Edutech in continuing education

Abstract

With the increase in implanting the information and computing technologies (ICT) into learning and continuing education during the last two decades and shifting to distant educational technologies (DET), it has become obvious that there is a vital need for school and university teachers to upgrade and develop their e-learning and e-teaching skills consistently. Since integrating technology into classroom, online or offline, has already become both a global tendency and a crucial change in the quality, form and methodology of education, there appeared an urgent importance for appropriate digital continuing education for school and university teachers to boost their readiness, preparedness and ability to adapt to the changing conditions of the educational environment. This is a niche opportunity for the local Universities to fill in. The study examines the plethora of conditions, assumptions and risks affecting the quality of educational content for an effective online continuing education course. The article details the stages and principles of designing an e-learning online course for continuing education. Using information visualization and feedback tools as examples the authors propose practical recommendations for content development and risk management. The authors imply that to create a quality online continuing education course, the developing team should take into consideration the characteristic differences of online education as compared to traditional methods. Active learning, time management, progress monitoring and communication are also brought to focus. The proposed framework, educational content development and additional strategies suggested have implications to teachers and educators involved in e-courses development, as well as to a wide range of users.