Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Download this course

Share this free course

Strategic planning for online learning
Strategic planning for online learning

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

Glossary

Online learning
There are many differing understandings of what is meant by online learning, both in secondary education (SE) and higher education (HE). In order to clarify what we mean by online learning, we adopt the OECD definition of it as, ‘ digital learning’- using digital resources in order to effect learning. (OECD, 2021).
Remote education
Remote education is where the pupils and educators are not physically present in a traditional classroom environment. Teaching is conducted through technology, using digital tools and platforms. Remote education can occur synchronously with real-time peer-to-peer interaction or asynchronously, with self-paced learning activities that take place independently of the educator.
Blended learning
Blended learning refers to the deliberately planned combination of in-person teaching and interaction with supplementary online educational elements. In principle, the traditional facets of high-quality teaching are skilfully weaved across the use of digital tools and platforms to support high quality delivery, personalisation and rapid progress.
Home learning
Home learning is an activity that a pupil is asked to complete outside of the school day, either independently or with the support of an adult. Home learning can range from reading a book, completing a research project about a specific subject, or completing practice examination questions.
Mobile learning
Learning is supported through the use of mobile devices, which can be used almost anywhere (e.g. workplace, fieldwork, home study), are often faster to connect, and have features such as built-in camera and microphone to capture learning events. Mobile devices can be owned or loaned by pupils, allowing them to fit learning into their lives.
Hybrid delivery
Hybrid delivery combines face-to-face and remote education into one cohesive experience. Hybrid delivery provides pupils with education when there is disparity in the mode of access. For example, where a proportion of pupils may need to learn from home, whilst some of the class are in school. We saw this in schools and colleges when school attendance was restricted in March 2020.
Flipped Learning
Flipped learning accelerates learning by flipping ‘lower order’ factual information gathering out of the classroom during home learning and reserving the classroom for ‘higher order’ application and analysis. A flipped classroom can motivate, fully engage and present multiple opportunities to embed learning.
Bring your own device (BYOD)
Staff and pupils use their own networked devices and apps/services on the school network. Devices may be produced and/or access supported in other ways. IT help should be available and teachers should be explicit about how they expect devices to be used for learning.
Educational Technology EdTech
EdTech is the technology used to support teaching, education and the effective day-to-day management of educational institutions, including schools and colleges. It includes hardware, as well as, digital resources, software and services that can support high quality education.
Social media
Online services that allow users to create a profile and share personal or professional information such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter. These tools are increasingly used in education though there are concerns about e-safety, digital identity/reputation, and professional boundaries.
Media Sharing
Online services that support sharing of content such as YouTube, Instagram, Flickr, Vimeo. Like social media (the terms are sometimes used interchangeably) these services are increasingly used by educators to give access to content and to share pupils' own digital creations. They allow users to set up or import a personal/professional profile, so they too have implications for e-safety and digital identity.
E-books e-book readers
Electronic books or e-books are often available at a lower cost from publishers than their print counterparts. A dedicated e-book reader is not usually required to read and mark-up a text: any tablet or laptop computer will do.
Cloud based services
Third party content and services such as search engines, media sharing sites, collaboration services etc are used to support learning. There may be some merging with institutional services. 'Cloud computing' is the term used when external servers and services are relied on to meet general computing needs.
Learner Analytics
Data generated from learning systems or gathered from learning records is used to inform learning and teaching interventions, either collective (e.g. curriculum review, provision of new support/resources), or individual (e.g. personalised learning pathways, signposting to support/resources).
Wikis blogs
Web-based content in the form of time-ordered posts (blogs) or linked pages (wikis), often authored collaboratively. Many easy-to-use authoring tools and public hosting solutions exist (e.g. WordPress and MediaWiki) to support pupils publishing online. Similar tools are available within virtual learning environments, offering the security of developing content in a closed environment.
Open Educational Resources (OER)
Open Educational Resources are forms of learning content that are shared online with minimal restrictions on their re-use. Schools may be producers and/or consumers of open content. Pupils may access OERs independently but can't necessarily tell them apart from other kinds of online content. OER have creative commons copyright licenses [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .