FutureLearn

The Online Educator: People and Pedagogy (FutureLearn)

Offered by The Open University,
The Online Educator: People and Pedagogy (FutureLearn)

Design engaging courses, make your teaching more inclusive, navigate online research ethics and shape your digital identity. Enhance your online teaching with strategies from educational technology experts. As e-learning becomes ever-more widespread, online educators are being required to design learning experiences that engage and meet the needs of very diverse learners.

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This course, developed by The Open University’s Institute of Educational Technology, explores four myths: that learning design is about technology and content; that innovation and accessibility are incompatible; that researching online learning is an ethics-free zone, and that educators’ online identities are irrelevant.
Studying the course will help you enhance your practice through videos, quizzes and discussion with peers.

What topics will you cover?

Week 1 - Disruption and design

  • Current developments in online teaching
  • Navigating the hype about disruptive innovation
  • The relationship between content, technology, people and pedagogy in learning design
  • The challenges of meeting diverse students’ needs
  • The use of personas in creating relevant online courses

Week 2 - Innovation and accessibility

  • Myths about accessibility and digital innovation
  • Types of digital exclusion
  • Finding and evaluating accessibility guidelines
  • Applying accessibility guidelines to your teaching

Week 3 - Ethical evaluation of online teaching

  • Myths about researching and evaluating online teaching
  • Evidence and ethics
  • Navigating the hype around educational technology innovation
  • Evaluating research reports
  • Evaluating your own teaching innovations
  • Ethical considerations when researching online teaching

Week 4 - Who am I online?

  • Myths about online identity
  • The value to educators of a carefully constructed online identity
  • Evaluating your own online identity
  • Using Twitter to build an identity online

What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you'll be able to...

  • Develop personas to inform the online learning design process
  • Identify the ethics considerations involved in researching online teaching
  • Apply accessibility guidelines to online teaching contexts
  • Identify key accessibility issues related to online learning
  • Reflect on your exisiting digital identity and plan for its future development
  • Explore ways of shaping a digital identity as an online educator
  • Discuss the relationship between technology, content, people and pedagogy in online courses.
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