e-Learning Ecologies Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Learning for the Digital Age

For three decades and longer we have heard educators and technologists making a case for the transformative power of technology in learning. However, despite the rhetoric, in many ways and at most institutional sites, education is still relatively untouched by technology. Even when technologies are introduced, the changes sometimes seem insignificant and the results seem disappointing. If the print textbook is replaced by an e-book, do the social relations of knowledge and learning necessarily change at all or for the better? If the pen-and-paper test is mechanized, does this change the nature of our assessment systems? Technology, in other words, need not necessarily bring significant change. Technology might not even represent a step forward in education.But what might be new? How can we use technologies to innovate in education?

This course explores seven affordances of e-learning ecologies, which open up genuine possibilities for what we call New Learning – transformative, 21st century learning:

1. Ubiquitous Learning
2. Active Knowledge Making
3. Multimodal Meaning
4. Recursive Feedback
5. Collaborative Intelligence
6. Metacognition
7. Differentiated Learning

These affordances, if recognized and harnessed, will prepare learners for success in a world that is increasingly dominated by digital information flows and tools for communication in the workplace, public spaces, and personal life. This course offers a wide variety of examples of learning technologies and technology implementations that, to varying degrees, demonstrate these affordances in action.

Recommended Background

This course is designed for people interested in the future of education and the “learning society,” including people who may wish to join education as a profession, practicing teachers interested in exploring future directions for a vocation that is currently undergoing transformation, and community and workplace leaders who regard their mission to be in part “educative.”

Related Resources

Online resources are available here: https://newlearningonline.com

Join our Online Communities!

CGScholar (Create an account and join the New Learning community) https://cgscholar.com/community/community_profiles/new-learning/community_updates

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/newlearningonline

Twitter https://twitter.com/neolearning

Take this Course for Credit at the University of Illinois

This course has the same content and anticipates the same level of contribution by students in the Assessment for Learning course offered to graduate certificate, masters, and doctoral level students in the Learning Design and Leadership Program in the College of Education at the University of Illinois.

Of course, in the nature of MOOCs many people will just want to view the videos and casually join some of the discussions. Some people say that these limited kinds of participation offer evidence that MOOCs suffer from low retention rates. Far from it – we say that any level of engagement is good engagement.

On the other hand, if you would like to take this course for credit at the University of Illinois, you will find more information about our program here: https://ldlprogram.web.illinois.edu/overview/

And you can apply here: https://education.illinois.edu/epol/programs-degrees/ldl

The Learning Design and Leadership Series of MOOCs

This course is one of a series of eight MOOCs created by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis for the Learning Design and Leadership program at the University of Illinois. If you find this MOOC helpful, please join us in others!

e-Learning Ecologies: Innovative Approaches to Teaching and Learning for the Digital Age https://www.coursera.org/learn/elearning

New Learning: Principles and Patterns of Pedagogy https://www.coursera.org/learn/newlearning

Assessment for Learning https://www.coursera.org/learn/assessmentforlearning

Learning, Knowledge, and Human Development https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-knowledge-human-development

Ubiquitous Learning and Instructional Technologies https://www.coursera.org/learn/ubiquitouslearning

Negotiating Learner Differences: Towards Productive Diversity in Learning https://www.coursera.org/learn/learnerdifferences

Literacy Teaching and Learning: Aims, Approaches and Pedagogies https://www.coursera.org/learn/literacy-teaching-learning

Multimodal Literacies: Communication and Learning in the Era of Digital Media https://www.coursera.org/learn/multimodal-literacies

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Syllabus

Syllabus - What you will learn from this course
Week 1
Module 1: Course Orientation + Ubiquitous Learning
We begin this module with an introduction to the idea of an “e-learning ecology” and the notion of “affordance.” We use this idea to map the range of innovative activities that we may be able to use in e-learning environments – not that we necessarily do. Many e-learning environments simply reproduce the worst of old, didactic pedagogies. We then go on to explore the notion of “ubiquitous learning,” the first of seven “affordances” in computer-mediated educational applications and environments that we examine in this course.
Week 2
Module 2: Active Knowledge Making + Multimodal Meaning
This module examines two more e-learning affordances: “active knowledge making,” or the right and responsibility of learners to take a degree of control over their own knowledge making; and “multimodal meaning-making,” or the tools learners now have at hand to support their thinking and to represent the knowledge they have gained – including, for instance, text, image, diagram, animation, simulation, dataset, video, audio, or embedded web media.
Week 3
Module 3: Recursive Feedback + Collaborative Intelligence
Two further e-learning affordances are explored in this module: “recursive feedback,” or the rapid and repeatable cycles of feedback or formative assessment now available, including machine feedback and machine-mediated human feedback; and the “collaborative intelligence” fostered by the very social nature of Web 2.0 and contemporary e-learning environments.
Week 4
Module 4: Metacogniton + Differentiated Learning
We come now to the last two of our seven e-learning affordances: “metacognition,” or the process of thinking about thinking – a second order, more abstract, theoretical, and generalizable way of thinking; and “differentiated learning,” addressing learners’ different needs and interests. Together, these seven affordances become a tool with which to evaluate the scope of an e-learning technology and its application.

FAQ

When will I have access to the lectures and assignments?

Access to lectures and assignments depends on your type of enrollment. If you take a course in audit mode, you will be able to see most course materials for free. To access graded assignments and to earn a Certificate, you will need to purchase the Certificate experience, during or after your audit. If you don't see the audit option:

The course may not offer an audit option. You can try a Free Trial instead, or apply for Financial Aid.

The course may offer 'Full Course, No Certificate' instead. This option lets you see all course materials, submit required assessments, and get a final grade. This also means that you will not be able to purchase a Certificate experience.

What will I get if I purchase the Certificate?

When you purchase a Certificate you get access to all course materials, including graded assignments. Upon completing the course, your electronic Certificate will be added to your Accomplishments page - from there, you can print your Certificate or add it to your LinkedIn profile. If you only want to read and view the course content, you can audit the course for free.

Is financial aid available?

Yes. In select learning programs, you can apply for financial aid or a scholarship if you can’t afford the enrollment fee. If fin aid or scholarship is available for your learning program selection, you’ll find a link to apply on the description page.

Reviews

Interesting and important courses, however the heavy dependency on peer-review method for evaluation may open to unfair (or irresponsible) scoring by peers

The course is enriched with innovative approaches that will help educators in teaching and learning. It also share the new educational tools in approach to e-learning setting.

Very practical course. some concepts are a little difficult to grasp at first, but once I understood, i could see how powerful these knowledge are when applied.

This course really helped to push my understanding of how education is changing and continues to evolve with the changing pace of the world.