{"id":2503,"date":"2022-08-29T10:28:43","date_gmt":"2022-08-29T10:28:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/?p=2503"},"modified":"2022-09-06T10:54:34","modified_gmt":"2022-09-06T10:54:34","slug":"the-future-of-online-learning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/the-future-of-online-learning\/","title":{"rendered":"THE FUTURE OF ONLINE LEARNING"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The future of online learning: the long-term trends accelerated by Covid-19<\/h1>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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With the technology now available, it\u2019s clear that simply broadcasting pre-recorded lectures is no longer an option for forward-thinking universities. Some universities have moved virtually all of their assessments and exams online <\/span>For Prof John Domingue, director of the Open University\u2019s pioneering research and development lab, the Knowledge Media Institute (KMI), the \u201conline genie\u201d is out of the bottle and won\u2019t go back in.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s slightly galling to see some universities trying to replicate online almost exactly what they delivered face-to-face before Covid. Standing before a camera and broadcasting is not online teaching. You need to do things differently,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

So what can universities undertake to make online learning more than just a heavy focus on streaming and recording technology? Domingue points to artificial intelligence (AI) and the concept of an online library for educators based on a Google search engine dedicated to education, and a Netflix-style recommendation tool that tracks down content to suit a lecturer\u2019s own field, based on previous searches.<\/p>\n

KMI is currently developing a personalised AI assistant or chatbot, an AI career coach and other tools that can analyse essays for marking and set up quizzes on revision topics.<\/p>\n

Personalisation is also key to giving students and lecturers a better online experience. In 2017, Oxford\u2019s Sa\u00efd Business School installed the first immersive virtual classroom of its kind in the UK: a bank of 27 HD screens able to simultaneously support up to 84 students from across the globe, called the Oxford Hub for International Virtual Education (or HIVE). An in-room camera follows lecturers moving around the room, who can respond \u2013 as in real life \u2013 to visual cues from and talk directly to individual students.<\/p>\n

While such technology could be prohibitively expensive for many institutions, Duncan Peberdy, a consultant specialising in tech-enabled learning spaces and former adviser at the educational IT body, Jisc, says a much cheaper alternative in the form of a 3-4m wide screen offering a different dynamic based on simplified specifications has been developed by ViewSonic. \u201cWe are now in talks with two UK universities to jointly develop it on their campuses,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile on UK campuses, many universities are striving to make the online experience more than just a lecturer broadcasting in front of a camera.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe didn\u2019t want that approach so we \u2018shifted\u2019 academics who were simply recurating their material with PowerPoint slides and brought in new hardware and specialists to assist them,\u201d says Guy Daly, deputy vice-chancellor (education and students) at Coventry University.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe realized our academics either needed the skills or support to deliver online learning in a very engaging way in a now very different world. Since March, we\u2019ve repurposed 2,500 course modules at under- and postgraduate level for delivery in the first term of this academic year.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coventry has moved virtually all its student assessments and exams online. \u201cWe also used to talk about the death of the traditional lecture and bringing in more student activity-based learning as opposed to traditional didactic methods, but we\u2019ve accelerated that journey due to Covid,\u201d says Daly.<\/p>\n

Wholesale and now permanent changes have gone hand in hand with the launches of Coventry\u2019s first online postgraduate certificate in education and the first online nursing degree in England.<\/p>\n

Many taught postgrad students, particularly those using labs, have been among students hardest hit, according to Prof Danielle George, associate dean for teaching and learning at the University of Manchester. \u201cThey only have one year to ensure they receive all their intended learning outcomes from their course. So we\u2019ve invested in software to enable them to do prep work at home so they will then need less time in the lab itself,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have also helped them with time management, which is absolutely key [during short courses]. Covid took away their daily structure of going from room to room on campus so we\u2019ve timetabled asynchronous activities \u2013 their lecturer will, say, be available \u2018live\u2019 at 9am to deliver a lecture and then answer questions, or they can choose to watch a recorded version later in their own time.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy best advice to postgrads is to get involved in anything to do with induction \u2013 we\u2019ve invested a lot more energy, time and passion in this area than we\u2019ve done before and put on numerous practical online sessions,\u201d says George.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The future of online learning: the long-term trends accelerated by Covid-19 With the technology now available, it\u2019s clear that simply broadcasting pre-recorded lectures is no longer an option for forward-thinking […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[73,19],"tags":[136,137,105],"class_list":["post-2503","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","category-technology","tag-education","tag-tech","tag-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2503"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2505,"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2503\/revisions\/2505"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2503"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2503"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.psmgt.org.uk\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2503"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}