Week 1 Prompting individual learning online
Introduction
This week's study is designed around a series of FOUR individual tasks which guide you through the technical and social skills to participate effectively in this course. As well as introducing ourselves, this is a time for you to consider techniques which might be appropriate to getting learners off to a good start in your context.
Whether you are designing an introductory activity or any other type of individual online learning task, there are elements which we know to be important to support the learning process.
- Activities should be engaging and interactive. Think about what it is you are asking learners to DO and how they might respond to that.
- Plan ahead. If you are asking students to make a contribution, think through what kind of response you might need to make to them.
- Think about how the activities you are designing offer student choice and/or allow them to follow pathways that suit their particular learning preferences.
- Ensure that issues of accessibility to the online system have been dealt with through appropriate training and induction before getting to the icebreakers.
Week 1 Readings and resources
- MacDonald, J. (2008). Blended Learning and online tutoring. Chapters 1, 6, 7.
- The Elements of Learning Activity Design (Word document, 99MB)
- Ideas for twenty-first century icebreakers
- Some examples of responding to student introductions
- Social Care Institute for Excellence's (SCIE) Communication across cultural and social differences
- Privacy issues related to online social networking sites
