e-Learning Ecologies MOOC’s Updates

Ubiquitous learning concept in need of a new definition

I appreciate the learning concepts we are learning in this e-learning ecology course. While technology is means to make the learning accessible in a ubiquitous way, learning itself has been a way life for humans to survive.

With traditional classroom bound by walls and teacher as an authority figure, online classrooms maximize individual participation and collective learning.

Learning is for life and not just for living. With ubiquitous computing, as technology enables affordances, learning as an inherent need and developed skill, gives a robust way to personalize learning, acquire knowledge, and co-create knowledge.

Ubiquitous learning at the core, human centric because it aligns to the life long learning need. The traditional classroom learning in my country is linear, time bound and performance based. This approach defeats the innate need of humans to learn in the context of their life despite poor grades (which maybe due to various factors). But that does not mean the need to learn is poor.

With ubiquitous learning, the possibility to learn under the guidance of an online instructor, peer group, and self paced knowledge assimilation, gives way to enhance the natural learning feature that each one posses.

We have Course era as an example of making learning anytime, anywhere. Flipped classroom concept has taken the lead in making learning in the classroom discussion oriented.

On a personal note, with this pandemic we are facing, we are left with no option but move to online learning. I am an interdisciplinary learner, and mostly I inculcate human values in classes with core essence to meaningful life.

A transition from this classroom learning to collaborative assignments through Google classroom and Medium made learning accessible through knowledge creation/sharing.

As an experiment with my students, in tandem with my learning here in this course, I rolled out free online course on life skills. Many enrolled but some had/has difficulty to attend classes due to connectivity issues.

To resolve this I adapted to both offline and online collaborative learning. Assignments were designed to become publications on Medium https://medium.com/@LearningInLiminalSpace

Communication was only through emails and Google classroom. I know there are many latest collaborative spaces available, like this Scholar. In remote places, the awareness of using technology seamlessly takes a longer learning curve. Many parents and students enrolled in my classes never used online platform before.

While leaning in nature of every human is ubiquitous; the technology that offers affordances, can also offer hindrances. The geography places a huge role. Yet, ubiquitous learning is way to life-long, life-wide and shared learning. It is not the technology, pedagogy but the ecology of humans that make learning possible. Walls or virtual is trivial, ‘why’ and ‘if’ of learning motivates us to commit to learning.