Digital Futures for Learning

During the Digital Futures for Learning course in 2017/18, participants created Open Educational Resources (OERs), taking the three course themes as a starting point. A selection of these OERs are available.

23 Things for Digital Knowledge (CC BY)

An award-winning, open, and self-paced course for digital and online skills. 23 Things for Digital Knowledge provides a structured way for staff and students to set aside that time to build up skills and experiment with new digital tools.

The Asynchronous Cookbook (CC BY-NC-SA)

Whether you’re teaching mostly in person but looking for some regular, asynchronous activities to add to your course, or teaching a fully online course, this resource is for you. The activities in this cookbook draw on research and good practice in online course design to provide recipes – concise and specific instructions and examples – for adding asynchronous activities to a course. Meaningful interaction between students and instructors is a key ingredient in all of these recipes.

Ethical Use of Technology in Digital Learning Environments: Graduate Student Perspectives (CC BY)

This book is the result of a co-design project in a class in the Masters of Education program at the University of Calgary. The course, and the resulting book, focus primarily on the safe and ethical use of technology in digital learning environments. The course was organized according to four topics based on Farrow’s (2016) Framework for the Ethics of Open Education.

Foundational Practices of Online Writing Instruction (CC BY-NC-ND)

This book addresses the questions and decisions that administrators and instructors most need to consider when developing online writing programs and courses. The authors address issues of inclusive and accessible writing instruction (based upon physical and mental disability, linguistic ability, and socioeconomic challenges) in technology enhanced settings.

Guide to Blended Learning (CC BY-SA)

This is an introduction using technology and distance education teaching strategies with traditional, face-to-face classroom activities. This Guide has been designed to assist teachers adopt blended learning strategies through a step-by-step approach taking constructivist and design-based approach and reflecting on decisions taken to provide authentic learning experience in their own contexts. This book is from the Commonwealth of Learning.

Liberated Learners (CC BY-NC)

Following in the footsteps of the Ontario Extend: Empowered Educator program is its predecessor, Ontario Extend: Liberated Learners. The original program worked to prepare educators to be better able to teach in a digital realm. The Liberated Learner seeks to do the same for the learners themselves. As such, the project has four modules: The Learner, The Navigator, The Collaborator, and The Technologist. Taken together, the modules aim to enable a well-rounded and ready-for-almost-anything post-secondary learner.

Teaching in a Digital Age: Third Edition – General (CC BY-NC 4.0)

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.

Teaching with Rich Media: A Guide for Online Instructors (CC BY-SA)

Online instructors need a framework for “teaching beyond text” using rich media as instructional resources. This book defines rich media, its affordances, and its value in conveying information. The book offers a model for pedagogical strategies, a set of instructor competencies, and two models for assessment for use in professional development.

Near Future Teaching (CC BY)

A collection of videos featuring students and staff talking about what changes they predict, or would like to see, in teaching over the coming decades, as technology, social trends, patterns of mobility, new methods and new media continue to shift.

B.C. Digital Literacy (CC BY, except where otherwise noted)

This collection of course materials and professional development materials is designed for instructors in post-secondary institutions in British Columbia. The goal is to help educators, including learning and teaching staff, to integrate digital literacy materials easily into existing courses. To relieve the load of finding and incorporating digital skills into courses, these resources have been reviewed and curated by a group of evaluators from across the province.

Education and the Blockchain (CC BY-SA)

The blockchain is considered by some people to be The Next Big Thing in higher education. For example, it is claimed that it will “reinvent higher education” (Tapscott & Tapscott, 2017), that it might “hasten the dissolution of universities as institutions” (Matthews, 2017). In this OER, we’ll learn more about these claims, why they may or may not be justified, and how we might become better equipped to analyse potential blockchain projects in higher education from a critical perspective.

Radical Digital Literacy (CC BY)

This resource is based on the idea that current approaches to digital literacy in most Higher Education institutions are simplistic and fail to take into account that technology is not a neutral entity. This OER provides a number of resources to read and watch with the aim of providing a springboard to discuss and share ideas of how to integrate a more radical approach to digital literacy into an undergraduate curriculum.

Serendipity in a Digital World (CC BY)

This resource explores the concept of Serendipity in a Digital World. Looking at the rise of algorithms, control online and how this can affect experiences of serendipity and exploration, open and closed spaces online, and how to balance, maintain, and encourage connections. The resource has been created primarily for education professionals and Masters-level students working in fields such as digital education, learning technology, digital futures, and e-learning.