With the development of technology and the unexpected emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic in the past two years, open and distributed learning has become one of the most prevailing teaching methods, the number of learners and instructors participating in using it has gradually increased. Therefore, it is necessary to upgrade this learning system with the times, the purpose is to try to create an effective learning environment for all instructors and learners. In this time’s discussion, I would like to share some of my views on improving the open and distributed learning environment.

First, since most schools in the world have switched to online teaching in the past two years, it is important for learners to feel the same experience as on-campus learning, otherwise it will negatively affect their learning efficiency. It is worth mentioning that many students who are looking forward to reopening on-campus learning just want to have the immersive feeling of on-campus classes. In this case, I actually agree with the solution given by The Inclusive Learning Design Handbook, which is open learning should make learners still get involved on the Internet to make them learn better or at least keep them at the original level of study. Expect the contribution such as edit the original content and create new content together, as an international student, now I prefer that the professors arrange some group discussions in synchronous classes that allow students to keep their communication, this can allow international students who returned to their home countries to try their best to maintain their English proficiency, in case to avoid the difficulties on communication after they returning to school in the future.

Then, discuss how to make open learning meaningful and relevant for learners. In the paragraph written by Chris (2016), he explained an example of an imbalance in education due to information and resource restrictions. At the same time, due to the special settings of network access in some countries and regions, the students there may not be able to participate in open learning as usual. Although it is undeniable that digital redlining prevents a lot of information that is harmful to learners, but it also restricts learners’ access to useful knowledge and violates their privacy to a certain extent. Therefore, the upgrading and improvement of this technology is the key to helping learners obtain relevant and meaningful information during the open learning process. In my opinion, improving the function to identify information is the core point of future research on this technology.

Finally, if there is a chance to learn about open learning in the future, what I want to know most is after the COVID-19 pandemic, how will people summary the best practices for delivering open learning and online learning under this special situation? This epidemic is a “protracted war”, so it has a quite big reference value for the continuous upgrade of open learning in the future, and for students, whether having online or on-campus classes, open learning will take up an increasing proportion of their learning

References

Inclusive Learning Design Handbook from OCAD University. 

https://handbook.floeproject.org/

Gilliard, C. (2016). Digital Redlining, Access, and Privacy. [Weblog]. Retrieved from

https://www.commonsense.org/education/articles/digital-redlining-access-and-privacy