Section:GDN BE PaGe:36 Edition Date:170110 Edition:01 Zone:
36
Sent at 9/1/2017 15:47
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education
The Guardian | Tuesday 10 January 2017
Special report
Online learning: not just for jobs As technology enables more sophisticated teaching, hands-on subjects are joining the online curriculum Allison Dickinson Lee Scott, 61, says online learning has transformed his life: “I have been to places and had experiences I never thought possible. I have explored our deep oceans; monitored climate from Space; gone shopping in the time of Richard III; identified the dead and caught the perpetrator; and gone over the top at the Somme.” Scott, who was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1976, is confined to a wheelchair, unable to eat or drink without assistance, and types with just one finger. But enrolling on a course with FutureLearn has enabled him to communicate with the world, learn about his health and pursue passions he feared he would have to give up. “I’m able to take part in interesting cyber conversations with fellow students from around the globe. It has given me a real opportunity to connect with people,” he adds. The development of new technology has meant an explosion in the number of subjects available to study online, including practical subjects that in the past could only be accessed in person. “There are an awful lot of people who think that online learning is just about computers,” says Dani Salvadori, director of academic enterprise at University of the Arts, London. “But it’s not – there’s something for everybody. “We use synchronous online delivery,
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which enables tutors to demonstrate practical skills, such as drawing or painting, in real time, just as they would in a classroom – and this means we can teach subjects like drawing and painting in an online environment. She believes this opens up a whole range of subjects that “help people engage with the world in a different way or stretch yourself personally” rather than limiting options to those that further professional development. That said, online learning has a definite role to play for jobseekers looking to improve their prospects. Research from FutureLearn has shown that as online short courses become more mainstream, so employers are using them as a means of choosing between candidates. “About a third of employers we interviewed say it’s much harder now to differentiate between applicants than it was three years ago,” says FutureLearn chief product officer Matt Walton. “And about half are already using short courses as a differentiator.” He points out that the number of adults with a degree has risen from 18% in 2004 to about 27% today: “Short
I’ve got a student who is in her 90s. She taught herself the internet and enrolled
Real-time practical demonstrations have expanded the online curriculum Alamy courses become very relevant in terms of knowing whether a candidate might have day one usefulness in terms of specific skills.” Rick Levin, CEO of global learning provider Coursera, agrees. “Lifelong learning is going to be an imperative of the 21st century,” he says. “Technology is changing so fast, job requirements are changing so fast, and people move around and take more jobs in the course of their career than ever before, so continually updating skills to improve your position is vitally important. “Employers are still going to look at your work experience and university credentials but, increasingly, they are also looking at the credentials you acquire through continuing education.”
Although many online providers have a problem with learner retention, Avado Digital managing director Lisa Barrett believes this is all down to the way the courses are set up. “We see the best course completion rates when the online experience mirrors what we want our offline life to be like: structured and motivating, exciting and a bit unpredictable. Our attention spans start to tail off at around 90 seconds, so content needs to be short and snappy to ensure learners not only feel engaged, but can also chart progress,” she says. “Interactive online activities, such as drag and drop exercises, work particularly well to keep learners motivated. Style also matters: no
matter how good the content is, the presentation has to resonate,” she adds. Employers often require professional qualifications to ensure compliance, so it can be important for them to be involved in how courses are devised and delivered. “We very often incorporate the internal training programmes of the employer,” says Martin Day, managing director corporate and professional qualifications at the London Institute of Banking and Finance. “This means that those internal programmes, if they stand up to our criteria, will be recognised as credits towards the qualification.” Claire Kelly, manager of online learning and weekly classes at the University of Oxford, says that online short courses can also fulfil a social need. “I’ve got a student who, I’ve just discovered, is in her 90s. She taught herself the internet, she learned how to enrol herself online, and joined the discussion forums. She told her fellow philosophy students how old she was at the end of the course and they couldn’t believe it! “She tends to do a course in the new year, because she lives in quite an isolated place, and it means she has social contact without having to worry about her ability to get to her local town. She told me: ‘I’m too busy in the summer, I’ve got too much going on, but when the weather is bad and I don’t feel like driving, or risking breaking a hip again, I’ll do an online course.’ She’s amazing.” Massive Open Online Courses (Moocs) – free courses that learners of any level can access, without the need for entry qualifications – are a relatively new development with huge social potential. “There’s something to be said about the role universities play in society, and the delivery of free online courses is just one way of being able to share knowledge,” says Julie Stone, director of online learning at the University of Derby. “Our recent Mooc on understanding autism got more than 11,000 people engaged, and we have a waiting list of 4,000 for the next one,” she adds. “That’s 11,000 people who could go on to learn and share knowledge with others, so they are a huge opportunity, not only for learners but for the wider community.”