W09: Personalized Learning

Great work Week 9 team! I really enjoyed going over your websites. Information are clearly organized and visual contents was very helpful for easily understanding the content of personalized learning. Also discussion questions are well selected for myself to reflect not only my perspective on personalized learning but my current school system adapting technology for students' learning. As I was also mentioned on my discussion post, I wonder how you would suggest on school that does not have great technology or information on bringing technology in to the individual classroom. In order to have personalized learning environment for the students, technology is mandatory. Can there be any suggestion on having personalized learning environment without using technology or minimum usage of technology tools? Great work!

What a great site - I really enjoyed it. Having the different learning styles represented in your delivery was delightfully on the nose. And on a nit-picky level, I loved that the audio presentation was all the same voice (and not just the same voice, but the same effects and background noise really made a difference for me) - while still crediting the different contributors. And on the videos, I loved that everyone was in front of a solid background and wearing a graphic-tee. Little attentions to detail like that really add to the overall feeling one gets from a site. My feeling is always that if you put the much into the style, you must have really put something into the substantial stuff that actually matters. I did find the textual presentation a little verbose, but then maybe that's just because that's not my learning style! So even that fits in well! If I HAD to make a criticism I'd say that the red text that you used for emphasis made me expect a clickable link, and then when it wasn't I was surprised. But if that's the level of criticism we're getting into here you guys must've done super well. And you did!

Hi, personalized learning team! I went through your OER a couple of times to review some information about personalized learning and was able to jump between different mediums at ease. The details in your layout are reflected in your well organized OER, and that your team is able to offer two different types of infographic using a bright or a minimal colour image. I find that very thoughtful as there are some people who are colour blind or have sensitivity issues. I especially enjoyed how your team separated the various mediums so learners know where to go and learn from a medium they're more comfortable with. Having to create these pages allowing for various learners to have full access to information must be very time-consuming. Are there ways for you to able to assess which medium is needed the most in your class? Also, being able to cover almost all sensory mediums, does your team have a way to check for learner understanding of the material?

Hi team, Thank you for your thoughtful and well-designed OER. I enjoyed the fact that you were able to create three different versions of the same lesson. This is a great way to showcase how educators can create resources for people and their various learning specifications. I found the website was easy to follow and allowed me - as the learner - to choose which method best suited me. If I were to provide feedback, I would ask - as mentioned in the discussions - what educators can do to streamline the process of creating personalized content for their students/courses/business, etc. It is amazing to be able to personalize content for each individual. However, this could also create a time consuming endeavour. Any thoughts or suggestions for teachers in a school setting to help alleviate some of this obstacle? Thanks!

Hello Personalized learning Team. Thanks for the OER. Design wise, enjoyed how clean and easy to navigate it was. I think it was very “considerate” of the team to provide different deliver methods, giving up different options on how to access the information. 
Maybe in the landing page, in the begging, the visitor can choose how to proceed with the presentation. 

PL is definitely another way to facilitate learning. The best part of it, is that it can cater different types of learners. My only concern, as mention in the padlet comment is affordability. Since it is “personalized” how much time and would it take to create a personalized learning platform or curriculum for that specific student? What about instructor’s followup ? How would that work?

Hey Personalized Learning team - thanks for the OER! I appreciated the different approaches to the content delivery. However, if I were to personalize it, I'd like to have a mix of content through the flow. At its simplest, perhaps each section could have offered a choice on the path ahead? In researching the technology to support personalized learning, did you get any impression regarding the complexity of building such a solution? With the availability of AI and ML platforms, is this a capability that is now getting simpler to deploy? Could someone use Watson (or similar) to put together a personalized learning solution? Or is this something that only a team of researchers needs to build starting from scratch? And in bridging the world between technology and people, I wonder if there's a role to play for solutions such as Amazon's Mechanical Turk? Is there a 3rd player needed in the classroom: 1. Teacher, 2. Personalized Learning Technology and 3. Mechanical Turk. The Mechanical Turk could help to interpret and fill gaps between the teacher and the technology - bringing more human insights, but through technology.

Hi ‘Personalized Learning’ Team! Thanks for your OER. It presented a good range of information about the topic and the multi-stream approach nicely mirrored the personalized learning concepts you aimed to cover. The main area I’d like more information about is the business venture landscape of personalized learning – both in terms of the examples of current applications of this approach and the practical considerations (not only related to the instructor and in-class/out-of-class application). The way you addressed the benefits and potential challenges of PL in regards to actual instructions was very useful. A bit more on how the potential challenges may be addressed (eg specific ways AI can help) would further enhance the OER. Thanks again for preparing such a great learning experience! (PS. I included a few thoughts about the format in my responses to your survey)

Kudos to you, team Personalized Learning. I really enjoyed your OER and thought that it was inventive that you offered your OER in the different formats. I found that this helped to influence my own understanding of my learning as I actually found that the printed and audio version helped me most. On a side note, I really liked how you embedded questions in your videos. Is the program that you used to do this free? I could see this being an awesome addition to some of the videos that I currently have for my students. In terms of your content, I think that your OER was well-researched and thoughtful. I thought that your reflection questions were interesting and timely, and related well to the information that you presented. One suggestion I would have for the video segment of your OER would be to consider having either an animation or a voice-over on some of the slides. I found it challenging to keep up with the content when listening to the presenter, and in a way, it seemed more equivalent to an audio recording of the material. I think that if you had some images interspersed with the presenter (who did an excellent job, by the way) this would make this component of the OER easier to follow along. Other than that, I thought that the work that you presented was well-established in the literature and made a lot of sense. I also appreciate how you spent some time considering the potential pitfalls of PL, and I really liked your point about how PL software is not "pedagogically neutral"- it certainly gave me some food for thought! Thank you for putting together such a cogent and easy-to-navigate OER on PL. I learned a lot. Sarah

Great work Personalized Learning team! This certainly looks like you’ve put a lot of work into creating your OER. I really enjoyed how you provided four options of how your classmates could learn and navigate through your content. I choose to navigate your concept through the video option. I really enjoyed the questions throughout the videos. I will be honest, at the beginning of the first video I needed to go back and listen in order to complete the fill in the blanks correctly as I found myself getting distracted - looking at other webpages or my phone. The questions being presented forced me to put all of those things aside and really focus on the information that was being presented to me so I made sure I was listening for the necessary information. This really surprised me because I was certain that it would be the best learning style for me. After powering through my chosen method and looking at the other methods, I think I should have gone with the traditional text which nicely laid out all of the content you created in a very clean way. Overall, I feel like I didn’t gain or lose any knowledge that I had about personal learning while navigating my way through your OER. I would have been interested in finding out more about Personalized Learning software, as well as how we can utilize what we already have in our classrooms as we integrate personal learning.

Hi team! I really enjoyed the way your OER was presented. I am a big fan of infographics (I literally collect them when I find them) and I just really enjoyed the way it was included in your OER. I did have the chance to compare it with the other platforms (just so I didn't miss too much elsewhere) and I noticed that the page did not have the Reflection Questions that all the other pages had. Also on the infographic was the mention of an IEP (I Googled it) but I am not sure if that acronym is a universal term. Where I am we call them IPP so something that might need clarification. Your discussion questions and reflection points were great and it really helped me to develop my thought. Something I did notice as I was typing my thought was that we didn't see examples of current ed-tech resources related to Personalized learning. It would be great if you could share any you found during your research! One example I came across during my time was the company Knewton, very interesting history and product that I think is worth checking out!