The current situation has hastened the uptake of online learning (and everything else!), so ready or not, educators have been thrown into teaching online. Here’s what you need to know to do it right.
The benefits of teaching online
For those who aren’t used to online education, this new virtual classroom can feel stressful and inconvenient. However, there are actually several benefits to doing it this way:
If you don’t know what SCORM is, you are probably lucky, and unless you have a good reason to dig into it, I suggest you read below and never think of it again.
I remember the first time I heard about SCORM (Sharable Content Object Reference Model) - it was 2004 and we wanted to follow a standard when creating our new content authoring tool. I remember feeling excited by the concept of a standard to share content between Learning Management Systems (LMS) - it made a lot of sense that we ensured our new course content followed this standard.
I printed the hundreds of pages that made up the SCORM 2004 standard and spent the weekend trying to stay awake as I read it….
A case study in Maori language learning.
We all saw Covid-19 affecting countries overseas and we all knew that it would eventually reach New Zealand’s shores, but not many believed it would impact New Zealand’s teaching curriculum as quickly and dramatically as it did on March 23rd, when it was announced all schools were closed as at 3pm that day.
When the lockdown happened, I don’t think anybody really knew what to do. Certainly getting close to your loved ones and staying safe was step one, but after that, how could educators help the community and parents get through the four week (at least) lock down?
Digital literacy is no longer a nice to have but an essential life skill. Computers have been commonplace for 30 years and the Internet for 20 years. They are used in all areas of life from business to leisure and I'm betting they're here to stay.
A lot can be said about using PowerPoint as a teaching tool. Click on the links below to read more.
In a recent eLearning Guild research paper, ‘Informal Learning Takes Off’, 53.9% of respondents indicated ‘video’ as the top 'informal learning activity with L&D intervention'.
I recently attended a webinar where Dr Carmen Simon (www.reximedia.com) discussed how you could 'apply brain science’ to control the 10% of what audiences remember of presentations (they will forget 90% of what you present).
