Cluster 3: Designing for Digital Habitats

The courses in this cluster focus on different foci for digital habitat design. These courses have a strong practical element, and allow participants to focus on specific sites of learning design.

Course overview

This course introduces the emergent complexity of the leading and facilitating design processes in environments with multiple stakeholders with often competing interests and a wide range of technology options within a digital habitat. The course will introduce different platforms and tools and explore different ways of choosing appropriate tools and technologies for specific contexts, such as the concept of affordances. This course raises participants' awareness of context and draws attention to the implications of the digital divide across Africa and within countries for access issues, digital literacies and technology choice. It will include consideration of the ethical issues for learning designers and educators and criteria for low tech tool selection of asynchronous and synchronous tools. Experiential and reflective engagement with the tools will be core to this course. 

Learning objectives

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Map, from a critical positionality, the landscape of tools and platforms available for their context and purpose;
• Articulate and navigate the underlying learning architectures and philosophies of tools and platforms;
• Describe the implications of different contexts on how students might use and experience a selection of tools and platforms; and
• Identify the relationships between tool choices and pedagogical strategies. 

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Course overview 

This course aims to introduce participants to the various facets that need to be considered when designing an assessment for blended and/or online learning. This includes thinking about validity in assessments (the relationship between learning outcomes, teaching and learning activities and assessment), purpose, methods, ways of ensuring reliability, authenticity and inclusivity, and analysing and evaluating the effectiveness of assessments.

Learning objectives

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Analyse the relationship between learning outcomes, teaching activities and assessment;
• Articulate the purpose of various assessment types (diagnostic, formative, and summative);
• Articulate the affordances of various assessment methods (e.g. MCQs, portfolio, reflections);
• Articulate various grading and feedback strategies (e.g. rubrics, memos, checklists, moderation);
• Construct an assessment plan for a particular context; and
• Analyse and evaluate the effectiveness of an assessment plan 

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Course overview 

This course will take participants through a conceptual process of understanding how media and modes influence the development of both in-person and online materials and practical experiences in producing blended and online learning. Through the introduction of multimodal social semiotics as a theory of meaning, the course also aims to foster critical awareness of how media and modes construct social experiences. The course will also provide in-depth opportunities for engaging in the practical tasks of creating online content for use in both blended and online modes. Participants will be introduced to resource / artefact development practices that include reviewing the student profile, the educator profile, the contextual analysis, as well as exit-level, general course and specific learning outcomes to inform script writing, paper editing. content authoring, and the selection of media (e.g. text, images, audio, video) that follows universal design for learning principles to ensure optimal accessibility and inclusion and complies with intellectual property rights of existing media.

Learning objectives

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• ​​​​Explain the concept of multimodality, its necessity in complying with the principles of universal design for learning (UDL), and how media and mode influence learning;
• Extract the essential background from student profiles, educator profiles, contextual analyses and learning outcomes to inform the resource / artefact development process;
• Undertake a storyboarding process that may include script writing for on-screen text, audio and/or video; selection of photos, graphics, animation, video; content authoring and paper editing according to industry standards;
• Determine the most appropriate modes of media for their contexts and be exposed to authoring content platforms suitable for their context; and
• Understanding intellectual property right pertaining to online content and open educational resources.

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Course overview 

This course is aimed at change agent educational technologists and educators as well as trainers involved in leading and designing online courses. The course model is based on five principles, namely, arriving, conversing, facilitating, creating, applying. The course learning pathway follows each of these steps chronologically. At each stage participants take on particular roles and develop specific skills.

Learning objectives

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Facilitate synchronous and asynchronous online discussions;
• Demonstrate knowledge of different facilitation strategies in response to diversity, difference and conflict;
• Demonstrate knowledge of the opportunities afforded by technologies for online learning community development; and
• Design or adapt short online learning activities using a range of online facilitation tools appropriately.

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Course overview 

Designing with AI offers an exploration of the practical and ethical applications of generative AI in educational and training contexts. In this 6-week online course, participants will explore, apply, and critically reflect on the integration of generative AI in teaching/training, learning, assessment, research, and learning design.

Learning objectives

After completing this course, participants will be able to:

• Describe what generative AI is, how it works and its various affordances and implications;
• Apply foundational principles of prompt engineering;
• Select and use generative AI tools and platforms across a variety of contexts to support teaching/training, learning, assessment, research and learning design processes;
• Integrate generative AI into teaching, learning, assessment and research within a specific context; and
• Discuss and reflect on ethical practices of engaging with AI in your context.