Resource Bank
Online, Blended & Hybrid Delivery

As you prepare for more online/blended interaction, it can be useful to follow a process or framework that sets out the key points to consider. There are several popular models, with ABC Learning Design popular in colleges and a wider overview provided in the Jisc guide.

• ABC Learning Design
  A process that involves mapping out learning using a series of cards placed on an open template. It’s really designed for a curriculum team to work together to look at how a course can be reimagined, but it can be helpful to look at the process individually. The best place to start is watch these two introductory videos: General Introduction to ABC LD (18m38s) and the ABC LD Method (20m56s) before going on to download the ABC LD resources (registration required for download).

• Designing Learning and Assessment in a Digital Age (Jisc Guide, 24 pages)
  An in-depth guide to using technology to enhance learning and assessment and definitely goes beyond the suggested 1 hour+ reading time. The guide covers a lot of ground and includes case studies from colleges and universities. As we’re talking about design here, it’s worth spending a bit of time on the Approaches to Learning Design section, especially the parts on Blended Learning, Online Learning and Flipped Learning.

One of the best ways to learn what blended/online learning has to offer is to go through the experience yourself – and by that we don’t mean mandatory training which involves identifying which colour of fire extinguisher to use in an emergency (though that has its place too). There are a LOT of online courses you could sign up to, but one we particularly like has been developed by Deakin University in Australia and is available on FutureLearn.

• Transforming Digital Learning: Learning Design Meets Service Design
  A 2-week, 6-hour online course that takes you through current thoughts around digital learning and literacy. It’s really a self-directed experience and although you can post comments and read others contributions, collaboration is limited to say the least. So saying that, we found the content useful and would recommend working your way through the activities – there’s a handy PDF guide to making the most of your experience if you haven’t tried this kind of course before.

The kind of content you need to prepare and tools you might use will depend on your subject area and platforms available in your college. Whatever the case, video is going to be a significant part of delivery going forward.

• Developing Blended Learning Content Approaches (Jisc Guide)
  This resource covers a range of tools and approaches to developing engaging content; it’s not so much about the step-by-step guides rather than the kinds of content that you could consider developing. The guide also includes case studies which demonstrate the tools and techniques being used across the sector to develop engaging blended learning content for learners.

• VocAcademy (coming soon)
  As part of a Ufi-funded project, City of Glasgow College are building an online resource which brings together collections of video resources grouped into college curriculum areas, as well as guides to produce your own digital resources.

During the lockdown, one of the most popular staff development training requests was for guidance on producing instructional video. At CDN, we are currently producing 3 guides: 1) Recording instructional video; 2) Recording audio/video feedback and 3) Recording video assignment (for students). These guides will be ready before the next term and released under an open licence. Until then, we recommend the following:

• Effective Educational Videos: Principles and Guidelines for Maximizing Student Learning from Video Content
  This Life Sciences Education article covers three aspects of educational videos; cognitive load – segmenting content and sticking to key information; student engagement – brevity, pace and connection; and active learning – adding interactive elements. The article is relatively short, but it’s packed with useful advice and we feel your time is best spent powering up your laptop, opening up PowerPoint and giving recording a try.

There are various technical solutions that can evaluate the accessibility of content and help you meet required standards. Microsoft has done a lot of work in this area, but there are also dedicated tools which your students will be using with your content.

• Microsoft Accessibility Checker
  When you’re using Word, PowerPoint or writing emails in Outlook, you can check the accessibility of your document by using Microsoft’s built-in accessibility checker. Although it doesn’t catch everything, if it gives you a clean bill of health, you know you’re on the right track. You’ll find this option in the Review tab (with Outlook, you need to view your email message in its own window by using the Pop Out option).

• Using Assistive and Accessible Technology in Teaching and Learning (Jisc guide)
  This guide is not about creating accessible materials, but giving you an introduction to various accessibility tools and accessiblity features within tools that you and your students already use. It can be helpful to know what accessible options exist as it gives you an insight to how your students might be accessing your material.

The Universal Design for Learning (UDL) framework was developed by CAST, a non-profit education research and development organisation based in the US, and is now used the world over to make learning more inclusive. They’ve put together an online resource which is worth exploring:

• UDL on Campus
  CAST have developed this website resource, which groups information on UDL into areas of Course Design, Media & Matierals, and Accessibility & Policy. This 2-minute YouTube video neatly sums up the objectives of the UDL site. You’ll find a host of information here relevant to all areas of your work; it’s worth spending a bit of time exploring the content here.

There are similarities to teaching online and face-to-face, but also there are some important differences to consider. Learning Analytics can also potentially play a part by giving us more insight into how our students are doing.

• Moving Your Course Online: How to Conduct the Class
  Some general advice around the switch to online delivery, maintaining regular communication, conducting discussions and encouraging more peer activity.

• Learning Analytics in Higher Education (Jisc Guide)
  We only really interact with our students for a fraction of the time they spend at college; we measure their progress by observing them in class, marking assignments and the occasional chat. Learning Analytics is the process of using data to measure and predict their process throughout the educational experience. Your college will be looking at analytics and may well be presenting you with ‘dashboards’ to track and predict student progress. This guide published in 2016 gives a good overview of what’s coming your way.

Creating a space that encourages your students to engage and collaborate is at the heart of any successful course. There’s no magic bullet (unfortunately), but there are some basic principles that can help tease out the interaction you’re looking for online.

• Teach Online: Conversation Matters
  This FutureLearn course developed by Griffith University for its own staff, has been opened up for general access. It’s a couple of years old and some activities point you towards Griffith’s systems which are not accessible, but there’s enough here to pick up a lot of practical tips that you apply to your own delivery.

Technology can enhance the assessment and feedback process, with a wide range of tools and approaches that can be considered. Peer assessment is one area that offers so much potential, but can be challenging to implement.

• Enhancing Assessment and Feedback with Technology: A Guide for FE and Skills (Jisc Guide)
  This guide doesn’t focus on assessment and feedback from the perspective of remote teaching, but does give a good overview of technology-enhanced approaches which can be applied to the current context. Included are a collection of college case studies covering a wide range of curricular areas. At the heart of this document, there is an underlying message about the need to develop the digital literacies of those involved in a move towards digital assessment and feedback practices.

• Guide to Peer Assessment
  This relatively short guide from Trinity College Dublin sets out the case why you should consider the admittedly challenging prospect of introducing peer assessment in your curriculum delivery. It’s more of a why than how, but it sets out the argument in a clear and (hopefully) convincing way. As we encourage our students to take on more independence in their learning, enabling them to critically review their own work and that of others is a meta skill we can all use.

The topic of eAssessment is a difficult one, the technology to produce enhanced assessment options has been around for quite some time, and all the research seems to suggest that done well, it would benefit students and staff involved, which begs the question why it hasn’t become mainstream yet. The project output below, published in 2015 and updated in 2019, takes a practical look at this area; it was written with an SQA and college focus – and while it’s not a step-by-step guide to producing assessment/feedback practices, it does cover the important issues and suggests practical steps to move us forward.

• Creating Innovative Technology–enhanced Assessments (CITeA)
  This Jisc-funded project’s aims were to examine how colleges could make more use of eAssessment and produce tools, resources and processes that might be able to help in that aim. What I like about this resource is that a) lots of relevant stakeholders were involved and b) that John Casey wrote the final report. Honestly the second reason makes it worth reading.

• Blended Learning Essentials: Getting Started - Diana Laurillard (UCL) and Neil Morris (University of Leeds), this 5-week (20-hour) course has been designed to help anyone teaching or supporting learning in the vocational education and training (VET) sector understand the benefits of blended learning and how to use technology effectively to support learners.
• Active Blended Learning - A Definition - The University of Northampton's definition of active blended learning highlights the best of blended learning design.
• ETF Enhance Digital Teaching Platform - A repository of brief guides to a range of digital tools/approaches aligned to the Digital Teaching Professional Framework.
• Practitioner Support for Online Remote Learning - Education Scotland's portal to resources to support teachers during the COVID19.
• Get Interactive: Practical Teaching with Technology - Bloomsbury Learning Exchange's Coursera MOOC, a 3-week course covering some of the popular technologies that educators use to make their learning engaging, interactive and dynamic.
• Spaced Learning - A guide developed by Monkseaton High School on embedding information in long-term memory through repetition.
• A Quick Summary of the Theory of Learning Curves - As suggested by the title, a very brief summary of a learning theory associated with learning through repetition.
• LearningWheel - LearningWheel is a model of digital pedagogy designed to enhance learning and develop digital literacy skills.
• Educational Developers Cookbook - A collection of practical activities, everything from icebreakers to assessment/feedback; these cover face-to-face as well as online approaches.
• Learning and Teaching Online (PDF) - General advice from Education Scotland on the use of Microsoft and Google solutions.
• Take Your Teaching Online - A free OU course (released under a Creative Commons licence) updated at the end of March that covers the the transformation to online teaching.
• Bloom’s Revised Taxonomy - This UHI resource covers this popular classification of learning skills often used in education.
• VLE Checklist - This checklist supports the development and maintenance of units and module spaces within the UHI learning environment, but could be applied to other VLEs.
• Essential Student Skills - A portfolio of interactive guidance materials is designed to introduce students to aspects of learning at the UHI.
• Making Digital Learning Interactive and Engaging - A UHI workshop that provides top tips on how to make digital learning more engaging and interactive.
• How to Make Effective Use of Learning Resources - A UHI workshop providing advice on how to make online learning resources more engaging and interactive.

• Guide to Using MS Teams - Dundee & Angus's online supporting materials to help staff get to grips with MS Teams.
• A Guide to Hosting Virtual Events with Zoom - A guide filled with useful tips on using Zoom by Harvard's Alexandra Kutler, released under a Creative Commons licence.
• Finding and Using Images - UHI guide for staff on copyright, searching for and using images as well a list of popular image resources on the web.
• Principles of Shooting Video - UHI guide that takes you through the practical steps of shooting video, including setup, lighting, audio and transferring footage.

• Training Teachers to Author Accessible Content - A one-hour course offered by Microsoft on how to produce accessible documents using Word, OneNote and PowerPoint.
• The Online Educator: People and Pedagogy - A free 4-week FutureLearn course to help you design engaging, inclusive courses, navigate online research ethics and shape your digital identity.
• Accessibility in Digital Content - A UHI guide on how to make reasonable adjustments to your teaching resources.

• 6 Questions to Improve Your Virtual Classroom - This Edutopia article explains that collecting regular feedback during online delivery is key, and suggests 6 questions that you can use.

• 7 Ways to Do Formative Assessments in Your Virtual Classroom - An Edutopia article on 7 simple ways to introduce formative assessment in your online lessons.