Month: March 2022

In this week’s update, we had to read the “Emerging Technologies in Distance Education” paper by George Veletsianos. This paper discussed the concept of distance learning as well as the tools that could better support distance learning. What made me go “wow” was when the writer expressed the disappointment regarding how general technology is being updated so fast but the technology for learning has had a really slow updating rate. The writer further explained this by stating how so many students feel disengaged in their courses. As well as the tools and technology that we use for distant learning seem to be a replica of the traditional face-to-face learning.

I can completely understand and relate to this issue. As soon as covid started schools went starting to tools such as Zoom/Blackboard/MS Teams. But no one realized that this is the replication of in-person learning and students still require some additional tools to keep them motivated and further to keep them engaged. I “wonder” what sorts of tools can be used to keep students better motivated and engaged during distanced learning.

In this week’s update, we had to watch the short film made by Queen’s University students about screening surveillance “#tresdancing”. This short film showed the way surveillance is used in a student’s life to help with studying and also showed different studying tools that could help increase students’ interest in their courses. It was shocking to see some of the tools that the students were asked to use in the video. At the very beginning, we saw how the student got disqualified from an exam just because of the normal house surroundings. It made me go “wow” when I saw how closely the student’s actions were being detected, such as the eye movement, voice, interactions, etc. Does this mean that students are supposed to live in complete isolation? Because in normal conditions such background noises cannot be avoided. This made me worried about mental health issues if this ever becomes the new normal for educational purposes.