#MOOC to get staff into online learning @gillysalmon

Gilly Salmon , a pioneer in strong eLearning and interaction design, will head her first MOOC in co-facilitation with Janet Gregory and Kulari Lokuge Dona from the Swinburne University in Australia. This MOOC will cover the learning design called Carpe Diem, and the MOOC starts on Monday 10 March 2014 until 17 april 2014 (course load: estimated 3 - 4 hours a week) and it will be on learning design for Higher Ed staff. The model she will explain and ask all registered participants to have a go at is the Carpe Diem model which started as a learning design that could be transmitted to Higher Ed staff starting with two workshop days with a follow up. Nice article on latest insights, especially need to develop staff knowledge in learning design here. Gilly Salmon and her colleagues wrote a handy and clear 26 page booklet on the Carpe Diem workshop approach. So reading it to start with the MOOC on Carpe Diem. This model is a work in progress and it started to take shape as early as 2000 (a good amount of reflection has gone into it) and it looks at changing staff's knowledge to provide strong learning design fitted for future online learning.

So I have enrolled in this MOOC which is happening in the Blackboard LMS (coursesites), so nice change from the MOOC platforms build from scratch. This did mean I had to grant access to blackboard for various details I share on the web (makes me wonder why I have to bother with research ethics related to privacy, in this world where if you do not allow your data to be openly available you just do not get access to software options).

From the article by Salmon and Phemie Wright (2014) "Online and technology-enabled learning, whether entirely digital or combined with physical environments for learning, is no longer considered a sideline focus of Higher Education (HE). Growth of online learning in all modes is fast becoming "the most pressing and rapidly changing issue faced by faculty members and administration in higher education" [1] (p. 87). Institutions are now faced with a critical shift as students engage in more informal learning outside of the classroom, access free and open courses, and constantly use devices connected to the web to surf the net, download apps, and read articles [2]. Educating learners on how to decipher credible resources and aggregate content has become imperative, and there is a great need for university educators to fulfill the position of guides in the learning process [3].
Creating a sense of urgency among a large group of people is a critical factor in successfully achieving desirable change. Even when there are highly capable and committed academics working in universities with sufficient resources, without a fast and effective plan to deliver outcomes, results are frequently dismal [4].
All educators face the pressures of adapting their current teaching ideologies and practice to align with rapidly expanding digital tools and expectations for learning and teaching [5]. "

Robert McGuire from the MOOC news and reviews interviewed Gilly and shared some nice insights into learning design, needs and mooc.