For 4 weeks in July 2016 I was a student on the online Digital Scholar course, led by the Geneva Learning Foundation, in partnership with the University of Illinois College of Education and Learning Strategies International (LSi). I successfully applied to join (it wasn’t open in that sense) as I wanted a parallel component to my HEA fellowship studies that gave me insights into Digital Pedagogies.

The course rationale was predicated around the growing need for rapid, low-cost development of digital learning courses, and used Scholar, an online learning environment developed by Bill Cope and Mary Kalantzis of the University of Illinois.

I found it a curious and quite didactic course, with a single authority guiding us, and at times I felt almost chided for some mistakes I made. However without that approach I think many of us would have achieved less, there was a palpable anxiety amongst both mentor and learners that we HAD to complete.

Within the course I designed a whole new VFX skills program- a bootcamp/hothouse approach I now would like to market to interested industry parties and initiate. The conform-to-rubric approach of the course was also useful and ensured a 360 degree approach to learner, teacher and format.

An important part of the course was the peer assessment, and it was really useful to see (and be able to constructively comment upon) courses in Health and medicine, and also receive non subject specific feedback on my course.

Another useful element was to read Cope and Kalantzis’ “New Learning: elements of a science of education” as a companion text to the course and a useful compass. Hence, a blended learning experience and all the better for it.

AI then proceeded to design a new CPD course for the VFX industry using scholar software which I intend to initiate eventually-