How Will It Work For Me?

Using a blend of teaching tools can help you to make the most of your face-to-face teaching time. You can provide your students with information online in preparation for a teaching session; you can also give them online tasks designed to start them thinking about the materials. You can use technology in your teaching, to demonstrate information and ideas, and to share information or questions supplied by your learners. You can also use it after the session to reinforce your teaching activities, and gain feedback from your students by using tools like online blogs and formative assessments.

The learning technologies that are available to you are increasingly interactive, both in the classroom and online. This means that your students can create their own learning community online, and communicate and collaborate with minimal intervention from the tutor. Tools like online discussion boards can expose students to a range of opinions and ideas, and also encourage them to develop a more critical response to their own attitudes and opinions. They can also create a community for peer support, both within and beyond the formal educational framework.

You can use your online course site as a reusable repository of information for your course. Creating a high-quality course site may require an initial investment of time and training. However it is likely that the majority of resources can be re-used, with some updating, for the following year's students. You can also get your students to contribute useful resources to your site, creating an archive for their own reference and for future students to build on.

The VLE Infokit published by JISC contains a lot of additional information and advice about how to use the online technologies available to you to enhance the teaching and learning process.