This intensive two-day workshop offers one-to-one instruction and consultation from top innovators in blended learning. It’s a hands-on, working workshop. You bring a syllabus, exams, other course materials, and a computer. You leave with an action plan for a blended course that will keep you on the cutting edge of pedagogy.
Through this process, you will:
– Take one of your existing face-to-face courses and convert it into a blended format
– Feel comfortable and confident with the technology so that IT becomes an aid rather than a barrier to communicating with your students
– Learn the most pedagogically effective ways to blend instructional technology, course content, and course activities to promote interaction of students with each other, the instructor, and the content
You will finish with an understanding of how to balance what happens before class, what happens in class, and what happens after class. You will learn how to organize your own Learning Management System (LMS), and you will be exposed to the very best technology tools to support student learning.
Topics explored during this event include course design principles, pedagogical considerations, technology how-to’s, and student engagement strategies.
universities and curricula are designed along the three unities of French classical tragedy: time, action, and place. Students meet at the university campus (unity of place) for classes (unity of action) during their 20s (unity of time). This classical model has traditionally produced prestigious universities, but it is now challenged by the digitalisation of society – which allows everybody who is connected to the internet to access learning – and by the need to acquire skills in step with a fast-changing world. Universities must realise that learning in your 20s won’t be enough. If technological diffusion and implementation develop faster, workers will have to constantly refresh their skills.
By teaching foundational knowledge and up-to-date skills, universities will provide students with the future-proof skills of lifelong learning, not just get them ‘job-ready’.
By reflecting-in-action, the practitioner is able to gain metacognitive awareness and perceive his/her intuitions and biases, test hypotheses, and take on new perspectives. The approach of having students learn by designing their own games combines design thinking and game-based learning (Kafai, 1995, 2006; Li, Lemieuz, Vandermeiden, & Nathoo, 2013). Design thinking also supports new forms of literacies brought on by new media technologies as well as game-based learning.
It is likely that the effects of gamification cannot easily be measured satisfactorily through surveys of motivation, engagement, attendance, or grades because there are too many variables that could affect how students respond. Critics of gamification argue that it over
simplifies complex problems (Bogost, 2015; Robertson, 2010). However, both gamification and design thinking are approaches to problem-solving. With design thinking, gamification may be used in more meaningful ways because design thinking offers a different lens through which to conceptualize the problem.
Neuroscience research has also revealed that „significant increases in learning can be accomplished through the informed use of visualand verbal multimodal learning‟(Fadel, 2008, p. 12).
Multimodal learning environments allow instructional elements to be presented in more than one sensory mode(visual, aural, written). In turn,materialsthat are presented in a variety of presentation modes may lead learners to perceive that it is easier to learn and improve attention, thus leading to improved learning performance;in particular for lower–achieving students (Chen & Fu, 2003; Moreno & Mayer, 2007; Zywno 2003).
multimodal design, in which „information (is) presented in multiple modes such as visual and auditory‟(Chen & Fu, 2003, p.350).The major benefit of which, as identified by Picciano (2009), is that it „allows students to experience learning in ways in which they are most comfortable, while challenging them to experience and learn in other ways as well‟(p. 13). Consequently, students may become moreself–directed, interacting with the various elements housed in these environments.
The terms ‘extended reality’ or ‘cross reality’ refer to “technologies and applications that involve combinations of mixed reality (MR), augmented reality (AR), virtual reality (VR), and virtual worlds (VWs)” (Ziker, Truman, & Dodds, 2021, p. 56). Immersive learning definitions draw from Milgram and Kishino’s key taxonomy (1994) emphasizing the continuum of experiences that range from where a computer adds to a learner’s reality with overlays of information, or a computer experientially transports a learner to a different place and time by manipulating sight and sound.
VR Design Model
three different design models (see Figure 3): the ADDIE Design Model (Branson, 1978), Design Thinking (Brown & Wyatt, 2010) from user experience (UX), and the 3D Learning Experience Design Model (Kapp & O’Driscoll, 2009).
Serrat (2008) defines storytelling as “the vivid description of ideas, beliefs, personal experiences, and life-lessons through stories or narratives that evoke powerful emotions and insights” (p.1).
The foundational theory for most XR experiences is experiential learning theory. In cases where users create within XR, constructivist learning theory also applies.
XR experiences can include a story arc (See Appendix D), a tutorial of user affordances, intentional user actions, and place the user into first or third person experiences (Spillers, 2020).
The idea of backwards design has been around for several decades, starting with Understanding by Design, published in 1998 by Grant Wiggins and Jay McTigue.