UNIT 1: Planning of the digital learning solution

Rather than choosing the digital solution that is most common or most easy to use for the teacher, there needs to be an analysis of the institutional needs of the students and to plan according to those needs. Furthermore, we need not neglect the crucial social aspect of education and acknowledge that exceptional situations, such as a pandemic, are not the natural state in which we teach. Our digital solution should be useful in all situations, either when students are at home, during a quarantine, in hybrid learning scenarios but also in traditional learning situations.

2.1.1  Developing a digital learning plan

Digital learning refers to using digital technologies within learning, teaching and assessment situations in a school. Digital technologies are constantly evolving, and they can be used to support an  array of activities in  the school. Digital learning planning can often focus too much on what technology we should buy or use with our learners, before thinking about how these tools can be used in a learning environment. Nonetheless, digital learning planning should begin with why we are using digital technology and how it will allow us to create learning situations that help students to attain the desired learning outcomes.

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Firstly, each teacher should think about how he/she has used digital technologies so far, how proficient they are in ICT, and what are the tools that have given best results in the past.

Secondly, we should try to find out more about a desired goal we want to improve, from students, parents, other teachers and the school administrators, while making sure that the information we gather is useful and  not overwhelming. We can gather this information by either  talking to the educational partners or using online questionnaires.

We should then analyze the information we have acquired, and continue to use the good practices we identified and work on the areas we discovered as needing improvement.

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It is then useful to write a personal Digital Learning Plan containing what we want to achieve, our strengths in previous use of digital technologies, the areas that need improvement and how we plan to achieve this betterment. We should be very specific in how we plan to  measure the success of our plan, for example specifying a minimum number of new activities designed, what is the expected student behaviour to a proposed activity, and how to offer effective feedback to the students.

Finally we have to put our plan into practice, trying to integrate it fully in our teaching planning and we should evaluate the impact of our actions to further improve it in the future.

2.1.2 Where to learn from as teachers?

In order to develop a comprehensive digital learning plan it is crucial to use the resources available on the internet and equally, our personal experience and the experience of our peers.

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Sharing best practice in teaching is paramount in becoming a better teacher, since  teaching is a collaborative process. Learning from others and also helping our colleagues can significantly improve our teaching practices and the results our students obtain. There is more than one way to exchange teaching experience.

First of all, anyone can use social media, such as Facebook, Twitter and educational blogs or youtube channels from well renowned teachers who share their successes or failures. Once you’ve discovered a digital tool or a learning practice that you think might be appropriate for your students and your teaching style, you can put it in practice in your classes.

Secondly, besides using social media, we should take advantage of the experience of the people we work with, by sharing best practices in our schools. Starting a targeted dialogue between fellow teachers can have a huge impact on your professional growth.

The usefulness of new ideas can be evaluated by applying them and creating over time, a database of proven techniques and high-quality resources. Another important aspect is attending workshops, within your school or offered by other teachers, and not restrict the exchanging of information to your own subject you teach, because many techniques can be applied to more than one subject.

2.1.3 Practical Activity: What are some examples of  goals/standards according to which you can plan your digital solutions?

For each of the following educational goals/standards answer the questions following it:

• Students enjoy their learning and are motivated to learn.

1. Am I using digital technologies  to encourage active engagement from students?
2. What tools am I using to achieve active engagement from students?
3. How can I tell that the students are being engaged?
4. What are some suggestions from students to make my classes more engaging?

• Students use digital tools to research and exchange information to achieve understanding

1. Do my students use digital tools to find and exchange information in my subject?
2. What are some examples of such tools?
3. How often do students use digital technologies in my subject?
4. How are my students using digital technologies to research and exchange information?

• The teacher selects and plans for and uses digital learning activities that help personalised and differentiated learning

1. What are some examples in which you have changed your lesson plans to include digital learning activities in your classes?
2. What do you think would help teachers better integrate digital learning tools in their lessons?
3. What are some examples of learning platforms that you have used?
4. What are the main criteria for which you choose digital learning tools among place of publication, authorship, user feedback, level of interaction for the student?

• Students attain the stated learning outcomes for my subject

1. What digital tools do you use to achieve this goal?
2. How do you assess using online tools the attainment of learning outcomes?
3. What tools work both in online and face to face teaching to achieve this goal?
4. How did you ensure that online assessments were genuine and students did not cheat?

2.1.4 Glossary

Digital Learning Plan (DLP) – a document containing what we want to achieve, our strengths in previous use of digital technologies, the areas that need improvement and how we plan to achieve this betterment