A fundamental requirement for effective learning is to understand and be understood. Inadequate language skills are a barrier at each stage of the learning journey. This module looks at the ways technology can transform the learning experience and outcomes for ESOL learners and those who...

This module looks at why it's worth creating and delivering personalised learning pathways and how to make them work in practice. It follows on from the Personalised learning pathways module.

Virtual Reality (VR) is a wholly manufactured experience. Learners can use mobile devices, often worn (so as to respond to head movements), to see and interact with a visual depiction of a place, person or object. The location of the learner is not material to the experience because it is...

Polling tools have stretched far beyond their original function of carrying out surveys and reporting results. Anyone who bought goods or services online will have encountered them; they underpin user satisfaction reporting across the board in the burgeoning online retail market, from...

Quizzes have long been recognised as a useful method to test learners' knowledge and check their understanding, but they offer more than that. Their effectiveness lies in their ability to be accessed when learners want to check learning and can be repeated as often as leaners want,...

An e-portfolio is an online repository, belonging to and managed by the owner. It's a personal technology rather than shared, like a Virtual Learning Environment (VLE). It contains artefacts added by the owner that are curated, arranged and presented, either in their own right or as...

Computer-based tests and digital media are widely used in formative assessment. This module looks at their use for enhancing low stakes summative assessment activities, where the goal is to test and confirm that a learner has completed a block of work, and for programmes such as NVQ, where...

Confidence in your digital practice comes from success: success in improving your teaching and learning rather than being good with gadgets. This requires the capacity for personal critical reflection and a means to share what you did with colleagues, at your workplace and in wider...

A useful definition of Blended Learning is the “combination of face-to-face learning and dynamic digital activities and content that facilitate anytime/anyplace learning.” (Jisc, 2017). This module follows on from the New forms and formats for face-to-face learning module and looks...

This module is the first of a pair, with the New forms and formats for Blended Learning module following on. This module looks at how changes in pedagogical thinking and our understanding of learning give the opportunity to renew the way we use technology in face-to-face learning.

Homework traditionally follows classwork: a teacher introduces the subject matter then homework reinforces the learning. Now that facts and information are just a quick search away, learners need to know more than ever how to evaluate, understand and apply information. Flipped learning...

Knowing how to choose the right tool or app for a task is a key skill for life and work. It requires more than understanding the broad purpose and technical capabilities of tools and packages. It calls on a learner’s ability to analyse a problem, plan an activity, monitor progress and...

Intermittent and disrupted attendance of learners is an early warning sign of potential drop out or underachievement. This module looks at the ways technology can help us to intervene early with effective solutions.

The culture that we grow up and live in can influence the way we prefer to communicate. This module looks at how we can draw on this rich diversity to improve the learning experience for all.

Technology makes meaningful personalisation a practical reality. Assistive technology, with materials and resources designed for accessibility and inclusion provides the essential foundations to support learners with a disability or learning disadvantage. This module looks at the ways in...

This module looks at the practical issues of how to build synchronous online learning into a balanced programme of online and face-to-face learning. It examines the challenges of real-time online activity (technical, social and personal) and things you can do to ensure that learner experience...

Augmented Reality (AR) superimposes either graphics, visual presentations or text as an overlay on a given view, looked at through a mobile device like a smartphone or tablet. Location is important for AR and where the device being used and what it is pointing at because AR is rooted in the...

Using videos, structured sets of annotated still images and sound recordings can be a great way to provide feedback. This is particularly true when the work you are assessing is an event or performance of a task: when you want to know how well an apprentice changed a washer, not how well they...

Producing effective online learning activities takes time, effort and creativity. This module looks at the process of creating learning resources with the intention that they are shareable resources; making them available to others, driving the concept of collaborative creation in your own...

This module looks at the issue of reflecting and representing diversity through the lens of the Equality Act 2010's nine protected characteristics.

Digital technology enables us to create personalised pathways that provide a unique route to learning for all learners, particularly individuals who are less likely to benefit from mainstream options. This module looks at the characteristics and features of personalised learning and the...

The diversity of learners extends to differences in their levels of digital skills, experience and confidence. This module looks at ways to ensure that our teaching does not disadvantage those with existing low levels of digital skills.

Our online identities are the keys that unlock personal, social and commercial accounts and transactions. They create portraits of ourselves that others can access and by which they will judge us - as friends, colleagues, and potential employees. We explored the importance of a digital...

This module considers how issues of equitable access to digital technologies can have an impact on the quality of learning and how this may be redressed.

This module looks at an individual's digital context based on personal access to the appropriate technology, their awareness of it, and the digital skills to make use of them.

This module follows on from the module Creating inclusive content: Principles. It shows how the principles from Creating inclusive content: Principles can be applied to create resources that are good for all users.

Each time we contribute to the web, in public spaces and in private spaces we share, we leave a trail for others to find. The modules Digital well-being for all (Part 1) and Digital well-being for all (Part 2) explored how this is done and how we might manage it for the best outcomes. In...

When we go online we build up, piece by piece, online identities that can have positive and negative outcomes for our well-being, our sense of self-worth and for our future prospects, all based on how others react and respond to our activity. Each time we contribute to the web, we add to an...

This module looks at using technology to support the learning activities of SLDD learners who are working towards living independently.

This module explores the range of accessibility assistance, from common mainstream software, apps and tools, through to the specialist or bespoke technology for complex individual needs, and its implications for teaching and learning practice.

This module explores the use of spoken text through devices such as e-readers and eBooks to overcome barriers to learning for a range of learners, not only those with a sight impairment.

This module looks at how to improve the elements of an organisation's digital technology strategy that relate to accessibility and its significance for bringing about change in teaching and learning practice.

This module looks at a broad classification of learning disabilities and the forms of technology that are best suited to overcome the associated challenges to learning.

This module looks at the impact on teaching strategy of learners who bring their own devices. This has implications for users of assistive technology and for those learners who prefer to work on their own devices.

This module shows some principles of good practice for creating content that meets the needs of learners with a disability or learning disadvantage.

Legislation for accessibility changed in a very positive way with The Public Sector Bodies (Websites and Mobile Applications) (No. 2) Accessibility Regulations (2018). This module looks at how to stay on the right side of these regulations.