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The global pandemic has pushed educators around the world to a transformative moment for online learning. Since February 2020, an unprecedented number of teachers, students, and parents have become exposed to a new mode of teaching. Teachers did not have the luxury of options, as online education came towards them, shouting "Ready or not, here I come!" The transformation is deep and wide: All levels of teaching, from pre-k classes to doctoral programs, moved to the cloud. Every discipline, from physics to physical education, from chemistry to creative writing, has a chance to test their limits and potentials in the new modality of teaching.

Digital first pedagogical guru Dr Kate Davis shares how she keeps up to date with online news and resources for higher education.

Gamification and virtual simulation possibilities with new H5P branching scenario tool

A new guide from Times Higher Ed on digital teaching, covering a huge range of topics including choosing tech, maintaining inclusion, establishing virtual labs, encouraging faculty engagement...

There are two misconceptions that we think hinder teachers' creativity when thinking about teaching online. The first is a tendency to think of ways of approximating their face-to-face teaching into an online format as much as possible - instead of considering the possibilities afforded by the new medium, with the diverse opportunities for engagement and communication. The (problematic) assumptions behind this include a belief that text is less personal, that immediacy is inherently more valuable, and that approximating face-to-face is beneficial. The second, which relates to the first, is the belief (as Kolowich suggests) that increasing the "human" element of an online course is best done by either showing the face/voice of the teacher (e.g., as in pre-recorded lectures used in many xMOOCs), approximating a non-interactive lecture-based face-to-face class, or interacting synchronously (as in Google Hangouts), approximating a discussion-based face-to-face class. An automatic preference for synchronous (usually audiovisual) interaction with students is often a "mistake". It would, teachers imagine, be just like a face-to-face class, only online. Right? Actually, usually not. Maha has had experiences facilitating web-based video dialogue, and even though she sees it could have enormous potential when it works well, very often it does not. When we learn online, we are not together in one room, and we need to recognize not only the limitations of that, but the openness of its possibilities. The strengths of online learning, especially in massive courses such as MOOCs, and especially for adult learners, might lie in their asynchronous interactive components.

Something *important* to keep in mind for future upgrades, especially within the DLAV Space

Practical tips for online synchronous classes

Collated by Dr Tony Bates This is just a selection, of course, with a particular focus on North America, and will be added to as new reports emerge. They are roughly in sequential order of the date of publication, although not all full dates were available.

This article is part of the guide https://www.edsurge.com/research/guides/sustaining-higher-education-in-the-coronavirus-crisis Experts in online teaching have been debating and researching the question of synchronous versus asynchronous for decades. Since the 1990s and the rise of online video conferencing, though, it has been possible for educators to choose which activities in their distance-education courses to conduct synchronously and which to leave as asynchronous. The overall advice from experts is to mix both formats in any given class.

"At this point the Zoom call has almost come to define learning and working in the age of COVID-19. But a few months ago, people began realizing that all these video calls were making them tired-exhausted even-more so than a day of in-person class or all-day meetings. The phenomena even has a name: Zoom fatigue. And it's backed by some pretty interesting brain science. "

"Of all the behaviors necessitated by the pandemic-wearing face masks, ordering takeout or groceries online, working from home-only one has taken over the lexicon, serving variously as a verb, adjective or noun: Zooming. "

"As online learning becomes a more common model for higher education courses, institutions and instructors should investigate the benefits of including both synchronous and asynchronous elements in online learning to maximize the benefits of both these environments." Bichronous? This is a new one to me. Interesting disucssion around why this term is so relevant to online learning and teaching today.

Not obviously linked to education, but in terms of technology this is a pretty interesting read and could be beneficial to engineering/architecture students.

This article outlines the types of online credentials. It's US-centric so the info about Bachelor qualifications and up may not be relevant, but there's a very brief overview of some different types of micro-credential options at the start of the article.