Abstract

Online education is growing at a rapid pace, both in higher education and the compulsory years of school education. In this learning module, we operate with a broad definition of online education, including not only courses that are offered at-a-distance, but blended courses that include a mix of in-person and at-a-distance participation, and in-person courses that use online media. The underlying philosophy of the learning module is that, in the new online learning media, there is no fundamental difference in medium and pedagogical practice between in-person and at-a-distance delivery. Addressing these issues, the learning module has both a theoretical and a practical focus. Theoretically, participants will analyze the changing shape of ‘new media’, exploring their implications for teaching and learning. Key issues include multimodality, the dynamics of participation, ‘big data’, social diversity, and changing patterns in the flow of knowledge. In the practical part of the course, participants will design, peer review, and publish an online learning module in Scholar, or another a learning management system of their choice—for actual or hypothetical implementation.