Tag: learning design

  • Thinkingful design: finding more to learning design through the Online Learning Summit

    Thinkingful design: finding more to learning design through the Online Learning Summit

    It’s been a couple of weeks now since I attended and contributed to the Online Learning Summit at the University of Leeds. Like many, I am still processing the many ideas, methods and challenges discussed and using these perspectives to critically appraise my own work and more broadly that in the online education sector. I…

  • Thoughts on education, art and finding connection

    Thoughts on education, art and finding connection

    Opinion piece. When I visited the Hepworth Wakefield in April, the exhibition of drafts, prototypes and completed works triggered a somewhat surprising emotional response in me. In an age where knowledge is on tap, much working time is spent in a digital ecosystem and creative endeavours have the potential to be reduced to the algorithms…

  • Metaphors of learning design: LEGO

    Metaphors of learning design: LEGO

    Metaphor and analogy are both powerful ways to convey complex concepts, representing ideas in different ways that better relate to individuals prior knowledge or contexts. Though sometimes metaphors and analogies can be just plain confusing. In this post, I’m having a little fun for a change and will attempt to convey curriculum and learning design…

  • Desire lines in online education: learning design

    Desire lines in online education: learning design

    This is the second of two posts that look at the metaphor of ‘desire lines’ as applied to programme design and learning design. In the first post Desire Lines in Programme Design, the unnecessary barriers of formal programme architectures were reconsidered through ideas of flexible programmes, unbundling and microcredentials. In this post, the metaphor is…

  • Desire lines in online education: programme design

    Desire lines in online education: programme design

    This is the first of two posts exploring the metaphor of ‘desire lines’ and its applicability to programme design and learning design. In a recent webinar, Quentin McAndrew (2022) drew parallels between the stackability of online learning and the way that people will organically form new routes that may deviate from planned and paved paths,…

  • The evolving role of open online courses in lifelong learning journeys: the MOOC isn’t dead

    This article summarises the evolving role of massive, open, online courses (MOOCs) in the context of lifelong learning and professional learning. As a form of self-paced, and in some ways self-directed, online short course, the MOOC format lends itself to a variety of pedagogical approaches. Some focus on content delivery, others on activity and learner…

  • Enabling learners to continue learning beyond programmes of study

    Enabling learners to continue learning beyond programmes of study

    Following on from a Twitter chat on the role of learning design that took place in 2020, I was invited back to follow up on one of the questions which focused on how educators can support learners to learn, both during and beyond programmes of study. Co-leading again with Sandra Huskinson, the six questions we…

  • Accessibility, balance and confidence: three areas of development for higher education

    I’ve been looking at various surveys, analyses and reports recently to understand trends and the ongoing development in the higher education sector as online learning becomes established as embedded, rather than emergency provision, for campus-based programmes. In this post I explore Jisc’s Student digital experience insights survey (Jisc, 2021), which provides a useful snapshot of…

  • Does learning need to be designed and what roles are involved in learning design? Initial reflections of #LTHEchat

    Does learning need to be designed and what roles are involved in learning design? Initial reflections of #LTHEchat

    I was delighted to be asked to work with Sandra Huskinson to pose the questions for a #LTHEchat on Twitter on 8 October 2020 exploring learning design. Particularly when many educators are shifting to online learning, by choice or necessity, the role of critical discussions about what works, and what doesn’t, in different modes of…