Knowing how to choose the right tool or app for a task is a key skill for life and work. It requires more than understanding the broad purpose and technical capabilities of tools and packages. It calls on a learner’s ability to analyse a problem, plan an activity, monitor progress and...

Homework traditionally follows classwork: a teacher introduces the subject matter then homework reinforces the learning. Now that facts and information are just a quick search away, learners need to know more than ever how to evaluate, understand and apply information. Flipped learning...

Confidence in your digital practice comes from success: success in improving your teaching and learning rather than being good with gadgets. This requires the capacity for personal critical reflection and a means to share what you did with colleagues, at your workplace and in wider...

This module looks at ways to deal with technical problems that emerge while teaching. Technical problems can happen at awkward moments in a session. There are some quick and simple ways to try to resolve them, but if these don’t work then teachers can turn the situation into pedagogical...

We all have a preferred set of tools, apps and software that we use for teaching and learning. Making sure you know how to use this to the best of its ability is the first step to effective teaching and learning with technology. Then, it’s time to extend your range. There are countless...

Making the most of new forms and formats of technology happens when teachers and learners let curiosity lead them in experimenting to find better depth, reach, efficiency and fun in learning.

A quality learning experience can be found in learners recognising learning that exceeds their expectations in terms of how they worked and what they learned. It leads to a desire to repeat or learn more. Digital technology used well contributes to this in both the administration and enterprise...

Technology can help find learning advantage through group working. Groups are formed around identifiable common goals or interests, in the belief that working together is more productive or satisfying than working alone and simulates real working environments.

A strength of learning in a classroom has been the immediacy of interaction between learners and teacher. Teachers are looking for a balance between having a culture of collective and common effort and personalised methods of achieving it. How might teachers guide, and interact with learners in...

Digitising content has kept the language of files and folders associated with paper storage, but replaced its office-based storage into condensed, highly portable, indexed stores, that can be carried in the pocket or accessed from an online store.

How communities of learning can be formed and become effective through technology. Successful groups are characterised as being able to have a greater output than the sum of its parts. This principle applies to learning, which is why group learning is so common.

Running wholly online programmes has its own challenges for learners and teachers. Online learning offers flexibility in when to engage with it, and attendance in a timetabled class is not a requirement for successful completion. But for some this can be a challenging because it asks learners to...

Peer learning is learning with and from each other. Its meaning is more tightly defined as it being mutual learning between classmates of equal knowledge.

This module looks at the issue of reflecting and representing diversity through the lens of the Equality Act 2010's nine protected characteristics.

Digital technology enables us to create personalised pathways that provide a unique route to learning for all learners, particularly individuals who are less likely to benefit from mainstream options. This module looks at the characteristics and features of personalised learning and the...

The best basis for improving practice is evidence from research. This often just confirms our own experience. This module looks at metacognitive strategies and considers how technology might support their introduction into learning.

This module follows business tutor Alicja and her colleagues as they apply the innovation matrix and the SAMR model to find innovative ways to deal with the problems that emerged in the module Innovation and the need for change. It looks at the goals and issues that were identified when they...

This module looks at the range of innovation from individuals to whole organisations. It also looks at how to recognise the signs that it is time to change. This module is part of a linked group with Innovation: 'Review process and practice' and 'Identifying and assessing...

Intermittent and disrupted attendance of learners is an early warning sign of potential drop out or underachievement. This module looks at the ways technology can help us to intervene early with effective solutions.

A Virtual Learning Environment (VLE) attempts to replicate in an online space everything learners might want to do and what a tutor might want to share as part of a programme of study. Learners are 'enrolled' to the course area. It contains a library, assignment and announcements areas....

Producing effective online learning activities takes time, effort and creativity. This module looks at the process of creating learning resources with the intention that they are shareable resources; making them available to others, driving the concept of collaborative creation in your own...

Rather than faithfully represent an online version of a standard course, Virtual Learning Environments (VLEs) enable you to add extra features and offer learners: - flexibility in engaging with learning material, - an opportunity to repeat a learning activity for reinforcement, and - a...

The diversity of learners extends to differences in their levels of digital skills, experience and confidence. This module looks at ways to ensure that our teaching does not disadvantage those with existing low levels of digital skills.

This module looks at the practical issues of how to build synchronous online learning into a balanced programme of online and face-to-face learning. It examines the challenges of real-time online activity (technical, social and personal) and things you can do to ensure that learner experience...

Synchronised working uses technology to deliver learning normally done in a classroom or workshop, without having to be physically present in the room. Learners can observe and take notes, but also engage with the teacher and fellow students. All the benefits of working together,...

A recorded teaching session can provide real opportunities for improving your teaching practice, especially if you share it with colleagues in a quality circle or improvement group where you all watch each other's recordings to review and reflect upon them. This module looks at some of...

Digital technologies have a particular value in their ability to be shared over distance and then viewed and worked on at different times. This allows content and resources to be adapted, improved, questioned, have examples added, have gaps and other incompletions filled, and so on, completed...

An increasingly important definition views learning as a change in long-term memory. Theories of effective teaching and learning focus on enabling the progressive acquisition of knowledge by learners. This module looks at Barak Rosenshine’s widely used Principles of Instruction. They...

A useful definition of Blended Learning is the “combination of face-to-face learning and dynamic digital activities and content that facilitate anytime/anyplace learning.” (Jisc, 2017). This module follows on from the New forms and formats for face-to-face learning module and looks...

This module is the first of a pair, with the New forms and formats for Blended Learning module following on. This module looks at how changes in pedagogical thinking and our understanding of learning give the opportunity to renew the way we use technology in face-to-face learning.

This module looks at improving learner engagement by rethinking the use of technologies within the classroom. It examines the possibilities for involving learners actively in sessions, embedded in a carefully structured approach to teaching face-to-face through technology.

This module explores the notion of face-to-face learning in a physical space such as a classroom and the place of technology in emerging pedagogy. It describes a framework for considering the activities and intended outcomes of face-to-face interaction.

Legislation for accessibility changed in a very positive way with The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations (2018). This module looks at how to stay on the right side of these regulations.

This module looks at how to improve the elements of an organisation's digital technology strategy that relate to accessibility and its significance for bringing about change in teaching and learning practice.

This module looks at an individual's digital context based on personal access to the appropriate technology, their awareness of it, and the digital skills to make use of them.

This module follows on from the module Creating inclusive content: Principles. It shows how the principles from Creating inclusive content: Principles can be applied to create resources that are good for all users.

This module looks at a broad classification of learning disabilities and the forms of technology that are best suited to overcome the associated challenges to learning.

This module looks at using technology to support the learning activities of SLDD learners who are working towards living independently.

This module considers how issues of equitable access to digital technologies can have an impact on the quality of learning and how this may be redressed.

This module looks at the impact on teaching strategy of learners who bring their own devices. This has implications for users of assistive technology and for those learners who prefer to work on their own devices.

This module explores the use of spoken text through devices such as e-readers and eBooks to overcome barriers to learning for a range of learners, not only those with a sight impairment.

This module explores the range of accessibility assistance, from common mainstream software, apps and tools, through to the specialist or bespoke technology for complex individual needs, and its implications for teaching and learning practice.

This module shows some principles of good practice for creating content that meets the needs of learners with a disability or learning disadvantage.