What experiences have you had with interactivity in learning environments? How did the interaction (or lack of interaction) affect your learning? Your enjoyment?

Think about these questions. Think about your experiences in different learning environments. As you read through my experiences and responses to these questions do you relate or have your learning experiences differed from mine?

I have experienced a variety of learning experiences or the past four years of my Bachelor of Education. I started my degree as a mature student, returning after 15 years of raising my children. I applied during the pandemic not sure of what the next years were going to look like. When classes began in September of 2020, they were fully online. My class and I, used the UVic platform Brightspace. This you would think would be easy for us to navigate as all professors were using the same platform. However, this was not the case, as the professors were also learning how to use this form of interface for interacting with students. Each professor layed out their course work differently and us, as students, had to learn where to find timelines, instructions, material and assignments. This platform did start to become a place where we could go to, to interact with our classmates through discussion groups, interact with our professors through graded assignments and comments and where we could look to for up to date course announcements. Even with the struggles at the beginning and some ongoing struggles, it did become a place where I could confidently go for all things course related.

As a class, we started venturing into the world of Zoom. This, I found, was so refreshing after months with little to no social interaction. It was weird to look at yourself and analyze how you looked on the screen during these, at times, lengthy Zoom calls. However, if I tried to focus on the instructor and the others I was sharing the call with, it became a functional space for learning. I have always found it easier to learn when I hear an audible voice and see the face of the person I am learning from. I feel that when I know more about the individual I am learning from that I become more invested in the material. It became a balance that professors were also learning. Too much time on Zoom became exhausting but not enough led to a lack of connection. Breakout rooms, another aspect of Zoom, caused me to be anxious at times when the rooms we randomized. However, when I look back, they gave me the opportunity to get to know my classmates as best we could without meeting in person and have great real-time discussions about the content we were learning about. Zoom will always be something that I will look back on during the Pandemic, with many memories but, most of all, as an effective tool for learning that allowed me to pursue my degree during an unstable time.

Another effective learning tool that was used in one of my online courses is Flipgrid. The professor was using this tool to build community within our online class. In Flipgrid, the teacher was able to have the whole class sign in, so it was always easy to access our group. This was a new platform for me however, it took little time to learn how to navigate its online tools. The professor had bi-weekly videos for us to watch that covered the content and links for us to read or watch to help us further understand the content. Then for our responses to this content, we were to use Flipgrid. Each week, we would individually post a video response to the content. We were then asked to watch our classmates’ videos and send video responses to at least five other classmates. Seeing each other’s faces and hearing each other’s voices sped up the connection with these classmates that, prior to this, we had never met and would, in most cases, never meet with in person after completing the course. In other classes, I have had similar experiences where all of the responses to content and peer interaction were made through written text. When comparing written responses to video responses, I feel that this form of connection aligns more with Inclusive Design. Using Flipgrid will always be a memory I have of a positive online learning experience.

As I think about the past four years, I will always smile as I was given the gift of learning a variety of online tools for learning that bring in the ideas of Inclusive Design. I feel that I am a learner that benefits from professors thinking about the 20% of students that need more accessible tools to fully interact with the content. These tools can look like a interface like Brightspace that allows for its learners to depend on for links to content, interaction with professors and peers, and a place to call home for all things course related. It can also be tools such as Zoom or Flipgrid that allowed me to feel like part of a community of learners and where I could learn virtually face to face from my professor and peers. I am so grateful for the people who invested in building technology that allowed me and my peers access to education during a time of disconnect from a physical community and how distant learning continues even after the pandemic to be a great form of learning.