W05: Personalized Learning

Thanks everyone for the insightful contributions. When sharing your thoughts on personalized learning, most of you expressed that, it had the potential to increase significantly students' engagement. However, we also realized by reading your comments that parents' engagement would expand exponentially too! The website activities made it clear that the nature of the roles of teachers, students and communities at large would be changing with personalized learning. As it is a student centered form of learning, students would be the initiators and teachers would act more like guide and mentors. You also smartly pointed to the fact that the concept of personalized learning is nothing new but the technologies to deliver it are new and as such, there is a learning curve. For our particular group of educators/ TechEd graduate students, to consider using/purchasing reading technology, you mostly want it to be evidence based, easy to use, interactive, with real time feedback available and FUN to use!

Thank you, Matt. The results of the survey will be in the revision and the final repost of the OER.

Great work Aziza, James, and Ryan. I really appreciated the content distinguishing the difference between differentiation, individualization, and personalized learning as those terms can be hard to tell apart. I also appreciated that you applied personalized learning to a specific context, as I think this illustrated the workings of personalized learning very well. I do have a couple of suggestions. First, the landing page was a bit difficult to read some of the text, as the background picture is quite busy--this introduction sets the stage for your hard work, so make it shine! Finally, I think you can enhance this project with a discussion on privacy, as this is a core concern for any type of technology that utilizes student data. Both Summit and Alt School have come under fire for privacy and ethical reasons.

THANK YOU Aziza, James and Ryan for this enlightening OER. I learned a lot of useful information, and I appreciate that you didn’t water down the topic, but included multiple perspectives and definitions. I echo some of the other comments on the effectiveness of the engaging Padlets and the use of multimedia. ******** SUGGESTIONS ******** If I had to choose one or two ways to possibly improve on the fine work you’ve already done, I would consider adding a TABLE OF CONTENTS so users can quickly and easily jump to the parts that most interest them (a good example is this Google Drive user guide: https://support.google.com/a/users/answer/9310246 ). I would also consider adding some kind of TAKEAWAY PACKAGE that summarizes the main content, perhaps in the form of a downloadable PDF file.

Thank you, Aziza, Ram & James fir creating this presentation. While I thoroughly enjoyed the activities, there were a few things that were key takeaways for me. One of the things that stood out was how you have differentiated between personalized, differentiated and individualized learning. It makes me wonder if Personalization actually includes components of both Individualization and Differentiation. Activity - Part 3: What would I look for in a piece of learning technology? While this is a generic answer, I think it can be applied to learning technologies as well. For me simplicity is most important when looking for a technology that I could use (I am an instructional designer). It also matters to me how well integrated the various functionalities are--does it offer seamless transitions? Can it be used across a variety of platforms and devices, i.e. is it responsive? Is it cloud-based versus server-based versus web-based? How can it be customized to individual learner needs? Is it available for free or paid? What do the upgrades look like? What is the look and feel of the technology? What are the competing products and pros and cons of each. Where is the content hosted? (This is more of a company policy that requires the servers to be in Canada) What are the privacy and security concerns if any? What about the after-sales support? How do I involve instructors and other stakeholders into accepting and using this new piece of technology?

Thank you Aziza, Ram and James! There were several times throughout this unit of learning that I felt compelled to stop for a moment and brainstorm ideas for how to immediately use aspects of personalized learning in my classroom. I liked the flow of the unit and the buttons helped me navigate through it and not miss anything.

Aziza, Ram and James- Thank you for the OER on Personalized learning. I particularly appreciate how you highlighted the differences between personalized, differentiated and individualized learning. These were terms which in my mind were synonymous just a week ago. The interactivity with the padlets were also a great way to learn from others' experiences and thoughts and so doing you really created a community of practice throughout the week.

Hello everyone! I really enjoyed moving through your OER! I found myself to be reflecting on my own experiences and relating them to the content you included on your site. I think it was interactive and I enjoyed the level of participation! The Padlet was a great feature to add as well! Great work!

Nice stuff team! Lots of good information and great flow to the site. One thing that could be nice if the site was a little more interactive - as far a people using the OER. It might be useful to allow replies on the Padlet's to engage the learners by letting them respond to each other. Just a thought! I may have missed it, but I didn't see where one might be able to view the results of the survey. If it's not there, I think that could also be interesting to learners.

Nice work! I enjoyed that! Michael