Month: October 2022

I chose this learning activity because it helps me to better comprehend what is a digital identity, and how it really affects and becomes a part of our life.

During the week, all of my classes were online courses, so I spent most of my time at home to have a digital learning as well as achieve my weekly tasks for each course. I often used Email, Slack, BrightSpace, and WeChat to join in class communities, and communicate with my professors, group members, classmates, and friends after the class. Zoom and BrightSpace allowed me to meet online with professors, class members, and group members; meanwhile, I acquired knowledge and studying resources from them. WordPress and Google Docs were the tools I utilized to share thoughts and do assignments(for both group work and personal work). Besides, I also chose to draw both in the park and at home; this helped me find more interesting and meaningful objects to draw so that I could better achieve my weekly drawings.

From my network map, most of my learnings are digital learnings, and most of my connections were from technologies, which surprised me a lot. Specifically, I perceived that when I adopted digital learning, my relationships with professors, friends, classmates, and group members were all two-way connections. We in time communicated with each other and gave instant responses and feedbacks. However, when I studied alone and did individual tasks, my relationship with my class communities was one-way connection. In addition, in terms of the relationships among classmates, it tended to be less connected for online drawing class, since those tasks were all individual tasks; whereas for the class EDCI337 and EDCI339, there were many group assignments, which leads the class members to be more connected. Overall, each class with different methods and different kinds of relationships could lead to a good outcome.

Here is my network map(screenshot and in PDF. format):

Digital learning has become a crucial part in the life of contemporary students, and it is vital for us to pay attention to privacy issues when we use digital identity for communicating and learning. From my personal perspective, students’ personal information, such as full names, home address, phone numbers, should not be leaked to other people, organizations, and companies. However, it is acceptable for institutions or instructors to use tools that may challenge students’ privacy only if there is a permission from the students.

In terms of the idea and policies of privacy in education, it is easy to look for relevant and uncovered information on the school website. What students need to do is to search some key words, such as students’ privacy. There are a variety of ways that helps students access and understand the areas of students’ privacy. Some pages and documents are instructing the idea of privacy from the perspective of teachers, others may from the students’ point of views. They are even showing the exact policies in details. Before I search them, I surely cared about my personal privacy, and I noticed some of the policies. For example, whether or not my email address, home address, and my photos are shown on class communities. It is nice that schools and professors respect our choices, so we are optional to reveal our information when there is a class meeting for learning.

Moreover, I learned that BC’s Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (FIPPA), as privacy legislation, really supports students to protect their personal privacies. According to FIPPA, since foreign governments may access to students’ personal information from some educational technologies, whether or not student information is accessed and stored on servers outside of Canada is inevitable for us to notice and know. That explains why our instructors always spend some time to detailedly discuss the class technologies in course syllabus and at the beginning of the first class. I was thinking that information about class technologies is not necessary for us to know before we study and start to use, which was completely wrong. Besides, I also discovered that students are able to decide which educational technologies they would use if they are aware of some privacy restrictions; meanwhile, professors always provide alternatives for students to choose and complete school tasks.

Furthermore, this learning about students’ digital privacy is meaningful for me, and it helps me to be closer to my learning goals. Specifically, it allows me to understand more about the field of digital identity and technology tools we use for studying as well as how they are playing a role in our life.

References:

https://www.uvic.ca/til/onlinelearning/home/privacyresources/index.php

https://www.uvic.ca/til/assets/docs/Student%20Privacy.pdf

https://www.uvic.ca/library/research-teaching/copyright/faculty/studentprivacy/index.php

https://www.uvic.ca/til/assets/docs/Top%20Educational%20Technology%20Tools%20for%20Learning.pdf