Learning in a digital age/Links/LiDA100 glossary

Asynchronous course

Characterized by communication where the learner, classmates and facilitators are entering their questions, information, completed projects at different times. The interaction between course participants does not take place concurrently. In contrast, during a Synchronous course, student and facilitator communication takes place in real time or while individuals are simultaneously present via audio, chat or video conferencing.

Blog

A website created by an individual or group with the purpose of publishing ideas, observations and experiences including but not limited to text, images, audio, video and links to other websites. The author can enable comments with or without moderation. Popular blogging software includes, for example: Wordpress, Blogger, Medium

Cohort based offering

An enrolled group of learners following the same schedule toward completing an OERu course by a nominated specified date.

Course feed

Provides a collation of course related posts from registered learners participating in an OERu course. The course feed automatically harvests learner posts originating from different technologies including: WENotes comments (see below), forum posts, hypothes.is annotations, contributions to the resource bank, Mastodon toots and learner blog posts tagged with the relevant course code.

Course code

Each OERu course has a unique course code, for example LiDA101 or IPM103. The course code is used to tag or label blog posts for the course feed harvester and to categorise forum and microblog posts. See also definition of Tags below.

Course technologies

May include computer or other web accessing devices, “software” applications, websites and social media communication. For more information see the OERu learning environment page on the support site.

Declare yourself

Introduce, present yourself to classmates. A first step to becoming part of a learning community.

Forums

Are discussion spaces for learners to post text responses to course topics. Additional linked sites, animations, audio or video can also be posted to build on learner ideas and questions.

Forums site

An online discussion web site hosted at https://forums.oeru.org/ for digital communication postings including text, linked or embedded audio, video and animations. Course learning topics are provided by the course developers and linked from the course site. OERu learners can reply to posts or add new topics for discussion on the forums site. For more information visit the course forums page on the OERu support site.

Hashtag

Is a tag prefixed with the hash or pound sign (“#”) without any spaces, for example “#LiDA101”. Many social media sites support the use of hashtags in the body of a text post. This enables users to search for posts using a specified hashtag. See also Tags below.

Independent study

OERu courses designed for self-directed study. Unlike a cohort-based offering with a fixed start date, learners can start and finish an independent study offering at anytime.

Learning pathways

A sequence of sub-pages on an OERu course site that contains the learning content and activities on a given topic to guide and support learning. Think of a learning pathway as a “lesson” which forms part of a course.

Mastodon

An open source alternative to Twitter social media communication format that allows microblogging; the broadcasting of short messages to other subscribers. OERu learners may use Mastodon as a way to share course related knowledge.

Open access resources

Are freely accessible, text, media, and other digital assets that are useful for teaching, learning, and assessment as well as for research purposes.

Pathway

A way of achieving a specified result; a course of action. For this course, a Learning Pathway is characterized by learning activities designed for students to learn by doing.

Peer 2 Peer University (P2PU) learning circles

Free study groups for people who want to take online classes together and in-person. There are learning circles around the world. The P2PU site provides examples and guiding instructions on how to create a local learning circle.

Personal Learning environment (PLE)

A digital work space comprising learner selected software applications and online tools to support learning, interaction and communication with fellow learners. At OERu, the learner’s course blog will be the the hub of a learner’s PLE.

Resource bank

A central course space sometimes called a Digital Repository where learners share links to online resources they have found useful in supporting their learning. At OERu it is important that contributions be open and free.

Tags

Are user generated keywords or labels added to posts. This tag metadata helps to search for related posts using the same tag and assists software applications to automatically generate tag clouds or filter posts using the specified tag. Many software applications provide support for a dedicated tag field (for example blogging software or forum software) whereas other applications support the addition of hashtags in the body of the text, for example #LiDA103. (See also hashtags).

Tertiary education

Tertiary education is a concept commonly used in the UK, Australia and New Zealand to describe study after high school or secondary school education.

Personal Learning Network

Is a network of people a learner interacts with to support their learning using a Personal Learning Environment (PLE)

TECEP

Thomas Edison State University Examination Program (see TECEP Exams).

WENotes (WikiEducator Notes)

An OERu hosted technology for posting comments on course sites.