OLDaily

12 Key Ideas: An Introduction to Teaching Online
Dave Cormier, Ashlyne O'Neil, PressBooks, 2020/06/03

This is alternately a short book, or a series of short viideos, or a 12-day online course. It introduces some of the major (and current) ideas in online learning. Each chapter is a short video, some text, a suggested activity, and some supplemental resources. It comes from a good place, and these are the topics people should be thinking about. Some of the resource selections are odd, though. I'm not sure a one-hour video was the best choice to accompany 'Keep it Simple'. The Terry Heick resource seems to have very little to do with presence (maybe something by Anderson might have been better?). Is a resource on 'alternatives to grading' the best choice for a section on 'assessment for the web'? And while there's only a single short article from Inside Higher Ed to cover 'engagement', there's a whole course worth of resources for 'work together' (it's a fantastic collection, but maybe should have been referenced differently).

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Let’s lose the deficit language about online education
Tansy Jessop, Wonkhe, 2020/06/03

I think maybe the dialogue on online learning is beginning to shift a bit. "We will all have some nostalgia for the way things were. But as many commentators have argued – 'we cannot return to normal, because normal was the problem.'"

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Tony Bates on Future of online learning and higher education - post covid-19
Selena Chan, learning elearning, 2020/06/03

This is a summary of a Tony Bates podcast (his article on it is here) on the future of online learning and higher education post-Covid 19. Chan identifies four major points: the need for leadership and a planned approach; the need for learners "to learn the transversal or 'transferable' skills  required to cope with changes wrought by technological, social and economic changes"; "better structure to ensure lecturers have the skills to teach"; and the need for the role of instructional designers "to be scaled up."

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PhiloQuests
Institute of Philosophy, Citizenship and Youth, Université de Montréal, 2020/06/03

As summarized in the Daily Nous 'mini heap', this is "(More than) a hundred free philosophical activities for children — PhiloQuests are 'a series of thinking and creative missions' from the new Institute of Philosophy, Citizenship and Youth at Université de Montréal. As the website says, "it's all about asking yourself questions: philosophical questions! PhiloQuests are a series of thinking and creative missions, organized in days that are chock-full of all kinds of wonderings. There's even a guide for the adults in your life who would like to challenge themselves too." Awesome. This - what readers may recognize as the 'quest model' -  is what I mean by online learning.

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A Reflection: Many Best Practices Transcend School Walls
Erin Gohl, Kristen Thorson, Getting Smart, 2020/06/03

This article really focuses only on three 'best practices' seemingly chosen at random. But they're worth reflecting on as illustrative of the current tension between in-person and online learning. Here they are (paraphrased):

• the increased role of families in managing and overseeing a student’s education
• flexible and accessible anytime, anywhere access to materials
• the quality and strength of the relationships between teachers and their students

Let's agree that these are all essential. They are at one time 'best practices' (in a sense) but also the locus of criticisms of both offline and online learning. A student may lack family support, lack access to materials, and have a dysfunctional relationship with the teacher. When this happens online, the problems are there for everyone to see, but when they happen in traditional face-to-face education, nobody sees them, and the student simply suffers.

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