Category: Online and Digital Learning
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A leadership framework for online and digital education: adapting ALT Framework for Ethical Learning Technology
In a leadership role I adopt reflective practice to explore ways to improve my approach and ultimately enable me to support my team to achieve our team and organisational objectives. Collaboration is one of my underlying principles and I have shared my thoughts on this previously as particularly important in educational settings. Recently, I have…
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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…
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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…
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Thoughts on AI and education: the quest for productive education and the need for human context
Opinion piece. This post is definitely outside my comfort zone with reference to artificial intelligence (AI) and certainly beyond my qualifications in this area. I am writing as an educationalist and as a human being trying to make sense of my own values of education and my feelings about the potential of AI. There is…
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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…
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Online education portfolio strategy and learning design
This article explores the relationship between online education portfolio strategy and learning design within higher education. It suggests four groups of learning experience aligned to addressing professional learning needs and the relationship between different learning experiences as part of a portfolio or product mix. Online education portfolio strategy An online course portfolio represents the combination…
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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…
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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,…
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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…