I had the privilege of delivering the first in a series of webinars organised by the European Distance Education Network (EDEN) on Education in Time of a Pandemic.
Webinar No. 1
The topic of ‘From Panic to Peace of Mind: Transitioning to Online Learning‘ had over 1,000 people signed up. The first 300 were connected via Zoom, while the remaining 700+ accessed the seminar via a live YouTube streaming feed. Click on my title above to access the video recording of the full webinar (approximately one hour). The actual presentation is about 20 minutes, and starts about 15 minutes into the recording.
My seminar covered the following topics:
- What to do in an emergency: triage is not the same as best practice
- Immediate actions for moving online
- Medium term (over the next few months)
- Long term: reaching a stable state
The technology worked amazingly well, thanks to the background work of Alistair Creelman, who monitored and managed successfully 300 participants on Zoom and the rest on the YouTube live stream. (You can see some of this in the opening 15 minutes of the recording).
I was also grateful to the hosting done by Antonella Poce, which resulted in an excellent Q and A session after my brief presentation, because there were so many people with knowledge and experience in the audience who contributed to the chat and questions/comments.
Webinar No. 2
The next one is ‘When education moves home: implications for students, academics, administrators, and education leaders‘ presented by Ebba Ossiannilsson, and moderated by Diana Andone, on Monday, 6 April, 2020, 17:00 CET.
Planned upcoming webinars (dates to be announced):
- How to manage the onslaught of information and fake news: The 2019-nCoV ‘infodemic’
- How to develop XXI century skills through teaching online
- How to engage and support students online
- How to build community online
- How heritage institutions can support educators in developing new programmes
- How to assess learning outcomes in e-learning
- How to facilitate flexible learning during educational disruption
- How to use online assessment to improve learning (use of eportfolios).
One good thing to come out of this terrible pandemic is that many more people will have learned about how to do online learning. This series will certainly help facilitate this.
Dr. Tony Bates is the author of eleven books in the field of online learning and distance education. He has provided consulting services specializing in training in the planning and management of online learning and distance education, working with over 40 organizations in 25 countries. Tony is a Research Associate with Contact North | Contact Nord, Ontario’s Distance Education & Training Network.
I really appreciate the work you have done, you explained everything in such an amazing and simple way.