Topic 1 showcase: Blended Learning and Personal Privacy

Teaching strategies has significantly changed with the advancement of technology, the recent pandemic isn’t solely the cause of the different possibility of blended learning but rather act as a fuse that alerted the education institutions to emphasis on taking advantage of the online environment.

I agree with the concept that blended learning isn’t simply the fusion of face to face learning and online learning (Vaughan, Garrison&Cleveland-lnnes,2013). It is a “thoughtfully “structured system with conceptual order of significant methods to engage the student while delivering quality educational experience for higher education. I think blended learning environments will not only be beneficial to constructivism learning in higher education as the students are likely metacognitive and willing to take some responsibility in their learning. However, I believe face to face teaching should be primarily emphasized and technology could be supplemental to the traditional face to face learning environment. Technology will not always have limitations on community interaction. Many times, students will learn some unfamiliar skills through the Internet. For example, seeing the process of solving a MATH problem on YouTube.

Furthermore, as the critical concern of privacy being widely expressed towards using big data in education, I am curious about the contradiction between privacy and student’s honesty. Respecting individual privacy is important however, student’s academic integrity should also be as important because the fairness of the education system should be equal to everyone.

Next, the protection of personal information is also very important. Under the influence of Covid-19, the duration of online learning has become longer and longer. Students often ignore the privacy issue when they log in to social media or some websites to fill in the privacy information. Most students are unaware of how big data operates and how it is used, and in such cases, students are unaware of personal information being exposed. The issue of passwords also needs to be taken seriously. Although Edtech can conduct detailed analysis of students, it still touches on the issue of personal privacy (Regan & Jesse, 2019). Edtech helps students make specific study plans and groups by obtaining their information, but I don’t think this is necessary. I think it affects students’ mental health to some extent.

I would like to emphasize on the idea of technology should be used as a supplemental tool to assist teaching but should be considered before used as assessment tools. Integrating technology into the education system could be a double-edged sword. How students interact with each other is a very important part of the blended learning.

Also, another concern I would like to discuss is distractions on the internet. In a student perspective, traditional learning is already creative enough and some traditional teaching activities already diverges the attention of the students, will adding more layers to the education structure be beneficial or diverges the attention of students even more? The internet opens the accessibility of education to learners, the blended learning will be most effective in engaging the students.