At the beginning of this course Leigh-Anne and I posed an overarching question: how can the educator effectively navigate the fast-changing, hype-filled world of innovation in online education? Over the past four weeks you’ve approached this question from several perspectives, examined several related myths, and considered some of the roles and identities of online educators.

A repeated theme has been the relationship between face-to-face and online education. There are many similarities between the two. Learners’ needs – motivation, support, clear goals and well-structured, engaging, relevant content – are the same in both contexts. What’s different is the way in which educators meet those needs.

The process of learners making social connections is a good example. In a face-to-face setting, these connections arise informally through being physically present in the same place, for example in lectures, laboratories, social events and cafés. When online, opportunities for social connections need to explicitly be designed into learning materials, for example with collaborative activities, discussion forums and blogs. The dynamic between adapting what we currently do and realising what new possibilities online learning provides is at the heart of many of the debates concerning educational technology.

In the above video, Leigh-Anne and I talk with Rebecca Ferguson, who you met in Week 1. We discuss some of the challenges online educators are likely to face in the next few years and make some predictions about future developments in online education.

Do use the comments area to share your own views about this topic. The video was recorded before the pandemic – in what ways does that influence how you think about the predictions? Are your predictions different from ours? What do you think will be the key developments in online education? What will the biggest challenges be?

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