REFLECTING ON E-LEARNING: A DIFFERENT CHALLENGE

Abstract

The student teacher relationship is changing towards a more digital environment. It enables a new form of innovative learning, but is not without its challenges. Not only does the learner have different views on how to communicate, but the educators must also make use of technology they might not be so familiar with. This paper presents experiences, problems overcome and identified challenges ahead in digital education. It bases itself on experience from more than 15 years in e-learning from vocational, secondary and university college level, and we will use real-life examples to discuss best practices when it comes to using text, pictures and videos in an online educational environment in a way that best supports the teaching environment. We will through this paper present the view from the lectures perspective, both on teaching environments and technology. Traditional teaching centers around a teacher standing at a black board or a projector presenting directly in front of students. This is not directly available in an e-learning environment. In contrast, one of the most significant challenges with e-learning is that students online do not have the teacher / instructor available for questions at any given time in class. To avoid students sitting back with questions, the online environment should use text, pictures and video in such a way that it answers all questions students might think of - and that it accounts for most situations that arises when students are following instructions. In addition to this we have also implemented a hybrid form of teaching, using live-stream and real-time chats in order to bring back the possibilities for students to ask questions during lectures. This will include the online students in the campus-based environment, thereby propose best practice guidelines for online education and training.