Recommended Digital — Online Learning

The rec­om­mend­ed resources on this page assist instruc­tors with their dig­i­tal learn­ing com­pe­ten­cies, online learn­ing knowl­edge and skills relat­ed to design­ing and deliv­er­ing cours­es and class­es using edu­ca­tion­al tech­nolo­gies.

Teaching in a Digital Age (Open Book)
  • Author: Tony Bates, Con­tact North, Research Asso­ciate
  • About: The book exam­ines the under­ly­ing prin­ci­ples that guide effec­tive teach­ing in an age when all of us, and in par­tic­u­lar the stu­dents we are teach­ing, are using tech­nol­o­gy. A frame­work for mak­ing deci­sions about your teach­ing is pro­vid­ed, while under­stand­ing that every sub­ject is dif­fer­ent, and every instruc­tor has some­thing unique and spe­cial to bring to their teach­ing. The book enables teach­ers and instruc­tors to help stu­dents devel­op the knowl­edge and skills they will need in a dig­i­tal age: not so much the IT skills, but the think­ing and atti­tudes to learn­ing that will bring them suc­cess.
  • Notes: Third edi­tion, open text, August 2022
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online learning and distance education resources
  • Author: Tony Bates
  • About: Tony’s per­son­al site for resources in online learn­ing and dis­tance edu­ca­tion. It is per­son­al because it con­tains the resources I have found use­ful and inter­est­ing. I focus main­ly on resources asso­ci­at­ed with or rel­e­vant to uni­ver­si­ties and col­leges. This site is meant as a resource for stu­dents, fac­ul­ty and aca­d­e­m­ic admin­is­tra­tors inter­est­ed in online learn­ing. I also hope that pol­i­cy-mak­ers will drop in from time to time, as I deal with a num­ber of issues that affect gov­ern­ment and oth­er fund­ing agen­cies. The pri­or­i­ty for all posts on this site is qual­i­ty.
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Teach online
  • Author: Con­tact North
  • About: This site was launched in 2010 as a resource for post-sec­ondary fac­ul­ty and instruc­tors in Ontario to find the lat­est infor­ma­tion on new tech­nol­o­gy and new devel­op­ments in online learn­ing, as well as prac­ti­cal tools and resources to help them inte­grate tech­nol­o­gy in their teach­ing in a way that improves the learn­ing expe­ri­ence for their stu­dents. More than 375,000 fac­ul­ty and instruc­tors vis­it this site each year. A grow­ing col­lec­tion of analy­ses, com­men­taries, resources, and prac­ti­cal advice that tracks the lat­est tools and trends in online learn­ing in Ontario, Cana­da, and around the world.
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Fostering Student Success in Online Courses
  • Author: Tay­lor Insti­tute for Teach­ing and Learn­ing (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary)
  • About: This guide aims to pro­vide an evi­dence-based back­ground on the preva­lence, ben­e­fits, chal­lenges and impor­tance of online stu­dent assess­ment in high­er edu­ca­tion. Out­line strate­gies and rec­om­men­da­tions from research and prac­tice that can be used to mit­i­gate chal­lenges of assess­ing stu­dents online. Encour­age instruc­tors to thought­ful­ly design stu­dent assess­ments for use in online cours­es.
  • Link — Online Assess­ment in High­er Edu­ca­tion
  • Author: Tay­lor Insti­tute for Teach­ing and Learn­ing (Uni­ver­si­ty of Cal­gary)
  • About: The guide con­tains nine chap­ters con­tributed by mem­bers of the Teach­ing Acad­e­my from across dis­ci­plines involved in under­grad­u­ate and/or grad­u­ate instruc­tion, writ­ing solo or with col­lab­o­ra­tors, to high­light an aspect of their teach­ing that lever­ages the online envi­ron­ment to enhance stu­dent learn­ing. Each of these chap­ters offers sage, prag­mat­ic descrip­tions of course con­texts, design con­sid­er­a­tions, and imple­men­ta­tion, for online assess­ments (Chap­ter 1, 4), for inno­v­a­tive learn­ing activ­i­ties (Chap­ter 2, 6), for flex­i­ble course design (Chap­ter 5, 7), for engag­ing large class­es (Chap­ter 8), for facil­i­tat­ing group work (Chap­ter 9), and for inten­tion­al­ly address­ing the need for stu­dents to flour­ish (Chap­ter 3). Impor­tant­ly, for the read­er, each chap­ter shares the wis­dom of prac­tice of the author/s, dis­cussing impli­ca­tions of use and giv­ing con­crete rec­om­men­da­tions for those who are think­ing of apply­ing sim­i­lar strate­gies.
  • Link — Fos­ter­ing Stu­dent Suc­cess in Online Cours­es
eCampus Ontario
  • Author: eCam­pu­sOn­tario
  • About: eCam­pu­sOn­tario is a provin­cial­ly-fund­ed non-prof­it orga­ni­za­tion that leads a con­sor­tium of the province’s pub­licly-fund­ed col­leges, uni­ver­si­ties and indige­nous insti­tutes to devel­op and test online learn­ing tools to advance the use of edu­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy and dig­i­tal learn­ing envi­ron­ments. Offi­cial­ly reg­is­tered as the Ontario Online Learn­ing Con­sor­tium (OOLC) and referred to as eCam­pu­sOn­tario.
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Educause
  • Author: Edu­cause
  • About: EDUCAUSE is a non­prof­it asso­ci­a­tion whose mis­sion is to lead the way, advanc­ing the strate­gic use of tech­nol­o­gy and data to fur­ther the promise of high­er edu­ca­tion.
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online learning consortium
  • Author: OLC
  • About: The Online Learn­ing Con­sor­tium (OLC) is a col­lab­o­ra­tive com­mu­ni­ty of high­er edu­ca­tion lead­ers and inno­va­tors, ded­i­cat­ed to advanc­ing qual­i­ty dig­i­tal teach­ing and learn­ing expe­ri­ences designed to reach and engage the mod­ern learn­er – any­one, any­where, any­time. OLC inspires inno­va­tion and qual­i­ty through an exten­sive set of resources, includ­ing best-prac­tice pub­li­ca­tions, qual­i­ty bench­mark­ing, lead­ing-edge instruc­tion, com­mu­ni­ty-dri­ven con­fer­ences, prac­ti­tion­er-based and empir­i­cal research, and expert guid­ance.
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