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Growing access to the internet has created new demands for online learning, but what makes excellent – or, better yet, transformative – digital learning experiences possible?

Welcome to this (digital) course about digital learning.

According to a 2016 United Nations report, 3.5 billion people – or 47 per cent of the world’s population – use the internet. By 2019, the number of learners on just the FutureLearn’s platform grew to over 10 million, On average, each learner has enrolled in 2.5 courses.

35 million comments have been posted on FutureLearn since the first courses were released in 2013.

During this time, the needs and expectations of learners – and the challenges for those who create educational materials – have become more diverse and complex. Rapidly evolving technological advances have also presented new challenges and opportunities.

What will you be learning in this course?

In response to this changing online landscape, especially with the current global health crisis of COVID-19 rapidly evolving, the big question we’ll be looking at in this course is: ‘How do we transform the future practice of digital learning?’

To answer this, we’ll explore what is meant by transformative approaches to digital learning from a range of professional contexts, including your own.

We’ll examine what (digital) learning is, who needs it, who creates it and why. We’ll look at the most up-to-date thinking informing digital learning, including the relatively new concept of ‘service’ as part of our design practices.

Throughout the course, we’ll hear from a wide spectrum of digital learning specialists and go behind the scenes to meet the team who created this course and learn from their stories.

Your learning outcomes

By completing this course, you should be able to:

• identify the diverse needs of digital learners
• investigate digital learning approaches to design and create premium digital learning experiences
• examine the role of team teaching and social learning in digital learning practice
• produce a reflective professional practice plan.

Meet the team

Your lead educator will be A/Prof. Chie Adachi, Director, Digital Learning at Deakin University. Chie is part of the learning and teaching (Deakin Learning Futures) unit, where she leads innovation projects with her teams across the University. Chie’s research interests include digital pedagogy, social learning and authentic assessment. Throughout the course, keep a look out for Chie’s ‘behind the scenes’ stories.

Assisting Chie will be Dr Jo Elliott, Lecturer, Digital Learning Innovation. Jo leads digital learning innovation projects across the University, building capabilities of teachers to support the design of engaging, inclusive online learning experiences. Her research interests include the role of online learning in inclusive education and student transition, staff-student partnerships, and communication for behavioural change.

Joining you in conversation will be highly experienced Mentors:

• Dr Isma Seetal, Senior Education Developer in the Digital Learning Innovation team
• Jenny Pesina, Senior Educational Developer in the Global Studio team.
• Chris Rawson Senior Educational Designer CloudFirst, Deakin University.
• Meg Colasante Lecturer, Deakin University.

If you haven’t already, make sure you follow Chie and the team for the latest course updates, feedback and discussions.

As we’ll soon learn, social learning plays a vital role in getting the most out of your online learning, so you might also like to join in on conversations and help create a community of practice by using #FLdigitallearning on social media.

A note about this course

This course is the first of five that make up the Digital Learning, Design and Assessment introductory unit of Deakin’s Graduate Certificate and Master of Digital Learning Leadership.

As such, keep in mind that the material that we’ll cover in this course only begins to touch on the many and varied topics that we’ll be covering in subsequent courses.

Your task

Watch the video to find out more from Chie about what you’ll be learning in this course.

Next, take a moment to get to know one another by telling us a little about yourself in the comments. For example:

• What’s your background and interest in digital learning?
• Why are you taking this course and what do you hope to get out of it?

When you’re done, select the ‘mark as complete’ button and use the forward arrow to move on to the next step.