Programme content
The programme consists of one core course and a series of options.
- If you complete 60 credits successfully you can exit with a Postgraduate Certificate.
- On successful completion of 120 credits, you can exit with a Postgraduate Diploma, or choose to proceed to the MSc.
- For progression to MSc (180 credits) you must complete the ‘Research methods’ course as one of your options before embarking on the Dissertation.
In all cases, you must take the core course, 'An introduction to digital environments for learning', first. A selection of the optional courses will be offered each semester. For more detail on course content, see the following links.
Core courses |
Credit |
|---|---|
| An introduction to digital environments for learning (must be taken first) | 40 |
| Research methods (core for MSc) | 20 |
| Dissertation (core for MSc) | 60 |
Options |
|
| Understanding learning in the online environment | 20 |
| E-learning strategy and policy | 20 |
| Online assessment | 20 |
| Effective course design for e-learning | 20 |
| E-learning and digital cultures | 20 |
| Psychological and social contexts of learning technologies | 20 |
| E-learning, politics and society | 20 |
| Information literacies for online learning | 20 |
| An introduction to digital game-based learning | 20 |
| Developing digital learners | 20 |
| Digital futures for learning | 20 |
| (By approval) relevant course from another programme | 20 |
P02037 An introduction to digital environments for learning
Course leader
Dr Sian Bayne
Introduction
This course is the foundation element of the MSc, and gives you the opportunity to explore a range of key e-learning themes, and to become familiar with studying online. You will take part in a range of stimulating, confidence-building collaborative activities, which will be backed up with a high level of one-to-one tutor support. The course will give you the chance to engage hands-on with digital learning environments, offer practical guidance on the effective use of new technologies for learning, and also explore some of the cultural and contextual issues which define e-learning as a vibrant field of study – its politics, practice, meanings and methods.
During the course you will have the opportunity to become familiar with using discussion boards and chat rooms for learning, and you will also have the chance to take part in a class conducted in a 3D virtual world. You will experiment with course-building using WebCT, and have the chance to explore and discuss a range of innovative approaches to learning using technology including hypertext writing, re-usable learning objects and class wikis. You will use a weblog to record and reflect on your studies, and will be able to craft your final assignment topic so that you can use it as a way of exploring an e-learning issue of direct relevance to you.
This is a new, expanded version of this course for 2009-2010, worth 40 credits rather than the previous 20.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the course you will be able to:
- critically evaluate a range of technologies in terms of their impact on teaching and learning;
- begin to design your own online learning resources;
- contextualise your own practice in terms of the key issues emerging from current research in e-learning.
P01538 Understanding learning in the online environment
Course leader
Dr Hamish Macleod
Introduction
This course will provide an introduction to the various theories that have been developed to help us understand how people learn, form personal understandings and construct knowledge. It will consider the ways in which understanding of the processes of learning can inform the practices of teaching, exploring the potential for online approaches to alter the social and interactional aspects of learning.
The course will cover themes including ‘mind and understanding the processes of human cognition’, ‘learning and the nature of knowledge’, ‘the notion of distributed cognition’, ‘communities of practice’ and ‘learning and identity’. Teaching will take place through guided reading and structured online discussion.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the course, you will be able to:
- demonstrate a critical understanding of a range of theoretical perspectives which have been developed to understand learning;
- analyse and assess these perspectives in terms of the insights they offer into the nature of learning in online environments;
- critically evaluate these perspectives, and synthesise your knowledge into an understanding of the implications for your own practice.
P01539 E-learning strategy and policy
Course leader
Professor Jeff Haywood
Introduction
This course looks in-depth at the policy context of e-learning. International, national and regional policies for e-learning will be examined in terms of their influence on strategies at organisational levels. If you have an interest in the management of change and the strategic implementation and management of e-learning, this course will give you the frameworks you need in order to formulate an effective and timely e-learning strategy for your own organisation. It will also provide you with an overview of key policy issues within the field of distance and technology-assisted learning.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the course you will have:
- developed a critical awareness of the local, sectoral and national policy contexts relevant to your own institutional setting and role;
- gained in-depth knowledge of a range of models for e-learning development and implementation;
- the ability to assess and evaluate the impact of the multiple factors affecting the successful implementation of e-learning;
- a critical understanding of the theoretical frameworks needed in order to formulate an effective e-learning strategy for your own organisation.
P01540 Online assessment
Course leader
Professor Dai Hounsell
Introduction
This course explores how the assessment of students and their learning is evolving in ways that capitalise on developments in communications and information technology. Underpinning our exploration is a review of key assessment purposes, processes and guiding principles. This underpinning makes it possible to consider emerging as well as more established directions in online and e-assessment, while also being alert to both pedagogical and technological considerations, and thus to the conceptual and practical issues raised.
The domains of online assessment surveyed include multiple-choice questioning, confidence- or certainty-based marking, e-feedback, collaborative and multi-author assignments, patchwork texts and portfolios. At various points in the course, you will be encouraged to relate what you learn to your subject area, professional setting and institution.
Learning outcomes
By the end of the course you will be able to:
- demonstrate an analytical grasp of assessment purposes and practices relevant to online assessment;
- critically evaluate the potential benefits of and limitations to the use of online assessment;
- identify and review prospects for online assessment in a subject area and institutional setting of your choosing within the higher and post-compulsory education sectors.
P01541 Effective course design for e-learning
Course leader
Clara O'Shea
Introduction
Designing an online course requires educators and developers to find a pathway through a complex terrain in which media, curriculum, ideology, context and resources must all be balanced and negotiated. This course will give a practical and theoretical grounding in ways of approaching this task. We will begin by exploring a range of approaches to course design, moving on to a small group activity in which each member will have the opportunity to design and run a small-scale learning event. You will also have the option to study approaches to course evaluation, and issues of usability in interface design for learning. For the main course assessment you will have the opportunity to design and part-build your own course.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the course you will be able to:
- understand and apply a range of approaches to the design of online and offline courses;
- critically evaluate these approaches via an understanding of their philosophical and theoretical bases;
- select and design media, learning activities and assessment tasks appropriate to each approach;
- design and build course components appropriate to your own institutional and educational context.
P01542 E-learning and digital cultures
Course leader
Dr Sian Bayne
Introduction
This course will consider online learning within the context of the emergence of a specifically ‘digital culture’. Recent years have seen a growing dependence in the West on the technologies of cyberspace and digital, networked media for conducting our working and social lives. How does our immersion in this new digital world affect us socially and culturally, and how does it change us as both teachers and learners?
The course will draw on theory from media studies, cultural studies and the study of cyberculture, as well as the educational research influenced by these areas of thought. It will explore the emergence of digital culture, looking at how it interfaces with learning cultures, popular culture, and ideas of virtual community, and considering how the digital domain changes the way we understand language, identity, embodiment, race, gender and subjectivity.
You will use a ‘fragmented’ model of delivery, using a combination of blogging, tweeting and lifestreaming for course process and assessment. The ethos of the course will be that most of its process and content will be open to the wider internet, and that it will require the final assignment to be presented in digital, non-conventional format.
Learning outcomes
On completion of this course you will:
- have a critical awareness of the key concepts emerging from the study of digital culture, via cyberculture theory, cultural and media studies;
- be able to assess the implications of this thought for the history, development and deployment of e-learning technologies;
- be able to synthesise these ideas in order to develop critically-aware, media-specific pedagogies for online learning;
- have developed practical skills in the use of social media and the presentation of academic discourse online.
P01543 Psychological and social contexts of e-learning
Course leader
Dr Hamish Macleod
Introduction
The uses of learning technologies, and the participation in online learning environments, is set in the context of the wider social and psychological impacts of computers and information technologies (ICTs). These technologies have radically changed the ways in which many of us pursue our working lives, engage in recreation, participate in social networks across time and space, and access information and physical resources. They are not merely neutral responses to human needs and aspirations, but in turn shape our environment and change our experience of life.
This course will explore the idea that information technologies have unanticipated consequences far beyond their status as tools. Learners and teachers alike bring technical, psychological and moral assumptions about ICTs to their engagements with learning technologies, which will influence the likely success of educational innovations. During the period of the course you will have a chance to critique poorly-designed technological artefacts, build a wiki-essay and engage with a wide range of settings in which new technologies are central to psychological and social experience.
Learning outcomes
Through participation in this course it is intended that you will:
- develop a critical awareness of the range of psychological models which help us to understand relationships between individuals and social groups, and the technologies which they develop and use;
- review and assess the processes of innovation as applied to the development of technological artefacts;
- critically evaluate technological artefacts, particularly with regard to the importance of user-centered design and deployment;
- develop specialist skills in the use of a range of common technological (particularly communicative) devices and systems.
P01544 E-learning, politics and society
Course leader
Dr Rory Ewins
Introduction
This course examines the sociological and political aspects of online learning. It looks at changes in online culture and ideologies under the influence of governments, corporations and society at large, the role of educational organisations in those developments in particular, and the potential for e-learning to help learners negotiate the emerging social and political landscape of the online world. Themes include the social, political and economic forces behind the development of the Internet and e-learning, the digital divides in early 21st century society, the role of e-learning in changing people's social and political identities, and the intellectual property disputes shaping the future of the Internet, e-learning, and education and training.
The course will feature student interaction and discussion of its core themes using a community weblog/discussion board environment of a kind that plays host to socio-political discussions around the web. You will be encouraged to consider the broader social and political implications of the online environment, and how education and e-learning prepares us all for the ‘information society’.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the course you will have:
- a critical understanding of distinctive social and political features of the online environment, including its historical and ideological underpinnings;
- an ability to analyse and assess the role of educational organisations in the development of the online environment;
- critical awareness of the social and political context and implications of e-learning;
- an ability to synthesise concepts introduced in the course into an understanding of how change is negotiated in the online world, and how online skills prepare us for such negotiation and change.
P01545 Information literacies for online learning
Course leaders
Denny Colledge and Marshall Dozier
Introduction
This course covers the challenges of the ever-growing electronic information world and aims to help you develop your own understanding of information literacy. Knowing how to find and manipulate information is an essential aspect of learning in the digital age – this course will enable you to develop your own information literacies, and help you to foster them in your own students, learners and clients.
We will consider why information literacy is important, the existence of the ‘Google generation’, the role of the library and the current crisis in scholarly communication as well as issues of intellectual property, m-learning and the potential electronic futures of information and learning.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the course you will be able to:
- critically evaluate and use a range of current online information resources;
- engage with the possibilities and limitations of information technologies;
- examine and develop both your own information-seeking practices and those of your students, clients or co-workers;
- demonstrate a critical understanding of the constraints of human information processing and cognitive and learning styles on the use of online information resources;
- support students, learners and clients in the context of the information explosion and the crisis in scholarly communication.
P01546 An introduction to digital game-based learning
Course leader
Fiona Littleton
Introduction
This course will introduce you to the application of computer-based games, narrative and role play in educational settings. The course will consider actual and potential application of existing commercial games in educational settings, games that have been specifically created with educational objectives in mind, and a wider array of practices in experiential learning that can broadly be described as game-informed. In parallel with this practical emphasis the course will provide a theoretical context for the relationships between games, play and learning.
The course will be taught via guided reading and active participation in the digital gaming culture through hands-on game play and synchronous discussion in the virtual world ‘Second Life’.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the course, you will:
- understand the features, terminology, history and taxonomy of computer-based games;
- be able critically to evaluate a range of games and game environments through direct experience and immersion;
- be able to evaluate and critically assess the relation between play, games and learning in formal and informal settings;
- be able to describe original approaches to using the potential of game-based learning in your own practice.
P01548 Developing digital learners
Course leaders
Dr Velda McCune and Dr Sian Bayne
Introduction
This course will focus on learner development for online learning. While it will enable you to better understand how effective learning skills can be nurtured in online environments in particular, much of what is learned will be equally relevant in offline contexts.
One key theme in the course will be the processes of transition and adjustment which individuals experience as they come to terms with online environments and new demands on them as learners. The impact of individuals’ learning histories and identities on their engagement with online environments will be considered, along with a focus on the distinctive ‘ways of thinking and practising’ which exist in particular academic and learning communities. These will be considered with particular reference to learners’ engagement with the varied communicative genres available in online settings, including issues relating to effective use of sources and plagiarism.
Rather than offering an emphasis on discrete study skills, the course will consider how learners can be supported to become more skilled in monitoring and regulating their own learning processes.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the course you will:
- be able to demonstrate a critical understanding of the factors affecting learner development in online environments, including issues of transition, identity, literacy and participation;
- be able to evaluate the key ideas emerging from the literature on how teaching-learning environments affect the development of learners' study skills;
- design programmes and units of study which embed support for effective learning within online settings;
- develop specialist skills in ways of supporting individuals to become more effective learners.
P03172 Digital futures for learning
Course leader
Jen Ross
Introduction
This course will give students the opportunity to consider the trajectory and implications of digital technologies for the future of learning. The course takes as its starting point the key themes of personalisation; place, space and mobility; and authorship and collaboration, and uses them to guide exploration of emerging practices and technologies. We will ask: how are more established digital practices evolving? How will new digital technologies and trends impact on learning? How will the students and teachers of tomorrow construct their learning environments and practices?
Of necessity, these are questions the answers to which are highly context-dependent: the future of e-learning technologies is volatile and subject to rapid change. For this reason a significant part of the course will be structured as a series of student-facilitated seminars. Each seminar will take one of the themes or issues from the initial block as a jumping off point for imagining, debating and theorising what digital futures for learning might be like.
The course will draw on literature from e-learning, community education and theories of informal learning, cultural studies, geography, psychology and sociology.
Learning outcomes
On completion of this course you will:
- be able critically to consider and situate new and emerging trends and technologies;
- be aware of some of the social factors influencing technological innovation, and vice versa;
- be able to identify the potential of emerging technologies as environments for teaching and learning;
- demonstrate practical skill in the deployment of emerging technologies for learning purposes.
P01549 Research methods
Course leaders
Dr Hamish Macleod
Introduction
This course will give you the framework and contextual knowledge you need in order to plan, design and execute a programme of independent research for the dissertation element of the MSc in E-learning. The course will enable you to formulate a research question and an outline project plan. It will give you key skills in research design and enable you to position their own programme of research within the broader context of social science enquiry. It will introduce you to data collection and analysis and to key methods for analysing both quantitative data and qualitative research texts.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the course you will be able to:
- demonstrate an awareness of the key epistemological issues in social science research;
- identify appropriate research questions and how they might be addressed by particular methodological approaches;
- locate and critically evaluate relevant literature;
- engage with a range of data collection methods;
- have a critical awareness of issues relating to research reliability and validity, and ethical considerations;
- demonstrate specialist skills in the analysis of quantitative and qualitative data;
- effectively plan a programme of research;
- demonstrate an awareness of academic conventions in the presentation of research.
P01550 Dissertation
Course leader
Dr Sian Bayne
Introduction
The Dissertation is a major study demanding a high level of individual application and commitment to research and enquiry. It provides you with the opportunity to identify, reflect on and explore a topic that has implications for your own professional development and scholarly interest. The Dissertation will involve a critical interrogation of the relationship between academic theory, professional practice and the design, ethics and interpretation of research. Research training is an important part of the Dissertation process and this will be offered via the core course in Research Methods. Before beginning the dissertation, you will submit a detailed dissertation proposal of around 2000 words, which will be produced as part of the assessment for the Research Methods course. On successful completion of Research Methods you may begin work on the dissertation with guidance and support from the designated dissertation supervisor.
Provision will be made for students who wish to submit their dissertation in an alternative to the standard written format (for example as a web-essay or an extended practical course design or assessment-building project). Participants wishing to pursue this as an option will need to take particular care that their dissertation proposal details how they will demonstrate an appropriate level of critical analysis, academic knowledge and reflection on the nature of enquiry. Full guidance will be given in the programme dissertation handbook.
Learning outcomes
On completion of the dissertation you will be able to:
- specify a topic of enquiry suitable for a dissertation and justify its theoretical significance, relevance and practical feasibility;
- identify and reflect critically on relevant up-to-date literature, research reports and other scholarly evidence with specific reference to the research process chosen;
- collect and analyse evidence, justifying the approaches and techniques used, and identifying the implications of these decisions;
- critically examine the contribution and limitations of the study undertaken in theoretical and applied terms;
- demonstrate that the study complies with relevant ethical guidelines;
- present work which engages appropriately with academic conventions in relation to style, tone, structuring and referencing.