Pre-Conference Workshop A1
Creating a New Mobile User Experience for Delivering Online Learning and Teaching
Date Wednesday, Nov 30 Time – RoomKöpenick II/III Price: free of charge Status: fully booked
Workshop leaders
Louise Olney
Head of Online Student Experience, Technology Enhanced Learning, Learning and Teaching Solutions, The Open University, UK
Louise Olney is the Head of Online Student Experience at the Open University in the UK, she has worked at the OU for the last 14 years. Tammy Alexander and Sharon Monie are both Product Development Managers in the Online Student Experience team in the Learning and Teaching Solutions Unit and have been at the OU for over 10 years. The team have a broad range of skills and experience including educational technology, web and mobile development, teaching, project management and user experience design. Over the last two years they have all been committed to delivering an engaging and purposeful online learning and teaching experience for students at the OU, transforming the current online learning systems to exceed increasing market-based student expectations and digital skills
Links
Sharon Monie
Product Development Manager, The Open University, UK
Sharon Monie and Tammy Alexander are both Product Development Managers in the Online Student Experience team in the Learning and Teaching Solutions Unit and have been at the OU for over 10 years. The team have a broad range of skills and experience including educational technology, web and mobile development, teaching, project management and user experience design. Over the last two years they have all been committed to delivering an engaging and purposeful online learning and teaching experience for students at the OU, transforming the current online learning systems to exceed increasing market-based student expectations and digital skills.
Links
Tammy Alexander
Product Development Manager, The Open University, UK
Tammy Alexander and Sharon Monie are both Product Development Managers in the Online Student Experience team in the Learning and Teaching Solutions Unit and have been at the OU for over 10 years. The team have a broad range of skills and experience including educational technology, web and mobile development, teaching, project management and user experience design. Over the last two years they have all been committed to delivering an engaging and purposeful online learning and teaching experience for students at the OU, transforming the current online learning systems to exceed increasing market-based student expectations and digital skills.
Links
Content
Considering what the user wants within web design is not something revolutionary, but within an increasingly competitive and continually changing marketplace, in online distance education, researching and identifying key design principles to deliver a cutting edge and user-led study experience is central to retaining and offering students a stimulating and efficient interaction with their online learning and teaching. The Open University has recently evaluated its entire online student experience and reviewed whether it would continue to be fit for purpose within the current changing higher education and online landscape. The workshop will focus on explaining the process the OU has taken to evaluate, design and develop a new online environment for learning and teaching, using a three stage user-centred iterative design process. It will, through a series of workshop activities, invite participants to consider their own online environments and then explore methods to help discover, design and develop a new online space for their students.
Agenda
- Introduction and overview
- Exploring an iterative discovery, design and development process (Presentation)
- Discovering user-centred requirements for an online learning environment (Group Work and discussion)
- What are the key capabilities for an online learning environment?
- Who are your students?
- How to define an online student journey?
- Coffee Break
- Designing an online learning environment (Group Work and discussion)
- What is the ideal user interface for your new online learning environment?
- How would students use the interface on mobile devices?
- How does this interface meet your students’ needs and expectations?
- Developing an online learning environment (Presentation and Discussion)
- What are the challenges when implementing a new online learning environment?
- Plenary
Target audience
Those involved in thinking about or actively changing their institution’s online environment as at this workshop participants will gain an insight into the methodology used by the OU to evaluate their learning systems and will gain skills in eliciting and implementing change.
Prerequisite knowledge
None required
Outcomes
This workshop provides an opportunity for participants to explore the process the Open University has taken to evaluate their online student experience, and share in the outcome of this work. Participants will be invited to take part in a series of activities involving exploration of the three key stages, discovery, design and delivery, of the Open University user-centered iterative design process. Participants will leave with an understanding of the capabilities they have identified as key for their online environment, and be able to map the online student journey for their institution and create example personas that they can use and take away to help start thinking about what an optimal online environment/experience would be for their students. They will also leave with an understanding of how using user centered design approaches can help develop an online environment that will help connect their students and enable mobile learning.