In Norway, digital skills are defined as an essential proficiency in the national curricular plans, and learning worldwide is in many ways changed by contemporary Web 2.0 technologies. Even so, teacher training is lagging behind when it comes to developing digital learning cultures and providing digital role models for future teachers. At the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), we used a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) approach to provide a digital professional development (DPD) program to faculties at the Department of Teacher Training. A main idea was to develop this program at the meso-level (horizontally) with some mutual structures and offerings, avoiding a top-down approach, which, based on experience, is likely to fail. The findings in this study present a four-step model, the collaborative learning approach (CLA), to account for the development and implementation of a blended learning MOOC (bMOOC) for professional digital competency development.
Blockchain technology is argued to be the next “big” digital technology trend that will challenge a number of organizations, including higher education institutions. In contrast, higher education institutions have a history of being slow to adopt new digital technologies in the organizational apparatus. The question that remains discussing is whether universities will approach blockchain technologies in ways that are different from traditional research and education. This paper intends to discuss three particular ways in which blockchain may challenge higher education institution. The paper questions whether blockchain technologies can democratize and automate learning process, reduce costly bureaucracy and be adopted in higher education institutions. In sum, the intent is to invite to a discussion on blockchain and address whether or in what ways higher education institutions should adopt blockchain technologies as a digital technology.
As pedagogical approaches to teaching and learning continue to evolve to meet the needs of students in a rapidly changing, globalized world that is heavily influenced and reliant on digital technologies, it is anticipated that the learning environments in Higher Education will also be transformed. Consequently, this transformation of learning environments is often synonymous with the adoption of and continued focus on the potential benefits of online learning in the Higher Education sector. It is within this context that this paper reports on a small-scale case study in a large Nordic university where the learning management system, Blackboard was piloted and implemented using a top-down approach consisting of the comprehensive training of academic staff, students and support staff. The explorative approach used in this study identifies three common themes in the data as it follows a group of academic beta testers (N=23) who are involved in the initial phases of implementation. The study explores the educators’ primary use of Blackboard, whilst attempting to understand how academics perceive and interpret the role of online technologies to support effective pedagogical practices. Drawing on data from participant interviews, the study highlights the need for increased academic support for online learning design and a renewed focus on staff development of effective pedagogical practices
Although MOOCs have been around for a decade, the use of MOOCs in teacher training is a new development. In 2015, a Norwegian teacher education received internal funding to develop a MOOC intended for blended learning, which we call bMOOC. The bMOOC consisted of four different modules, and the course content was created internally by highly competent teacher trainers. One goal with the bMOOC was to familiarize teacher students and teacher educators with the concept of blended learning. Another goal was to support students' academic writing processes across courses and possibly take some of the workload connected to instruction and feedback off the teacher trainers. The article analyzes the outcome of the implementation of the bMOOC, which shows low user adoption rate and low course completion. The study questions whether teacher educators see the pedagogical value in MOOCs and whether teacher students have enough digital competence to make use of online learning objects in formal learning.
Creating a Massive Online Open Course (MOOC) based on analysis from research requires the adaptation of MOOC pedagogies. For example, course designers need to follow certain design principles and adapt learning content to the pedagogies and constraints of a MOOC platform. That said, this paper outlines five different learning design principles that create active learning in a MOOC. These emerged when adapting knowledge from a research case study. To exemplify the adaptation, this paper examines how research from a sociological, qualitative classroom study about a teacher who used digital technologies in foreign-language training at a Norwegian high school was adapted for a MOOC that ran on FutureLearn.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.
hi@scite.ai
10624 S. Eastern Ave., Ste. A-614
Henderson, NV 89052, USA
Copyright © 2024 scite LLC. All rights reserved.
Made with 💙 for researchers
Part of the Research Solutions Family.