Online Learning News - January 12, 2022

Free Contact North | Contact Nord Webinar

How to Design Online Teaching for Engaged Learning: Merging Instructional Design and Teaching and Learning Research

Tuesday, January 18, 2022
2:00 p.m. - 3:00 p.m. (Eastern Time)

Register Now!

How do we marry the substantial research on effective teaching and learning with our knowledge and experience of instructional design to ensure effective learning and increase student retention and course completion?

What pedagogical techniques are needed to make online learning engaging and empowering for students?

In this interactive webinar, Dr. Linda Nilson provides:

• Specific approaches to course design you can take to increase retention and completion.
• Practical insights on how to improve your online teaching, based on cognitive science and instructional design. Approaches to the assessment of learning that help students succeed.

Beyond the Basics: Teaching with Zoom’s
New Tools

Many instructors have mastered Zoom’s basic features. Now it’s time to up the engagement factor in your live classes by learning Zoom’s newest, most engaging tools.

If you’re stuck in a Zoom rut and you’re tired of limiting your classes to basic video, screen sharing and polls, Beyond the Basics, free, live training is made for you. In this training session led by Contact North | Contact Nord’s e-Learning Training Facilitator, you will learn how to increase engagement and accessibility for all types of learners:

• Enable live transcriptions for added accessibility
• Use PowerPoint as a virtual background, as a more immersive way to present
• Use focus mode to help learners avoid distractions by only seeing the host's webcam
• Use immersive view for creative discussions
• Set up and use exit surveys for all types of feedback

Register now for a one-hour live FREE training session!

Dr. Tony Bates’ Blog:
Online Learning and Distance Education

In his blog post, Dr. Bates provides a self-reflection and summary of his accomplishments in online learning in 2021.

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

What I did in online learning in 2021

Leaders & Legends of Online Learning

Dr. Mark Nichols’ Podcast

Leaders & Legends of Online Learning is a podcast that brings first-person perspectives from online learning experts that inform and inspire. Each interview lasts about 30 minutes, and links to each guest's work and profile.

In this episode, Dr. Mark Nichols interviews Professor Phillip Dawson, an international expert in online assessment and the flipped classroom, with a broad interest in online education. He is the Associate Director at the Centre for Research in Assessment and Digital Learning (CRADLE) at Deakin University, Australia.

This Week’s Must-Read Book
on Online Learning

 Learners Without Borders:
New Learning Pathways for All Students

By Yong Zhao (2021)

Yong Zhao is a dynamic, entertaining, and insightful keynote speaker and a thorough, thoughtful researcher. Though most of his work focuses on compulsory education, his insights have broad applicability to higher education. This is evident in this book, which explores the ways in which boundaries and borders limit and inhibit learning and what happens when these are removed. He explores the opportunities of borderless learning and the ability of learners to design their own learning pathways and programs of study. He calls for significant shift in practice. He writes powerfully about the way in which our current systems inhibit and constrain, and he writes passionately about what is possible. There is a lot of materials here about MOOCs and his evaluation of what they are now capable of, especially given the pandemic and their massive growth and expansion. 

Browse all Must-Read Books

Updated!
Directory of Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences from Around the World

Search the 46th Educational Technology and Related Education Conferences by Contact North I Contact Nord Research Associate, Clayton R. Wright, updated to include 2022 conferences. 

Use three unique search features of the comprehensive directory offered by Contact North I Contact Nord:

• Sort the directory by date, conference name or country
• Filter the results by date or country
• Search for a conference name, country or topic using a keyword search

Search the Directory

Upcoming Events in Online Learning

Designing Hybrid-Flexible (HyFlex) Courses to Support Multimodal Learning Environments

Hosted by EDUCAUSE

Part 1: February 1, 3:00 – 4:00 p.m. ET
Part 2: February 3, 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. ET
Part 3: February 10, 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. ET
Part 4: February 17, 3:00 – 4:30 p.m. ET

HyFlex (hybrid-flexible) courses provide an effective method to serve classroom-based students and online students in the same course with the same instructor. In these four virtual sessions participants will:

• Identify the opportunities and needs in your setting for HyFlex approaches.
• Use the recommended design framework and process for building and implementing a HyFlex course to create an initial high-level design plan.
• Plan for evaluating the impact of this approach on student learning and other metrics of interest in your context.

For More Information and to Register

About Contact North | Contact Nord

As Ontario's community-based bilingual distance education and training network, Contact North | Contact Nord helps underserved residents in 1,300 small, rural, remote, Indigenous and Francophone communities access education and training without leaving their communities.

Visit contactnorth.ca for more information

Most Popular Resources on teachonline.ca

1. A New Pedagogy Is Emerging... and Online Learning is a Key Contributing Factor
2. COVID-19 and the Impact on Online Learning
3. Ten Facts You Need to Know About Micro-Credentials
4. Ten Guiding Principles for the Use of Technology in Learning
5. 2017 Top Ten Books on Online Learning