ASCILITE NEWS
AJET offers helpful inspiration for online teaching in the current environment
The current situation with COVID-19 and social distancing has changed the way many of us are now teaching. As the initial rush of transitioning to online delivery is starting to settle down, many teachers are now turning their attention towards finding ways to improve support for students and increase engagement in the online environment. To help, the AJET editors and associate editors have put together a list of past AJET articles that provide strategies and recommendations for learning and teaching online. These are being promoted via Twitter over the next few weeks.
The articles cover a range of topics from design principles for crafting asynchronous messages to students, to understanding and supporting students’ self-directed learning, to strategies for using video to deliver feedback to students online. Consideration is given to how to “teach to your personality” with technology, how to teach students on the autism spectrum online, and how to manage the workload of learning online, especially for women with carer responsibilities. There are also articles that explore motivations to study online vs. face-to-face, or the impact of lecture recordings and attendance, that provide insight into how we might need to support our student cohorts now these choices are temporarily limited.
Follow @AJET_eds on Twitter to receive all the latest updates.
Latest TELall Blog Post: Crisis and Technology Enhanced Learning: Responses from the ASCILITE Community
In our latest blog post, authors Hazel Jones (Griffith University), Wendy Taleo (Darwin University), Henk Huijser (QUT), Audrea Warner (University of Auckland) and David Porter (University of Wollongong) discuss the different ways our institutions and the ASCILITE SIGs are responding to the COVID-19 crisis.
And remember, you can leave comments, subscribe to TELall or even write a post! You’ll find all the details on the blog.
Upcoming ASCILITE Live! Webinars
iLearn Insights – An application to facilitate data driven student interventions to increase student engagement
Date and Time: 14 May 2020 1:00-2:00 pm AEST. You’ll find session start times for different time zones here.
Abstract: iLearn Insights allows teaching staff to easily visualise student activity in iLearn units. iLearn Insights provides a dashboard with visual representations of student data in relation to access patterns, forum activity and learning activity submission and grading. Academics can then use the email messaging function to provide timely and well informed interventions to students who may be struggling with their studies as well as the opportunity provide extra motivation to students who are doing well.
Presenter: Shamim Joarder has worked for various educational institutions since 2001. His eLearning journey began in 2009 working as an eLearning Project Manager at the University of Adelaide. Mr. Joarder currently works at Macquarie University, Sydney as the Learning Technologies System Analyst, where he has designed and developed an unique learning analytic application titled ‘iLearn insights’. He has also authored the book ‘Moodle eLearning Course Design: A Flexible Approach’. He is a 2019 ASCILITE Innovation Award Winner.
Registration: You can register for this webinar here. Pre-registration allows us to email you a quick reminder prior to the session.
Creating presence in online learning for practice-based classes
Date and Time: 11am – 12pm AEST 16 June 2020. You’ll find session start times for different time zones here.
Abstract: The sudden shift to all disciplines moving to online learning due to COVID-19 has surfaced many questions for those teaching practice-based classes, such as music performance, visual arts, physics and so forth.
Community of Inquiry model (Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2000) presents teaching presence, social presence and cognitive presence in a concentric approach for meaningful online learning. Attainable online student learning objectives, authentic student assessment, and the development of community become key considerations for how presences can be developed for practice-based online classes.
Recommendations through research-informed approaches will be used to identify ways to transform face-to-face, practise-based activities into their meaningful, and approachable, online counterparts.
Presenter: Carol Johnson, PhD, is the Senior Lecturer in Music (Online Learning & Educational Technology) at the Melbourne Conservatorium of Music where she researches evidence-based approaches in teaching and learning music online. Carol is the 2019 recipient of the ASCILITE Emerging Scholar Award.
Registration: You can register for this webinar here. Pre-registration allows us to email you a quick reminder prior to the session.
Transforming Assessment (e-Assessment) SIG News
Next session: Online exam challenges – migration or transformation, 6 May 2020
This webinar presents research on the roles played by two main discourses in online exams practice in higher education: ‘migration’, whereby exam technologies are assumed to be neutral instruments; and ‘transformation’, whereby the essential qualities of technologies are seen to ‘transform’ or ‘enhance’ assessment.
For further information and to register for the session, go here.
Recent session recordings
Below are two recordings from the Teaching under COVID19 series of webinars held on 29 and 30 April 2020:
- Detecting and addressing contract cheating in online assessment, 29 April 2020 recording
- Authentic online oral assessment – an examination replacement, 30 April 2020 recording
OTHER NEWS
Call for nominations to the ODLAA Executive
Are you looking for new ways to engage in professional associations around open and distance learning?
The Open and Distance Learning Association of Australia (ODLAA) is looking for enthusiastic members with skills and knowledge in online and distance learning to join the ODLAA Executive.
ODLAA is a professional association for teachers, developers, researchers, consultants and administrators from Australia and overseas involved in open and distance learning.
The aims of ODLAA are to:
- Advance the practice and study of open, flexible and distance learning, education and training
- Foster communication between open, flexible and distance learners, educators and trainers
- Maintain and extend links with other national and international associations with related aims and objectives.
If you are interested in becoming a member of the ODLAA Executive, email the Executive Secretary and visit the ODLAA website.
We are also holding our e-AGM on Tuesday 12 May and Wednesday 13 May 2020 and you are invited to attend and view what it is we do.
The Executive members of both ASCILITE and ODLAA are in the process of negotiating a Memorandum of Understanding.
EDEN 2020 Annual VIRTUAL Conference – Call for Contributions Open
The EDEN 2020 Annual Virtual Conference will be held 21-24 June, hosted by Politehnica University, Timisoara, Romania and the theme of the conference is Human and Artificial Intelligence for the Society of the Future.
EDEN aims to ensure the enhanced academic quality of the event by publishing the double-blind peer reviewed papers in the electronic Conference Proceedings with ISSN, discovered and linked by Google and Google Scholar, Alma (ProQuest), EBSCO Discovery Services (EDS), with further indexing via the Central and Eastern European Online Library (CEEOL).
We look forward to the continued support by all participants to ensure the success of the EDEN 2020 Annual Virtual Conference, also in the hope of seeing each other face to face on the EDEN Research Workshop in Lisbon in October.
Visit the conference website for further information and details on the call for contributions, which is open throughout May, may be found here. Enquiries in relation to the conference may be directed to timisoara@eden-online.org.
