Digital learning: bringing it all together

We’ve come so far learning about digital learning as a community. Let’s bring it all together.

The big question we set out to answer at the beginning of this course was: ‘How can we transform the future practice of digital learning?’

By now, each of you should have come up with a very personal answer to this question that you also captured in your professional practice plan.

Hopefully the frameworks and examples we’ve worked through in this course have challenged and extended your thinking.

What we covered this week

This week, we started with looking at the concept of ‘design’ in digital education (such as design thinking and service design) as a way of approaching digital learning practices in a holistic way.

We then looked at how diverse digital learning practitioners make the services possible by crossing boundaries and doing complex knowledge work.

Finally, we then honed into transformative practices around digital learning by looking at some of the frameworks and standards available to evaluate and bring about innovation and transformation.

Final takeaways

In transforming our practices, my key takeaways from the research presented in this course are:

• Both learners and practitioners around digital learning are increasingly becoming diverse and complex, eg their motivations and needs for digital learning.
• What makes digital learning possible are the connections through networks that bring new opportunities for learning (eg mobile, social and life-long learning); it’s not simply about digital tools.
• The concept of design is critical both as a way of working with empathy for others (ie learners and practitioners) to create learning experiences and iterating learning and teaching processes and products for continuous improvements.
• In digital learning where numerous connections are possible for meaning-making (informally and formally), an educator ought to work as a curator and designer rather than dictator of learning.
• Working with inter-disciplinary teams made up of diverse expertise can transform digital learning practices and apply life-long learning skills to continuous professional learning.
• Evaluating and benchmarking (innovative) digital learning initiatives are a crucial part of our practice in assuring the quality of digital learning as an emerging field of inquiry.

Your task

Watch the video from Chie to find out more about the key ideas and principles that we’ve covered in this course.

In the comments, share and discuss your own key takeaways. What is the most important message you’ll take away from this course and apply into your context?