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Session Abstract: Our educational systems have been designed around binaries for decades. Online learning used to be clearly defined as asynchronous and “anytime, anywhere,” but this is no longer the case. Blended or hybrid learning meant consecutive online and face-to-face mixing and now dozens of new terms have emerged to fill the new landscape of merging modes. In this keynote, we will explore the intersection and biases around pedagogy, modality, and access. How do we personalize modality? What does this mean for the learner? instructor? or the system? How does this impact the quality of learning? learner privacy? the community? do remote learners feel excluded? How does it impact the financial model? I developed the multi-access learning framework in 2008 through funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation. Since then, I have been teaching (and merging) learners from various modalities in multi-access courses that connected face-to-face and remote learners both synchronously and asynchronously; however, this does not mean HyFlex, where learners can join in any mode. I do believe we must wrestle between intentionality of design and full learner control. Finding this balance does produce strong learning experiences and communities. I will share my encounters with institutional normative behaviour and how I encouraged transformations at the individual and program level. I will also touch on the importance of open courses and OER-enabled pedagogy as a thread that pulls together learners from diverse modes of access. We finally have the opportunity to create change, for inclusion and for social justice, for good.
Facilitator Bio: Dr. Valerie Irvine is the area advisor in Educational Technology and co-director of the Technology Integration and Evaluation (TIE) Research Lab at the University of Victoria. She has been teaching online and open since 1998 at both the graduate and undergraduate levels. Valerie developed the multi-access learning framework (2009, 2013) as a means for learners to personalize their modality. She teaches a cohort of teachers from across the Western provinces in both blended online and multi-access learning formats. She also teaches a blended core undergraduate teacher education course on technology and innovation in education. She has received funding from the Canada Foundation for Innovation, British Columbia Knowledge Development Fund, the Government of Canada Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and is president of the new Congress association, the Open/Technology in Education, Society, and Scholarship Association (OTESSA). She practices an inquiry-based approach to teaching through a trauma-informed lens. She is welcome to building connections and can be reached at [email protected] or via Twitter at @_valeriei.
Recommended Pre-Reading: Irvine, V. (2020). The Landscape of Merging Modalities. EDUCAUSE Review 55, no. 4 (2020). Retrieved from https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/10/the-landscape-of-merging-modalities
