New to online teaching and learning? A few tips to get started.

I’ve been helping out with FutureLearn’s new MOOC “How to teach online: providing continuity to students” (#FLteachonline) this past week. With over 20,000 learners there’s been a lot of activity and some great discussions. A number of key issues have cropped up repeatedly that I felt would be worth putting into a “top tips” guide for newbies. There’s a rapidly swelling resource base “out there” which can appear quite daunting, so I’ll keep this brief J

Top tips

  1. Keep it simple. Less is more!
  1. It’s about a culture change in education, not technology. Don’t rush for the latest shiny tool (sorry, Teams)
  1. It’s NOT simply putting your lectures online, or setting up a video conference. It’s about re-thinking and re-structuring how and what you teach in the digital environment.
  1. Make sure that you can offer flexibility of participation to your students. Minimise the time you expect them all to be online at the same time (ideally, never). Allow for the fact they may have poor bandwidth or intermittent connectivity – and a whole host of other pressures and distractions right now.
  2. Low tech trumps high tech – asynchronous communication via discussion boards and short pre-recorded video/audio are your friends! If you don’t believe me, read this very clear explanation by Daniel Sandford: “Videoconferencing Alternatives: How low bandwidth teaching will save us all” (with helpful 2 x 2 matrix included)

A whole hour of talking at your students = bad

Structured blog-style explanatory guides to “chunks” of short pre-recorded video and tutor-facilitated discussions = good

6. Don’t forget to design for accessibility and be sure to avoid copyright issues when preparing your materials.

  1. Know your learners! Despite the popularity of the expression, students are NOT “digital natives” (a phrase which should be banned) simply by virtue of being young. There is a whole research literature on the gulf between tech-savvy consumer behaviour (which is common), and the ability to learn effectively online (which is not).
  1. Make sure that you communicate course information and participation expectations very clearly to your students – and be prepared to repeat yourself many, many times…
  1. Student engagement may be difficult to achieve online, but it’s not always easy to achieve offline either! Don’t beat yourself up if a bit of trial and error is required, and don’t forget to Keep. It. Simple. J

Useful “Getting Started” Resources:

More information on the usefulness of discussion forums by Hannah Tyreman.

A series of short, clearly written and informative guides to online learning for beginners by Tony Bates.

This excellent post by Laurie Phipps “Being Human in a Time of Crisis” is a timely reminder that effective online teaching and learning requires culture change rather than shiny new tools.

Digital Learning to the rescue? Yes and no…

There are many benefits to being part of a network of educational innovators who share their experiences freely online, especially at the moment. There is some great advice out there from people who are going the extra mile to help others.

For example, #LTHEchat is a community of educators who “meet” weekly on Twitter to discuss a specific facilitated topic in a fast and furious hour of activity. A comprehensive resource base of all these sessions is curated on Wakelet for future reference. The format has now evolved to provide a whole week of support for educators who are preparing #Covid19 contingency plans. Each day has a timetabled one hour slot for discussion which is then left open for 24 hours to allow further contributions and reflections. The final session, scheduled for 8pm GMT on Wednesday 18th March, will review the whole week to consolidate the learning.

Inevitably, contingency planning for upcoming teaching and assessment commitments is likely to focus on quick wins via specific tools such as Skype, Slack or Zoom, but it is important to remember that the key emphasis should be on the learning, not the technology. This excellent post by Laurie Phipps “Being Human in a Time of Crisis” is a timely reminder that effective online teaching and learning requires culture change rather than shiny new tools. It also contains a number of useful links to further resources, such as Martin Weller’s EdTechie blog – a great source of informed advice.

While there is much we can be doing to support our learners, it is important to be realistic in our expectations of what can be achieved at short notice and within a very uncertain environment:

Institutions that are late adopters of digital learning may now be playing catch up and there should be opportunity (once beyond the current panic) to more fully address issues of equity and inclusion in learning environments that the “traditional” system of teaching and learning is poorly equipped for.

And any sharks out there who are already trying to capitalise financially will have their digital cards firmly marked…and certainly not accepted in my LinkedIn 🙂

#BEM2034 the story so far…

The first two weeks of our new module Digital Technologies and the Future of Work have flown by. After a series of pep talks from Alison Truelove and myself, and a number of inspirational guest speakers, next week it’s all happening online. We’ve just started the third running of our FutureLearn MOOC titled “Building your Career in Tomorrow’s Workplace“, so over 200 Exeter students (including 18 from Penryn who were beamed in by video conference supported by Stephen Hickman) are now studying with a global cohort of MOOC learners for the next couple of weeks, before moving to materials and discussions on ELE for the rest of the term.

We created the module because how we work, and the nature of the work we do, is being re-imagined. New digital applications, the maturing of automation, and the emerging transformations facilitated by artificial intelligence, have prompted innovations that offer creative opportunities for fundamental restructuring of employment practices. This has significant implications for work, communication, and community.

We are encouraging our learners to take a critical review of this landscape. In practice the picture is more complex because many technologies endure while others gradually evolve, or spark off totally new applications. Technology in itself is meaningless – it is created and shaped by people.

Week 1 featured a Keynote presentation by Mark Thompson, Professor of Digital Economy in INDEX, who specialises in digital transformation. Mark gave us all a whistlestop tour through the many ways in which society and industry structures are fundamentally changing. His key messages? 1) No sector can hide from digital transformation, and 2) culture change is hard.

Week 2 featured a short talk by successful StudyTuber Ruby Granger about the role of social media in productive learning, and Craig McEwan, Academic Liaison Librarian, explained how best to evaluate online information sources and the evolving role of the Library in supporting this.

Our challenge as educators is to ensure that learners are equipped with the critical thinking skills and digital literacies necessary to take advantage of the opportunities inherent in a world of work which rewards flexibility, adaptability and commitment to lifelong learning.

**We are indebted to the Education Incubator for sponsoring our project to develop the module: “Sharing a social learning pedagogy across the institution” The team members were myself, Alison Truelove, Stephen Hickman and Beverley Hawkins, with help from our Student Digital Mentors.**

Digital Politics; reframing our politics for the digital age

Digital Leaders Week 2019 opened this week with the Annual Lecture in the House of Commons by Professor Mark Thompson from Exeter University. His timely talk, “Digital Politics; reframing our politics for the digital age” was followed by a lively panel discussion chaired by George Freeman MP.

 

Mark contrasted two possible future digital scenarios for the UK. One could be described as a “Digital Athens” where technology is focused on enhancing the wellbeing of society. The second is a “digital oligopoly” where a select group of powerful organisations comes to exert ever more control over our lives (as evidenced by this recent Amazon event). He argued that the makeup of our current political system is not conducive to a positive outcome, and called for government to place more emphasis on social rather than economic values in order to help address this:

  1. An honest national conversation about social value in the digital age and what happens to those people whose economic value (jobs) will disappear – there’s an essential role for lifelong learning here.
  1. Learn how to run internet-enabled platform organisations – develop the skills to create and manage public versions of organisations like Amazon for social good. While isolated examples of good practice do exist, Mark noted that “these examples of real digital leadership are like small boats, floundering in an ocean of clapped-out, C20 legacy ideas and narrow interests that dominate our public services.”
  1. Create a department of civic platforms and innovation with an entrepreneurial mindset to focus on digital incubation and activism, regulatory and competition policy, and public/private sector partnerships.

You can read the full text of Mark’s speech on the Digital Leaders website, and a synopsis of tweets.

Feel free to share using #DLWeek #digileaders

 

 

 

 

Preparing for the future workplace

We are very excited about our new FutureLearn MOOC, Building your Career in Tomorrow’s Workplace, which starts on Monday 14th January. It will be run by myself and my colleague Alison Truelove from the University of Exeter Business School. We both strongly believe in helping people to achieve their potential in a rapidly changing environment – one that offers significant opportunities and also challenges.

Alison Truelove and Lisa Harris

The future of work is being shaped by digital and technological innovations as well as trends towards global organising. Developments in fields such as robotics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence (AI) are proving to be highly disruptive to society and to ourselves as employees or entrepreneurs.

Our objective is to equip learners with the knowledge and skills necessary to reach their intended career goals in a world of work which increasingly requires flexibility, adaptability and lifelong learning.

We are delighted to welcome Giles O’Halloran as a Mentor. Giles is fascinated by the future of work. He has been a keen observer of the changing nature of work and the workplace over the last two decades as both an HR and Career Transition professional. He is a freelance coach and consultant in the gig economy, and is also a lead tutor for the CIPD. He has spent the last ten years writing for a leading career transition publication on employability and the changing nature of careers. He is also passionate about the development of the digital workspace and helping people develop their digital skills portfolio.

We would also like to thank the following people for their contributions to the course:

  • Nic Fair, PhD student in Web Science and Digital Educator from the University of Southampton. Nic is the Lead Educator on FutureLearn’s Learning in the Network Age MOOC.
  • Dawn Lees, Andi Smart, Adam Lusby, Sarah Dyer, David Boughey, Claire Dinan, Steph Comley, Jason Flower and Olly Chanter from the University of Exeter.
  • Our team of Student Digital Champions Ben Wood, Shuyi Tang and Luke Henderson.
  • Our industry experts Andy Stanford-Clark, Kaitlin Gould and David Ferguson.

You can also raise questions, share useful resources or your own posts on Twitter at any time via the course hashtag #FLfutureofwork.

New ideas & new courses supported by Student Digital Mentors

There’s lots of exciting educational innovation happening this term 🙂

Firstly, our new FutureLearn MOOC, Building Your Career in Tomorrow’s Workplace, starts on Monday 14th January. It includes contributions from a number of Exeter staff, business partners and Student Digital Mentors. We aim to encourage learners to think beyond “standard” (i.e. 20th Century!) career pathways and consider the much wider range of options that are opening up in the digital economy.

The objective of our short open course is to equip learners with the knowledge and skills necessary to reach their intended career goals in workplaces which require increasing levels of flexibility, adaptability and commitment to lifelong learning. Certain jobs may disappear but entirely new opportunities will become available that currently don’t even exist.

For example, developments in fields such as robotics, nanotechnology and artificial intelligence are proving to be highly disruptive to society and to ourselves as employees or entrepreneurs. These technologies integrate physical, digital and biological systems in new and exciting ways, resulting in significant changes that we are only just beginning to understand. It’s said we are now in the process of a “4th Industrial Revolution”.

Business School postgraduate students who are taking the Digital Business Models module, (#BEMM129) will be covering similar topics in a more blended format which includes regular face to face workshops. It is one of six modules from across the University that is trialling a potential new virtual learning environment, as part of the EdTech Exeter Project.

If the trial is successful, this could be the digital platform upon which the University builds its Global Digital Curriculum. The aim is to improve access to learning resources that are simple to use, easy to access anywhere, anytime and that will compliment face-to-face teaching across our campuses. The students will be encouraged to engage in discussions with each other online and with the global community of MOOC learners for mutual benefit, while both courses are live. It provides a valuable opportunity for students to obtain experience of active social learning, build their professional digital networks and gain a range of international perspectives on the key themes covered in their module.

The MOOC will run for a second time in June 2019 to coincide with a major CIPD Festival of Work event taking place at Olympia.

Student Digital Champions
Student Digital Mentors (from left to right) Shuyi Tang, Ben Wood and Luke Henderson

The Student Digital Mentors have recently been employed through our Education Incubator project to support educational innovation, where next year we will be running an online module based on future of work themes open to students across all Exeter campuses. They will be carrying out action research with their peers on the MOOC and on the blended module to help us design and deliver the new course in a way that will maximise student engagement and participation.  This work will also provide valuable input to current discussions that are shaping the University’s new Education Strategy.

Incubating our Incubator project

Our Education Incubator project kicked off this week with the very first face to face meeting, as evidenced by the photo below 🙂 The team of Educators drawn from both Exeter and Penryn will be developing a new module that is open to students from all campuses. It will cover the changing nature of work in an increasingly digital and global economy, and focus on building the skills needed for success in this environment.

From left to right are Beverley Hawkins, Stephen Hickman, Alison Truelove and Lisa Harris

The future of work is an important topic for all of us because it offers significantly different challenges and opportunities, shaped by digital innovations and trends towards global organising. For example, 3D printing, the Internet of things, artificial intelligence and crypto-currencies will restructure entire industries and economies, transforming the nature and location of employment.

As the module is taught online, it will offer flexibility of student participation, study time and tutor involvement without the usual timetable constraints of face to face sessions. It will provide network building opportunities for students across the whole university, and also with the global cohort studying alongside them on our free FutureLearn MOOC, “Building your Career in Tomorrow’s Workplace”

Students will be committing to active participation, through their assessed work, in spreading the word in creative ways to their peers about preparation for the future workplace.

The teaching team will be diverse, drawing upon specific expertise offered by individual Educators who will also mentor less experienced colleagues new to online social learning. All contributors will be encouraged to participate in online social learning activities and subsequently adopt them within their other modules to spread best practice.

 

FLAN @ Exeter

The University of Exeter hosted the FutureLearn Academic Network (FLAN) event last week in glorious sunshine (thankfully before all the snow arrived).

FLAN connects academics and research students based at FutureLearn partner institutions to share research and explore shared research opportunities. These include joint research bids and publications, comparative studies using shared FutureLearn data, course designs, and methods to evaluate courses. Topics such as learning analytics, social learning, course mentoring and research ethics have been covered at past events.

This time the theme was the integration of MOOCs within university programmes. Recordings of the livestream and presenter slides are available here .

Nigel Smith, FutureLearn’s Head of Content, began the day with a review of the upcoming General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and its implications on partners’ research. The guidelines for research using FutureLearn data have already been updated with GDPR requirements in mind, and full details of the process for approving projects are available on the FL Partner Site.

Nic Fair and Manuel Leon from the Web Science Institute, University of Southampton then spoke about their experience of integrating MOOCs into on-campus modules. Perhaps surprisingly, some students had little or no prior experience of MOOCs. Providing incentives by stating the relevance of MOOC topics to exam questions helped to encourage more participation.

David Smith and Suzanne Collins from the University of Bristol introduced the Bristol Futures project which uses open courses to provide extra curricular activities for students. They also noted the degree of effort required to encourage student participation when the work was not linked to assessment.

Damien Mansell and his team of student facilitators from the University of Exeter ran an engaging workshop focused on the unique student/staff partnership developed to support the Climate Change MOOCs at Exeter. Their Student Facilitator model engages taught and research students to become co-creators of learning experiences, facilitate discussion, share stories, answer questions and monitor engagement.

Next up was Reka Budai, Strategy & Insights Analyst at FutureLearn who ran an interactive session to share and obtain feedback on FutureLearn’s survey vision – “what, when and how we would like to ask from learners to get better insights and make course evaluation more efficient.”

Colin Calder from the University of Aberdeen presented his work with Sarah Cornelius and Peter Mtika which considered how MOOCs impact on campus student engagement. They found that students were more likely to engage on the MOOC elements of their module than they were to speak out in class.

Vicki Dale then reported on her findings at the University of Glasgow with Jeremy Singer which investigated a similar area – they noted some resistance from campus students but they did value the videos and flexibility of study time that the MOOC elements offered.

Finally, Ahmed Al-Imarah from the University of Bath presented his PhD research which investigated the relationship between organisational culture, quality assurance and technological innovation in higher education.

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