Future Learn Blended Learning – week 3 summary

Week 3 presented.

In week 3 we looked at: systems, tools and resources for blended learning.

Virtual Learning Environments

First we looked at virtual learning environments (VLEs). VLEs provide teachers with a framework to allow them to organise learning activities and use available tools to create interactive, active learning components. They usually have controlled access, and present material specific to a learner’s course. They often include features to allow learners to participate and generate their own content.

I am aware of 2 VLEs – Moodle and Blackboard. This course allowed us to view an example course set up in Moodle. My institution uses Blackboard, however the library currently has no exposure on it.

More Tools

We were presented with a wide array of possible active learning tools that can be used:

Group / Class Forums Quizzes Padlet Google Slides Video creation Twitter chat Tricider – decision making tool, where contributors can vote Audacity – to create audio content Google Docs

Google Maps Prezi Balsamiq – brain storming tool Typeform – to allow user to enter text Survey Monkey Wordpress Google Hangouts ThingLink – allow creation of interactive multimedia image

Many of these are freely accessible on the Internet. They allow teachers and learners to collaborate, share, create and present material. Selecting the appropriate tool for a learning activity is important; it needs to fit the objective and pedagogy that you are using.

Open Educational Resources OERs

OERs are resources that are created and made available for others to share. They can be created by teachers and learners – helping learners to develop their own digital literacy skills.

Benefits:

• Recognition of learning and teaching abilities
• Recognition of staff member
• Promotion of school / faculty or institution
• Used in marketing / promotion of institution
• Efficiency savings of shared resources in terms of cost and time

OERs are often presented under Creative Commons License, allowing re-use.

The course presented a number of places where you can search for OERs. It was a bit overwhelming and I struggled to find library-related skills resources. Another course member pointed out the Jorum website which had a featured theme of Information and Digital Literacy Skills – here there were 191 resources.

The course presented a number of case studies from teaching staff and learners who had created OERs

Consider:

Looking for OERs was quite difficult as material is often created for a specific purpose or may be too generic to be applicable. However we have found some library skills resources and direct students to them.