The last parallel session of day 3 of ALT 2021 was entitled “Distance makes the heart grow fonder?” with speakers Tarek Zoubir and Gabriella Bishop. They are both at Imperial College in the Business School. At the EdTech lab, they develop software platforms and collaborate with other business schools. The presenters wanted to explore how to transform on-campus modules to online courses. Zoubir mentioned that pre-pandemic the term blended learning had been used for some time. Interestingly, quoting QAA 2020, distance/hybrid education has social or physical distancing. Zoubir as a learning designer discussed the OSCAR system: organize, structure, compose, audit, review. Bishop explained that an on-campus learner journey includes lots of interaction and engagement. However, in a remote learner’s journey, there is physical distance. Zoubir and Bishop presented two case studies to “push back on the notion” that online courses have less interaction and social bonding. For one course, the instructor was in Washington and met virtually with instructional designers to create an online module. They use Asana software for project management. The course they showed had several modules and embedded videos. Instructors engaged learners with videos and through learner-learner interactions. In the second case study, they supported faculty and exposed them to tools. Students completed modules with videos from the module leaders. The videos were shorter. After watching the videos, students created a product and shared. For the reflection, there were weekly assignments. The examples presented as part of their case studies were very useful in learning how to structure modules for online education using guest speakers. I can envision some of this as part of BIT 295 and evaluating “distance.”
