1. The e-learning advantage
Planning

2. Why use e-learning?
In preparing and planning a learning experience it is important to recognise where e-learning can enhance learning.
e-Learning – like all other tools – offers both advantages and disadvantages.
e-Learning is not appropriate for all situations but can offer many flexible and creative advantages for teaching and learning.
This presentation includes
a video clip demonstrating an approach to e-learning
extracts from the JISC Effective Practice with e-Learning guide with sample e-learning materials to illustrate the e-learning advantage.

3. What can e-learning offer my learners?
e-Learning offers learners 24/7 access to materials and support.
e-Learning enables more engaging materials to be created for a range of abilities and preferred learning styles.
e-Learning encourages the development of an independent learning culture.

4. What do we do already? Assessment for learning
Negotiate learning goals
Visualise and present concepts
Explore new concepts
Apply concepts and skills
What activities do we, as practitioners, currently design for our learners? This slide shows some generic learning activities which we might use with learners. These include, for example, what we are doing now, in presenting new concepts and information, in the form of a traditional lecture. Now lets explore how e-learning can enhance our current practice and in turn provide an engaging and motivating experience for our learners.
Lets play the e-learning advantage.
The following slides pick out two examples of practice where e-learning offers an advantage over traditional methods.
Build and test theories
Share and discuss
Solve problems

5. Any time, any place learning
The practitioners and learners in the following video clip reveal how e-learning resources can change classroom practice and how an organisation evolved techniques to support learning outside of the classroom.
e-Learning can offer learners access to materials and support any time, any place.
View the video clip of the use of e-learning at Fermanagh College, a college with a rural catchment of widely dispersed populations.
Introduce this example of how e-learning supports anytime and anywhere learning. The learners in this college had access to presentations outside of lesson time and college. They could access these materials for revision and re-enforcement of key concepts.
Some of the e-learning advantages highlighted in this video clip include:
Learners can access essential content at a time and a place to suit their needs.
Learners can revisit content for re-enforcement
Multimedia for example, sound, animation or video, can enliven presentation of factual information and support different learning styles
Transmission of information online enables practitioners and learners to use their class contact time more effectively.

6. e-Learning at Fermanagh College
View transcript
Source: The JISC Effective Practice with e-Learning Guide, 2004

7. Solving problems using e-learning
Let’s start with existing practice
Print-based problem-solving scenarios and experiments are used to support face-to-face group work. Solutions are assessed by a practitioner.
The e-learning option?
Online multimedia scenarios and simulations provide ‘real life’ interactive learning opportunities. Solutions can be discussed through asynchronous communication tools such as video conferencing.
The e-learning advantage?
Learners work collaboratively to identify solutions and test their conceptual understanding through peer-to-peer discussion.
An example – Designing play area
This Word exercise provides simple drawing objects that can be dragged and dropped to test the user’s understanding of the problems and issues relating to the design of a children’s play area. There is no single right outcome but the real learning is in the debate generated and the arguments put forward.

8. Applying concepts and skills using e-learning
Let’s start with existing practice
Classroom or homework tasks require learners to replicate or apply what they have seen demonstrated.
The e-learning option?
Interactive whiteboards and voting systems enable all learners to participate in self-testing activities. Simple interactive activities acquire an element of fun.
The e-learning advantage?
Effective use of interactive functions in some technologies can engage and motivate learners, reducing disengagement with repetitive tasks. Learners can participate kinaesthetically to reinforce their learning.
Examples – Cashier practice and Life and times of Buddha
The excel spreadsheet allows the learners to overtype their own intended menu items and costs. A hyperlink to a second sheet allows you to generate a group of customer orders. This can be used for basic numeracy practice and for kitchen workflow planning. Since the materials are randomly generated from the options the user first entered, every user has a separate task in which to apply their understanding. The Word document (Life and times of Buddha) contains numerous isolated facts about the topic. The learner’s task is to collect related points together in order to build a report. This gives practice in recognising underlying themes, categorising and prioritising information and sequencing the material into a finished report.

9. Lets play the e-learning advantage.
Lets now take a closer look at what advantages e-learning offers you in your practice…
Lets play the e-learning advantage.
In groups of 4 select a card from the pack of cards in your delegate pack, and discuss the e-learning advantages presented in response to the learning activity on the card. Discuss whether the scenarios presented are ones familiar to you, or ones you would be interested in using with your own learners. From your discussion and from the points raised in the preceding presentation, add to the list of e-learning advantages and also record any action points which you think are relevant to your own teaching, in your reflective learning journey log.

10. The e-learning advantage
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Planning