training helped to address them. The course series, offered by COL over a period of 2 years, attracted more than 7000 participants from 96 countries. Drawing from participant surveys, the paper presents an assessment of the perceived pedagogical impact of specific cyber threats. Finally, we propose innovations for teacher training and on-going empowerment in cybersecurity, to minimise the negative impact of cyber threats on online teaching and learning. // Paper ID 882
What to Tune in Little Programmers?
Get PDFPCF10 Sub-theme: Inspiring Innovations // Learning a programming language is not an easy task for beginners. Due to this, teachers always struggle hard to teach programming. To teach programming to beginners, teachers primarily focus on programming language syntax and its application to solve problems. Online programming courses also focus on the same aspect. In fact, automatic programming language learning tools and platforms work on the same concept. This gives a false illusion that programming is all about syntax memorization and application. In reality, the art of programming deals with many other parameters. This research presents the minimal set of parameters needed to tune beginner level programmers. This parameter set consists of eleven programming skills given below. // 1. Concept Understanding Skill 2. Concept Application Skill 3. Innovation Skill 4. Logic Skill 5. Structure Understanding Skill 6. Syntax Understanding Skill 7. Syntax Application Skill 8. Structure Application Skill 9. Problem Solving Time Skill 10. Overall Programming Performance Skill 11. Error Handling Skill // We conducted a Delphine study to come up with the above-listed parameters. This research also finds a pairwise correlation between some of these parameters. These correlations show many interesting trends. For example, concept understanding skill shows a weak correlation with most skills, including application skill. At the same time, application skill strongly correlates with nearly all skills except concept understanding skill. This helps to conclude a fact that concerning programming language concept understanding is a memorization issue. On the other hand, concept application is an implementation issue. This research also presents the relationships that exist between these skills and Bloom’s taxonomy. Further, this research presents the methods for nurturing these skills. // We strongly believe that this pairwise correlation helps teachers and educators to design pedagogically effective programming lectures and platforms. // Paper ID 289
Agile Learning: Infusing Agility in an Online
No full textPCF10 Sub-theme: Inspiring Innovations [PRESENTATION] // The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) has crossed its inflection point and is becoming a reality. Several industry leaders and organizations are advocating for a reform in education and training systems, among others, because of the recent advances in 4IR technologies and the accelerated adoption of these technologies in the industry. This places a particularly critical demand on the future workforce – be agile. Students are expected to adapt to the increased human-machine symbiosis anticipated in emerging employment types. Agility is the means of adaptation. Similar to how several key industries in general are reshaping themselves to be agile organizations, academic institutions are also expected to infuse agility in its operations, specifically in preparing learners to be lifelong learners. That is, learners are to reskill themselves to accommodate the changing workplace. To succeed, students need to master several competencies including 1) the ability to marry intelligent computing to their work, 2) to track and measure their workplace productivity, 3) to connect technology, data and human literacies in a globalized context, 4) to nurture cognitive and metacognitive capacities (e.g., self-regulation, critical thinking), and 5) to be agile. While it is quite possible to introduce the philosophy and the application of agility in a theoretical manner, an alternative is to let the students practice agility as part of their coursework. Courses can be designed to subject the learning outcomes, study tasks, and associated activities to agile methods. Athabasca University is currently in the process of converting two of its online courses, a graduate course and an undergraduate course, to an agile learning pedagogy. This workshop, with live demonstrations, will detail the process of transformation of a constructivist online content to agile content. It further offers a suite of metrics to measure the impact of agile learning. // Paper ID 618
Vancouver ODL Veterans Discuss the Impact and Legacy of Covid-19
Get PDFPCF10 Sub-theme: Building Resilience [PRESENTATION] // The Covid-19 pandemic has disrupted education worldwide at all levels. Most jurisdictions and institutions paused the use of face-to-face education methods for longer or shorter periods and replaced them by various approaches to open and distance learning. The panel will address two broad questions about the impact and legacy of the pandemic. First, how will the use of remote teaching since 2020 change the role and style of ODL in education in the future? Second, what role could ODL now play in repairing the damage that Covid-19 has inflicted on the education of people at all levels? The session will give participants the opportunity to review their own experience of teaching and learning under Covid restrictions and their expectations of changes in future practice that the pandemic will stimulate. // Paper ID 544
Open Educational Resources in the Commonwealth 2021
No full textThe present report is the outcome of a study on the status of OER in the Commonwealth conducted in late 2021. Considering the importance of OER in the context of the challenges posed by Covid-19, the findings shall be useful for Member States and educational institutions to mainstream OER. The overall objective is to help countries across the Commonwealth understand the status of OER and develop strategies and action plans for the implementation of the 2019 UNESCO Recommendation on OER
Use of Moodle Workshops for Student Self and Peer Assessment
No full textPCF10 Sub-theme: Fostering Lifelong Learning // Self and peer assessment is reported to be an effective assessment practice for students in higher education with a number of benefits as well as challenges. Learning Management Systems have created ways in which to implement such assessments online with Moodle having the Workshop activity as an option. This study aims to explore the success of an online self and peer assessment activity experience. Students in two practical courses at the Department of Social Sciences, University of Namibia were introduced and participated in a self and peer assessment activity. An online questionnaire, administered through Moodle’s Survey activity, was used to gather data from the students. Key findings include the fact that most students had never been exposed to self and peer assessment before hence faced a number of challenges. However, those who managed to pull off the assessment did share that is was useful and they enjoyed it. The findings from the study would be added to the training of lecturers on the use of Moodle Workshops at the University. // Paper ID 060
Status of Distance Learning in South Africa: Contemporary Developments and Prospects
No full textThe report presents a survey of distance learning in South Africa: contemporary developments and prospects. It is based on both archival and field data
Promoting Equity, Inclusion and Building Resiliency in the Caribbean Education System
Get PDFPCF10 Sub-theme: Promoting Equity and Inclusion // This paper contains a review of three published articles by the author on various coping mechanisms implemented by Trinidadian (37), Grenadian (44), and Guyanese (12) educators during the pandemic. The two studies reflect the issues of absenteeism, digital divide, accessibility, parental involvement, student motivation and ways in which teachers in rural Guyana were alleviating learning loss. The sampling method used was purposive. The two studies are qualitative in nature with descriptive phenomenology capturing the participants’ lived experiences. Semantic and latent coding determined the major themes of the studies. The findings in these studies expand the extant literature on emergency remote education. // Paper ID 726
Decrypting the Learners’ Retention Factors in Massive Open Online Courses
Get PDFMassive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) have recently become attractive at most universities, and the number of MOOCs has risen significantly, particularly in India. Despite their popularity, previous research has revealed a low course completion rate and a scarcity of research on the factors that influences learners’ retention in MOOCs. Therefore, it is a good idea to investigate previous research to understand the factors behind the learners’ retention so that an ideal learning model can be created. This study used Structural Equation Modelling to find out the unexplored learner retention factors in MOOCs and create a model, which may extend the satisfaction. MOOC data sets were collected from different Indian universities in Uttarakhand state. This study has explored the majority of influencing factors correlated with learners’ satisfaction. The findings show that MOOC usage intention is influenced by a willingness to credit mobility, the allure of the latest trendy course, content localisation and perceived effectiveness
Keynote Address: Promoting Equity and Inclusion
No full textKeynote address, delivered by Hon. Buti Kgwaridi Manamela, Deputy Minister of Higher Education, Science and Technology, South Africa, at the Tenth Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning (PCF10) in Calgary, Canada on 16 September 2022