Education 2.0 & 3.0

For online learning to be successful and happy, participants need to be supported through a structured developmental process. The five-stage-model provides a framework or scaffold for a structured and paced programme of e-tivities.

​The five-stage-model offers essential support and development to participants at each stage as they build up expertise in learning online.

What do highly effective teachers do in online classrooms? We combed through dozens of studies to find the best research-backed ideas.

In March 2020, UK higher education embarked on a sudden shift to digital learning. In the vast majority of cases, it wasn’t a designed and fully realised transformation of teaching and learning.

It was an emergency response to an unprecedented situation that relied on upskilling staff rapidly enough to enable them to deliver the remainder of their courses, and assess them, in as effective and equitable way as possible. 

The extent of this digital shift, and the tools, techniques and platforms used, varied not only between universities but also within them, depending on the demands of different departments and the confidence and capabilities of the staff.

This blog was kindly contributed by Dr David LeFevre, Director of the EdTech Lab at Imperial College and the founder of higher education platform company Insendi, part of Study Group.

Last month a subtle warning shot was shot across the bows of universities still struggling to manage the disruption caused by Covid-19. When the Minister responsible for higher education announced that UK students would be charged full tuition fees for online study, she added a caveat – the assumption of quality. If students ‘feel that the quality isn’t there’ she said, ‘there are processes that they can follow’ to seek redress’.

Dr. Mark Bullen demystifies instructional design by providing a simple and easy to understand explanation of the concept. His key point is that instructional design is all about crafting learning objectives at a level appropriate for the knowledge and skills that are being developed, then

Ana Christina Pratas - insights

Things to Consider as You Move Your Teaching Online

• Uneven resources always exist, but the move online makes this structural inequality more obvious.
• A variety of needs for privacy should always be accommodated in learning communities.
• An online class is not the same thing as a class with physical persons gathered to learn together in a brick and mortar classroom in real time and physical space.
• You don’t have a “flipped classroom.” You no longer have a classroom at all!
• Reject calls to highlight prestige, peer institutions, and imitation of star systems on other campuses and instead explore what is needed and best about where you work and then also foster connections across difference.
• Embrace DIY peer-to-peer improvised faculty and student connections, as did the first FemTechNet connected classes: https://femtechnet.org/docc/
• Reject the push and rush to “learn” the technology; do this in your own way; admit that you are learning as you go.
• The supposedly “born digital” generation needs just as much help as others.
• Your online course is not simply about imparting information in one direction.
• Consider what co-presence means in any learning situation and how we relate to each other newly through screens and with various technologies.
• Consider how international students can be supported in a time of widespread anti-Asian racism.
• Consider how to recognize and thank everyone who is participating in the class.
• Online experiences can be unsafe. Please see our resources at the Center for Solutions to Online Violence at http://femtechnet.org/csov/.
• Differences around race, class, nationality, gender, sexuality, and ability don’t disappear in online environments.  Online experience is as racist and sexist and homophobic as anywhere else.
• Feminists have been thinking about digital learning since its inception. Please see our white paper on Transforming Higher Education with Distributed Open Collaborative Courses (DOCCs): Feminist Pedagogies and Networked Learning http://femtechnet.org/about/white-paper/"

The COVID-19 pandemic reminds us that in times of turmoil, decisions made for the greater good can have collateral impacts. It’s becoming evident that efforts to contain the virus and limit social distancing are increasing precarity for some people, especially those already in socio-economically disadvantaged positions. Universities are not immune to these collateral impacts, and last week’s decision by most Canadian universities to finish the current term by moving pedagogical components online is one of those times when a small segment of students will be neglected in a move meant to benefit all of them.

The decision is a show of resilience and solidarity by our higher education institutions. But the problem is the digital divide among students. Even in our great cosmopolitan country, not everyone has equal access to the web and all its resources. This digital divide was on the radar a few years ago, with a push to bring broadband to remote constituencies. But less attention has been devoted to the divide in urban settings, and especially within the hubs of knowledge that are universities.

A number of schools and universities may be required to close due to the coronavirus outbreak, but how can you quickly move your teaching online?

The sudden closure of universities and schools across the globe has created a demand in delivering educational content online. The Open University has long been a front-runner in distance learning, specifically online. Did you also know that we provide FREE content on OpenLearn, written by Open University academics? We offer a variety of FREE courses, interactives, academic insights and animations on a range of subjects.

Compassionate teaching means connecting in a way that enhances learning and a sense of belonging for participants. Trust helps us to relax and learn.

This article was originally published in March 30, 2018 and updated on December 9, 2019.

As more and more teaching and learning moves online, contemplative teaching is transferring to the digital environment in the service of accessibility, low cost and development of international communities of practice. Because of the reliance on interpersonal relationships and a sense of safety and trust in these kinds of communities, there are some special challenges teachers of online contemplative material face that are different to those faced in the onsite/in-person environment.

Ruth Colvin Clark and Chopeta Lyons in their book “Graphics for Learning” look at a taxonomy of graphical elements by Carney and Levin that will help us plan visuals for eLearning courses based on their communication function. According to Clark and Lyons, the seven key communication functions of visuals are decorative, representational, mnemonic, organizational, relational, transformational and interpretive. Let’s have a look at each in detail..

The perfect class discussion can feel like something of an alchemy. From the instructor’s preparation to the students’ personalities, many ingredients can enable or challenge the social construction of knowledge in a class community. As Jay Howard suggests, quality discussions require a great deal of planning and an understanding of social, emotional, and intellectual dynamics (Howard 2019). As we begin one of the most unusual semesters in the history of higher education, with institutions implementing a combination of remote, hybrid, and in-person instruction, it’s urgent to consider how we can facilitate meaningful discussions in virtual environments. In particular, if instructors used video conference software during the emergency remote teaching of the spring and summer, they may have experienced a ghost town of student reticence and awkward silences, and the occasional shuffle of video boxes like virtual tumbleweeds..

When hundreds of spring and summer undergraduate courses were abruptly moved from onsite to online delivery in the wake of COVID-19, several faculty and students nationwide reacted with panic and uncertainty. Currently, instructors are busy preparing for the 2020-2021 academic year where several students will continue taking courses online. At my institution, fall academic courses will be primarily virtual (along with several others across the nation), with some in-person and hybrid instruction for performance-based, clinical, and laboratory courses, and some students living on campus.

 The transition to online, asynchronous learning poses just as many challenges for students entering the online classroom as it does for academics mastering the platform. Cynthia Wheatley Glenn out…

Amid talk of pandemics and economics, it may seem like a comparatively minor discussion to have: the difference between remote learning and online learning. 

But, with COVID-19 forcing schools around the nation to move their classrooms online and more and more scrutiny leveled at the sustainability of doing so, it’s a conversation that education experts increasingly insist should happen. Making the distinction, some say, could shape the future of online learning for years to come. 

The shock has passed, the sadness comes and goes, and the stretchy waistband pants are becoming a mainstay. Your college or university is staying online for the rest of this academic year, as well as summer, and you wonder about fall 2020.

While the trauma of the COVID-19 pandemic persists, it may be time to settle into an educational environment that will be more online than previously imagined.

Warning: You will not get through the same amount of content during this pandemic. Please do not try.

We’ll all be teaching infolit online for the foreseeable future (I hope) and it is, as anyone who’s done much of it will tell you, a very different experience to being in a room with people.

I do a lot of training online already for overseas audiences, so I have some familiarity with this. For what it’s worth, here are some tips for retooling your sessions to work in a webinar type environment.

With online teaching and learning becoming the norm for so many teachers and students during the COVID-19 climate, it is important to be aware of what makes an engaging, creative and effective web-based teaching and learning experience.

Firstly, the Californian association for information literacy, LILi, has set up a page for sharing resources about teaching IL online. "Inspired by CCC COVID-19 Website Google Doc, Lifelong Information Literacy (LILi) created this blog post to collect online instruction information from all libraries in California. Please share in the form or comment below for discussions. The LILi Web Committee will summarize important information and resources in this blog as the situation evolves." This is at https://lili.libguides.com/lion/COVID-19

In this free course, Take your teaching online, you will gain  knowledge fundamental to delivering effective teaching online.

If (for some reason) you’re considering an abrupt move to online teaching, Stephanie Moore and Charles B. Hodges have practical advice for instructors in the short term.