The Pitch: Issue #2

An Update On How Learning Is Happening in Ontario Post-Secondary

Photo by Sanah Suvarna on Unsplash

Feel The Learn

While the idea of the ‘Learning Style’ (“Oh I’m a visual learner!”) has, over the years revealed itself as a myth along the lines of the Loch Ness Monster and Ogopogo, that doesn’t mean you can’t learn with style. That’s what The Open Learner Patchbook is all about. Stories by learners about how they took control of an aspect of their learning. Take this one for example: Patch Fifteen: A Two Way Street.

This patch was submitted by Brittney Babin from Cambrian College in Sudbury, Ontario. In the piece, she calls on instructors to be cognisant that there is an emotional aspect to what they are asking students to do and that they need to be involved in the relationship building process. As do the learners themselves. It’s great food for thought.

If this thought food inspires you to want to add a patch yourself, send a message to thecatch@ecampusontario.ca and he’ll let you know how!

Techno

Great things happen in educational technology when:

1. You want to make an open source version of a thing, and
2. You get students involved in its creation

What you get is a home-grown, free, open source educational technology that generates this kind of student feedback:

“It’s ridiculous that other courses require you to buy a remote for this kind of thing when literally everyone in the lecture hall has a tiny computer on them at all times.”

Professor Ryan Martin of the Department of Physics at Queen’s University, and eleven (so far!) of his students,selflessly and heroically developed Qlicker, an open source tool for “live in class polling right on your phone” and put the source code up on Github for anyone to take. Grab it here: https://github.com/qlicker, and grab the user guides here https://qlicker.github.io/.

So, just to be clear: it is OPEN SOURCE. That means FREE to USE. You can just TAKE IT. If you are in a class that uses  some kind of polling service let your prof know about Qlicker from Queen’s and the amazing contributions  that Ryan and his students have made make in class polling better (and free!).

Unsolicited Advice

The unsolicited advice section is our way of surfacing an idea, tool or corner of the internet you might not have stumbled upon yet.This week, we are advising in an unsolicited way that you to follow us down a rabbit hole into things like Open Educational Resources and student government organizations by having a look at this blog post, by eCampusOntario Student Supports Lead Chris Fernlund. In the post, Chris describes the OER Seminar hosted by eCampusOntario earlier in the fall. The seminar brought together 6 different student government organizations from around Ontario. Might we also suggest that at next year’s seminar, we make a motion to join all six organizations and call it the REFOCASAOUSACSAGSACFS ? No? Okay.

Portfolio Padding

Like Ebenezer Scrooge after his ghostly visits, you still have time for this opportunity, but not much.

Time for what? Good question! You have until December 10th to apply for an experience that would look very slick and shiny in your portfolio, on your resumé, and in your brain. That opportunity is for you to become a member of the eCampusOntario SXD Lab Ambassador Network!

What does that mean? Well there’s no need for you to read it here, when it’s already written here, but let us tell you this part right now: This is a paid opportunity! We hope you’ll check it out and apply.

Show & Tell

 The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) (a subgroup of the possible future but probably not REFOCASAOUSACSAGSACFS supergroup mentioned above) has itself one heck of an online space for sharing the very stories that we also like to share here in The Pitch. Take their most recent post for example. It’s an update, by Operations & Communications Director Deborah Lam, on the release of their Technology-Enabled Learning policy paper. Tech-enabled learning is something we are particularly fond of here at eCampusOntario, what with it being our reason for existence and all. Well done, OUSA! You do great work.

We hope you enjoyed this issue of The Pitch! Please share it all over the place if you liked it and consider sharing your own experiences for a future issue by emailing Chris Fernlund at cfernlund@ecampusontario.ca.