Aug 2026

This course explores how interactive learning environments (ILEs) supported by technology can serve as effective solutions to educational problems or challenges. To fully engage learners in ILEs, it is essential to provide opportunities for interaction with content, peers, and instructors. The course aims to help student participants understand the importance of interaction in learning and how to incorporate different types of interaction into the design of ILEs to address specific educational needs.

 

Combining both theory and practice, the course introduces key perspectives on how people learn and how ILEs can enhance learning. Participants will examine relevant learning theories, conceptual frameworks, and guiding principles. The course will also elaborate on major design perspectives, including pedagogical design, social design, and technical design.

 

In addition to theoretical understanding, participants will gain hands-on experience with selected developmental tools. These tools will enable them to develop essential components of interactive learning environments.


Course Objectives

Through readings, face-to-face and online learning, discussions, and hands-on activities, students will be able to:


In the dynamic landscape of the information age, many traditional courses and training programmes conducted in the physical classroom have undergone extensive redesign to cater to the demands of adult learners. This transformation has led to the migration of these courses to online platforms, which offer greater flexibility, enabling learners to strike a balance between their work commitments and social lives. Moreover, the unprecedented impact of the Covid-19 pandemic has further accelerated this shift, compelling many courses and programmes to adopt either fully online or blended learning approach. In this course, participants will have hands-on experience on e-learning authoring tools. By using the tools, they can develop effective, efficient, and engaging e-learning packages.

 

Course Objectives

At the end of the course, participants will be able to:

§  Identify the key features of learning management systems

§  Compare the pros and cons of various e-learning authoring tools

§  Apply techniques in digital video production

§  Design and develop e-learning lessons/packages by using appropriate authoring tools


This course is designed to equip you with the knowledge and skills to design meaningful, technology-enhanced learning experiences that develop future-ready learners. You will learn to thoughtfully integrate content, pedagogy, and technology to create impactful and innovative lessons for diverse classroom settings.

Specifically, the course aims to enable you to:

·    Analyse and apply 21st Century Quality Learning characteristics and e-Pedagogy to design technology-enhanced lesson design. This includes exploring how digital technological tools, particularly Generative AI (Gen AI), can be used to innovate teaching, activate prior knowledge, personalise learning, and foster collaboration, reflection, and deeper understanding of teaching subject contents.

·    Integrate cyber wellness and other ethical considerations into all phases of lesson design, promoting the safe and responsible use of technology in classrooms. You will examine issues related to Gen AI, such as academic integrity, bias, and digital citizenship, to ensure equitable and reflective learning environments.

·    Demonstrate practical competency by designing, implementing, and critically reflecting on innovative learning activities. This includes creatively applying Gen AI for teaching, learning, and assessment to develop engaging, tech-mediated differentiated strategies that empower active, ethical, and future-ready learners, in alignment with Singapore’s EdTech Masterplan.

Intended Learning Outcomes

Upon the successful completion of this course, you will be able to:

acquire pedagogical knowledge about the use of technology to facilitate students’ learning and knowledge construction for the 21st century classroom

develop lesson design capacity and resource preparation for subject matter learning using technology

develop critical reflective capabilities in the meaningful use of technology, including Generative AI, for innovative teaching, learning, and assessment of content and skills.


Design for Blended Learning

Blended learning is a thoughtful integration of face-to-face and online learning in a way that one complements the other. In this course, participants will learn and experience different forms of blended learning (e.g., blended asynchronous learning, blended synchronous learning, and flipped classroom), and use a variety of ICT tools (e.g., discussion forums, audio/video conferencing, and recorded videos) to conduct and support blended learning. In addition, participants will also learn how to design a blended learning environment from pedagogical, social, and technical perspectives, and effectively facilitate student learning in the blended learning environment. 

 

This course introduces the theoretical foundations and frameworks of blended learning and different forms of blended learning, and provides practical guidelines for designing, developing, implementing, and facilitating blended learning in school and training contexts.

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MLT906: Design of Technology-Mediated Learning Environments &

EDTM902: Theoretical Foundations of Technology-Mediated Learning Environments 

The pervasiveness of technology is taken for granted in the new information age. Technology-mediated learning, whether using the Internet, using social media, or via mobile devices, are increasingly adopted. However, uninformed and uncritical uses of emerging technologies are often observed. This course aims to equip students with solid theoretical bases for making compelling design decisions with respect to technology-mediated learning environments in order to increase students’ cognitive engagement, learning experiences, and learning outcomes. This course will first discuss the issues that underpin traditional approaches to learning. Second, it will broaden students’ exposure to new learning theories, models, and design principles that can guide them through the design, development, and evaluation of technology-mediated learning environments. Third, this course will elaborate on the key design components of a technology-mediated learning environment, which include pedagogical design, social design, and technical design.


MLT803/MPS803/MID834: Technologies as Cognitive Tools

This is an elective course offered to MED and MAIDT students. One of the effective ways of using technologies to learn is to build models of the phenomena that students are studying. The tools used to construct these models are known as cognitive tools or Mindtools (Jonassen, 2000). Students use Mindtools to construct personal meaning, thus engage in critical, creative, and complex thinking. Mindtools act as intellectual partners that the students learn with , rather than the traditional computer-assisted instructions where students learn from computers. Examples of Mindtools include concept mapping tools, and collaborative learning tools.


In this course, participants will be introduced to the underpinning learning theories and practical considerations for the use of Mindtools. At the end of the course, participants should be able to use some of the software tools for their teaching and learning. Participants are expected to engage in critical thinking and collaborative learning in this course.


MMM800: Critical Inquiry

This capstone course requires the participants (Master students) to identify a problem which forms the focus of inquiry, locate and read relevant literature, collect data, and undertake some data analysis (as appropriate) to generate suggested potential solution(s) to address the problem. The solution(s) should show evidence that they are able to take the available information and restructure it in an appropriate way to deal with the problem.


Each participant has a faculty member as a supervisor in conducting the study. During the semester, the participants are expected to meet up with the supervisors regularly to ensure they can finish the projects. They have to present their projects and submit their final papers to the respective supervisors by the due date.


The participants are expected to do one of the projects:


•  Report of a research study (about 5000 words) 

•  Critical literature review paper (about 5000 words) 

•  An instructional package (about 1000 to 2000 words & the instructional package).

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QED527/QED507/DED137/DED107/AED104: ICT for Meaningful Learning

This is a core course offered to all NIE student teachers who are pursuing their degrees or diplomas in education. It runs 12 weeks of 2 hours each. The main objective of this course is that the student teachers will be able to use ICT effectively for learning, and make learning meaningful to their students. The main contents covered in the course include:


The MOE Masterplans for ICT in education

Dimensions of meaningful learning

Cyber-wellness issues

Lesson planning for using ICT

Affordances of 2-3 ICT tools

The textbook used for this course is "ICT for self-directed and collaborative learning" edited by Chai Ching Sing and Wang Qiyun, published by Pearson, Singapore, 2010.


MID822: E-learning Tools for Training

This is an elective Master course offered to MAIDT students. It runs 13 weeks of 3 hours each. The main objective of this course is that the participants will be able to analyze the the affordances of e-learning tools for teaching and training. This course presents a generic framework for analyzing the educational (or pedagogical), social, and technological affordances of various tools. Based on the affordances, teachers or trainers can decide to what extent the tools are useful for their teaching or training. The main contents include:


E-learning concepts and issues

Framework for choosing e-learning tools

Various models (CoI, TPACK) related to pedagogical, social, and technological affordances

Comparison of the models

ICT tools sharing

​MECE850: Educational Technology and Applications in Management

This course is offered to the Master students who are mainly coming from China and taking a one-year full time study in NIE. Most of the participants are Secondary school principals. This course aims to help participants understand:


various applications of technology in education;

effective technology integration into the curriculum;

the issues and future trends of educational technology development.

This course combines both theories and practice. The theories cover the affordances of technology for education, the current developmental status of educational technology in various countries like China and Singapore , and design and evaluation of web-based lessons. Meanwhile, this course provides participants opportunities in exploring various learning management systems such as Blackboard, Moodle. Also, they learn how to use Lesson Builder to create simple lessons, and how to apply Weblog in instructional reflections. This course includes six sessions of three hours each. All sessions are conducted in a computer lab. Each lesson involves both a theory presentation and hands-on activities.


AED382: Designing ICT-based Constructivist Activities

This is an elective course offered to undergraduate students. The purpose of this course is to explore the potential of different web-based tools (particularly web 2.0 tools) for constructivist learning. The ICT tools include: Weblog, Wiki, Concept/mind mapping tools like Webspiration or Bubbl.us, and Facebook.