Guide: Effective Practice in a Digital Age
This isn’t a completely new publication, it was published in early July this year, however it was brought to my mind again recently. Earlier this year JISC published an updated version of their "Effective Practice with e-Learning" guide which was published in 2004. The guide is now called "Effective Practice in a Digital Age". The name change reflects an increasing move away from using the term "e-learning"
Personal ownership of technologies coupled with access to social software means that all kinds of learning-related activity can potentially be e-enabled; e-learning can no longer be viewed as a purely institutionally based or narrowly defined set of activities.
It is reflects the reality of technology really being a increasingly mainstream part of the teaching and learning environment rather than a fringe activity.
The guide is largely made up of a number of case studies (10 in all) which describe the use of technologies in a variety of different Further and Higher Education institutions in the UK. The case studies are indexed in a variety of ways including:
- Learners and learning context: campus-based undergraduates, distance learners, mobile learning, blended learning
- Themes: assessment, reusing content
- Technologies: wiki, blog, vle, digital audio
There are also a large number of links to online resources should you want to find out more about any of the issues covered. It’s an interesting read and a good way to find out about the range of activities that are going on across the UK and to gain some insight into how things may be going in the future.
Links
Effective Practice in a Digital Age section on the JISC website. The guide can be downloaded from here or hard copies can be ordered for free.