These days, I read the articles and books which are talking about open pedagogy, and I have had a clearer concept about what is open pedagogy and the history of open pedagogy. During the years, the notions of open in relation to education have changed a lot, which, according to research, can be found dating back to the 1960s. In 1960s, Open education in schools appeared as the first kind of open pedagogy. Then,  Distance education & open learning, E-learning & online education, Open access publishing, OER, Open practices and Social media appeared in sequence. In  2010 or so, MOOCs appeared as the newest kind of open pedagogy. (Jordan, K., & Weller, M 2017) I was surprised to learn that the notion of open pedagogy appeared in such an early period. Before, I thought that open pedagogy was the same as digital pedagogy. Now I realize, digital pedagogy is merely one of the form of open pedagogy. In fact, open pedagogy means a kind of pedagogy that gives student much more freedom. Nowadays, the internet develops quickly, enabling the information and knowledge to circulate all over the world online. The information an knowledge online can be easily accessed to everyone. Therefore, the appearance of the internet has greatly support the development of open pedagogy. Firstly, the students can learn the courses online wherever and whenever they want. Also, they can access all kinds of learning resources online through database. Besides, the social media like Twitter improves the communication between people. As a result, digital pedagogy seems to be a production of open pedagogy in the 21st century.

Read Claire Howell Major. (2015). Teaching Online – A Guide to Theory, Research, and Practice. Retrieved from http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uvic/detail.action?docID=3318874 (pp. 88-105)
Read Jordan, K., & Weller, M. (2017). Jordan, K. & Weller, M. (2017) Openness and Education: A beginners’ guide. Global OER Graduate Network.

Today I found a video about French learning in Youtube, whose title is Learning French with Harry Potter. (https://youtu.be/PNbajHhBL8M) The video is a section of the movie “Harry Potter”, but is dubbed with French and has both English and French title. The reason why I chose this video is that watching movie is a very interesting activity for students. Compared with learning knowledge from a textbook, it is no doubt that the students can better enjoy the process of French learning while watching movies. Also, I think watching movies is a good way to learn a language. Watching movies in other language can put what you have learned into practice. For example, if you are a beginner of French learning, you can choose some movies with French captions and try to keep up with the speed of the actors. It is a good way for you to practice your reaction to the language. Next, you can try to watch the movie in French without captions. Also, French dubbing is one of the learning activities in our French course. Therefore, watching this video is also a good way for the students to get familiar with dubbing, and they can learn from the video about how to pronounce  French correctly and speak French with emotion. After watching the video, I intend to ask them to do some dubbing in the app themselves so that they can practice and finish the assignment. Some of the students might be more interested in watching other kinds of movies. They can also search for the movies they like. I think this video and the following activity will not be a burden for the students. On the contrary, they can make the students more motivated in French learning. For me, language learning is more about practice but not theory, which means that you should use it after you learn it. I hope the students can learn the skills of speaking French as well as to find the pleasure  of learning a language  through the video.

The topic of our course is fundamental French, which means that the students should be able to use some simple French to communicate with each other. To achieve that goal, our group has come up with many ways. In the first place, we should divide the whole course into many stages. For example, at the beginning we will teach the students some basic things of the language such as the pronunciation and alphabet. And then, we can talk about some frequently used words and the grammar. After they are familiar with the grammar, they can organize the language themselves. Next, we can let them do some listenings, readings, writings and speakings. All in all, we can set a goal for each stage, and the students can master the language step by step. Also, we can do some activities when they learn French. Our ultimate goal is to hold a French debate among these students.(The topic should not be too hard) We all agree that debating is a good way to practice the use of language. If you perform very well in the debate, then it is likely that you can communicate with others without a problem. On top of that, we also have many other activities. Playing drama is also a good way to practice language because you need to translate the actor’s lines into French, and you need to speak it out when you are at the stage. Singing French songs is another way to enhance the feeling of a language; you can learn many useful words and grammar. Lastly, we can play some French movies during the course which only has French captions. It is very interesting and can promote their reaction to the language. The goal for learning a new language is to use it to communicate, so everything we do should be aimed at that purpose. Our group will come up with a set of teaching methods to help the student master the basic of French and be able to debate for some simple topics.

Our group intend to design a course to teach French because French is the second offical language in Canada and it is spoken in many other regions. As for the methods, our group members have different perspective. I choose direct instruction to teach French. I am a Chinese student who has been learning English since primary school, and I believe that French is quite similar to English. Direct instruction is where teachers use explicit teaching techniques to teach a specific skill to their students. This type of instruction is teacher-directed, where a teacher typically stands at the front of a room and presents information.(from google) As a result, I has learned English for almost 15 years through direct instruction and I find it effective. Also, I had ever been an English TA before and have some teaching experience, I believe that every language consists of two parts: grammar and vocabulary. Learning a new language can be dull sometimes, as both learning grammar and memorizing words are dull. The best way to learn grammar is to be taught by a teacher. It is very hard to figure out the rules of the language on your own. As for the vocabulary, you can memorize it by yourself, and the teacher can tell you how to use it. Similar to learning English, learning French can be divided into many stages. During each stage, you need to achieve a goal. First of all, you need to learn some basic words and the grammar. Grammar is the rule of the language; when you figure out the rule, you just need to put the words into the right place of a sentence. Then, you can do some simple practice about listening, reading, and speaking, to enhance the feeling of the language. At the same time, you need to memorize some new words everyday. When you have enough words in your mind, you can try to do more difficult practices and even use the language in real life such as watching a movie in French, listening to French songs, reading French newspapers and articles. Sounds interesting, hahahaha. That is my opinion about the way to learn French.

When I was young, I played computer games very often. One day, I surfed the internet and found that some players were editing the games. I thought it was awesome because when you have the ability to edit or design a game, you will be the one who creates the rule rather than the one who obey the rule. Editing the game is not easy for me as I was young and had little knowledge about the computer. Still, I tried my best to read the method they used to change the data of the game. Then, I downloaded a software and used it to open the data of the game. Suddenly, many “0” and “1” appeared, that was how the computer stored the data of the game. For the next few days, I spent a great amount of time trying to figure out the meaning of the specific number in the specific position. It was dull and time-consuming, but I really enjoyed it and didn’t feel tired at all. I got very strong motivation–to be the designer of the games. Finally, I successfully changed some basic parameters of the game. Later, I found something even more attractive that someone could change the model and effects of the game! It was amazing. However, to achieve that, I need to learn more. Therefore, when I was in middle school, I started to learn something about programming and I joined the programming competition class. The process of learning is boring because you have to face with the code all the time. But to me, the code seems to have magic. When you  master all kinds of computer languages such as java, python, C++ and so on, you can use  them to direct the computer to finish all kinds of tasks. Also, you can design a game on your own.

These are links to my peers’ stories:

yiwei

xinxinwu

yiyan

I am junhaolin，a first year student in computer science. I am from Guangdong，China.