Online Learning News - February 17, 2021

Read time: 5 mins

A bi-weekly update from Contact North ǀ Contact Nord, Ontario’s Distance Education & Training Network

Now on teachonline.ca:

Learn About the Micro-Credential Landscape in the United States

Wednesday, February 24, 2021
from 1:00 p.m. – 2:00 p.m. (ET)

Join us for the second webinar in the series What’s New in Micro-Credentials: International Perspectives. This free one-hour webinar looks at the micro-credentials landscape in the United States and how we can learn from it.

In the U.S., massive open online course (MOOC) providers such as Coursera and edX, as well as other education providers and private corporations, developed hundreds of micro-credentials covering a range of subjects. Since 2014, Digital Promise has developed over 550 micro-credentials in their growing micro-credential ecosystem.

Our Host, Odelia Young, Director, Micro-Credentials at Digital Promise, provides an understanding of:

How micro-credentials are unfolding and what is driving their development in the U.S.
The type of micro-credentials emerging in the U.S.
The essential policy drivers and constraints
Lessons learned from the development and implementation of these credentials
What is likely to happen with micro-credentials in Canada

Using the HyFlex Model to Improve Student-Directed and Multi-Modal Learning

A Cambrian College Innovation

Learn how Professor Melanie Lefebvre, Program Coordinator of the Community & Health Services Navigation program, helped pioneer the HyFlex teaching model for Cambrian College’s graduate certificate programs.

Find out about the benefits, the challenges and how you can apply this innovative model in your own institution.

Free Contact North | Contact Nord Webinar

How to Make Your Course
Interactive and Engaging

Today!

Wednesday, February 17, from 1:00 p.m. - 2:00 p.m. (ET)

Register Now!

Learn five practical ways to go beyond the talking head and ensure high levels of student engagement in your course.

How do you design and oversee small group work online?
How do you support individual presentations or group presentations?
How do you design other activities to ensure interactivity during a class and student engagement between classes?
How do you give feedback which helps students progress?
How do you use analytics to see how students are using the online resources in the course?

Our host: Dr. Stephen Murgatroyd, Chief Innovation Officer, Contact North | Contact Nord

Explore the New World of 24/7 On-Demand Learning Support to Students

Intelligent chatbots and agents represent a significant opportunity to help faculty and instructors to improve the student experience, offer new support services and provide additional supports to students with disabilities. They signify a new phase of the deployment of smart technologies in higher education.

Read Chatbots as “Always Available Tutor”: The New World of 24/7 On-Demand Learning Support to Students to learn how these tools are used in higher education in Canada and around the world.

Free Contact North | Contact Nord Webinar

How to Create Active and Engaging Learning Experiences with Zoom Breakout Rooms

Friday, February 26, 2021
10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. (ET)

Register Now!

Zoom’s breakout rooms provide a unique opportunity to learn to create active and engaging learning experiences for students.

Join Contact North | Contact Nord’s Research Associate, Dr. Ron Owston, who describes how educators can:

Move beyond holding ineffective, unstructured breakout room discussions
Create distinctive breakout room roles for students to promote active participation
Employ a variety of tools and techniques to enhance breakout room experiences
Pre-assign students to breakout rooms or allow them to chose their own
Design creative ways for students to report breakout room outcomes to the whole class
Make use of breakout rooms in large enrolment courses

Participants have ample opportunity to ask questions during the webinar.

NOTE: Registrants are expected to have a basic knowledge of how to use Zoom.

Search the Profiles of
115+ Online Learning Researchers
In the Contact North I Contact Nord
Searchable Directory

The researchers share a common commitment to improving online learning experiences for students. They explore topics such as strategies for student engagement, design principles, learning motivation, success and support.

Each profile features the researcher’s interests, key collaborators, institutional information and top three cited publications in the past five years.

Search the Contact North I Contact Nord Searchable Directory

Read Dr. Tony Bates’ Blog Post

In this blog post, Dr. Bates reviews and comments on the paper from Ohio State University’s Department of Educational Studies that compares the value of different contemporary videoconferencing systems for experiential learning.

Read Contact North I Contact Nord Research Associate Dr. Tony Bates’ blog post:

Video conferencing systems and experiential learning

Another Must-Read Book on Online Learning

The Analytics Revolution in Higher Education: Big Data, Organizational Learning, and Student Success Edited by Jonathan S. Gagliardi, Amelia Parnell and Julia Carpenter-Hubin

This book outlines both the benefits of analytics for improving our ability to help students and run efficient and effective organizations. It also provides examples of analytics in use and what impact their use has had.

Universities and colleges are sitting on substantial data-sets, which if used intelligently, could improve their retention and completion rates as well as the level of faculty and student satisfaction. Yet so few are using the available data for planning, decision making and innovation.

Browse all Must-Read Books

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Thunder Bay, Ontario P7B 6M8
807-344-1616
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