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 […]
Tag: learning design
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 […]
The approaches taken by higher education institutions to continue teaching and learning during the Covid-19 pandemic have shown the imagination and creativity of the sector. New ways of thinking about the purpose of higher education, how learners can achieve the same objectives through different learning media and be more responsive to external factors is certainly […]
This is the second post of four capturing my paper presented at the ALT Conference, 3-5 September 2019, Edinburgh (abstract, annotated slides, video recording). This section looks at the contradictions prevalent in designing MOOCs (massive open online courses) and expands upon the presentation with exploration of personalised learning. The first post explored learning design perspectives that influence […]
I gratefully received feedback from the learning technology community, via the ALT Members mailing list, on my previous post on the learning that takes place through image hotspot activities. As is typical, broader issues with online learning were touched upon that are worthy of follow up and reflection. What follows draws out further discussion on […]
This article aims to explore the learning that takes place through image hotspot activities. The rationale for this is to assess the learning value of such activities, and considering their often inherent inaccessibility to disabled learners, what equivalent tasks may be provided. An image hotspot task comprises of an image where parts are clickable to […]
In this article I propose that conversational thinking is an important skill to develop in online learners, to enable richer social learning experiences that move beyond contribution and consumption. Conversational thinking “Learning through discussion has value because it provides the motivation for each participant to articulate their concepts and ideas, defend them, reconsider them in […]
It is widely cited that MOOCs have poor retention rates, anywhere down to 5% of those who start the course may complete it to the end (Allione and Stein, 2016). On any other form of online or distance learning course, those figures would be a sign that the course was ineffective and not meeting the […]
In this article I consider why videos and other multimedia that enable narrative and storytelling are prevalent in the learning design of Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs). During the last #LTHEchat on hybrid learning spaces, there was a side-discussion on the significance of the internet and how it allows for new types of learning to occur within it […]
The old proverb ‘a bad workman blames his tools’ refers to an individual who, in doing something poorly, decides to blame the tool they have used rather than accept their own failings (OED definition). How many times have we (learning technologists) heard grumblings from colleagues and students (and indeed grumbled ourselves) at the inadequacies of […]