Further development
On the site and externally, there are many resources and ideas to help you use e-learning and e-assessment to support and improve your practice and your learners' experience of learning.
E-learning and e-assessment can be part of a 'blended learning' approach, where different ways of learning, conventional and new, can be used alongside each other. For example, a group can work traditionally with pens and flipchart paper in one part of a session, and then use computers for a webquest in another.
But beware of using technology if:
- it's just for the sake of it; and/or
- it puts learners in a passive frame of mind.
For example, if you used PowerPoint to present lots of slides that learners simply sat and watched, they wouldn't necessarily learn very much!
However, you could use it much more interactively. Learners could be asked to make choices on screen, or to use the software themselves to present the outcomes of group discussions.
It's not just the technology that counts but the way that you use it!
"The way our French teacher Danielle used PowerPoint seemed clever to me. We had been practising the past tense in conversations in pairs and groups. We were imagining that we were on holiday in Tunisia and speaking in French to a local family. This followed a little Internet research project using what Danielle called a 'webquest' on finding out where French is spoken other than France. We had all these sentences projected on to a screen, with parts of the verbs missed out. We had to confer with our neighbours and come up with what should go in the gaps. We know each other well now, so support each other if anyone makes a mistake."
Rod, learner, French.
For further help and references, go to
Skills,
Support,
Further Resources and
Equality and diversity.