Implications

As the saying goes, "there is no gain without pain". While this may sound as a pessimistic way of facing the challenges raised by the wide availability of collaborative cloud technologies, it is a fact that new tools call for new paradigms — this will not necessarily mean a higher regular workload, but that may be unavoidable while teaching and learning practices change.

Students

The main difference from the point of view of the students is that they are asked to increase their active role in the learning process. A significant part of the students’ workload in teacher-centered models consists of sitting and listening. This works well for the lower levels of Bloom's taxonomy pyramid, but learning also calls for higher level activities that are best addressed when the students play an active role. Providing a full set of short recorded lectures offers great flexibility, but the time that was previously used to deliver presentations in the classroom will at least in part be reallocated to learning tasks where the students play an active role, e.g. in project-based learning activities, discussions, student-led presentations, etc. Again this will not necessarily mean a higher workload, and indeed it shouldn't — since a 10 ECTS course will continue to represent the same total workload.

The feedback collected during the last 7 years does however show that this shifting role is perceived as an increased workload, as the following comments demonstrate:

• "Huge workloads made me learn a lot."

• "I have spent a lot of my time on this subject and I liked it. But this subject is a lot more work than my other 10 point subjects."

• "A little less work would not hurt. Time consuming subject, very complicated."

• "I still think the workload is on the higher side."

All four quotes were already presented in the previous section — the first two belonging to the DFDS3101 2014/15 excerpts (figure 22), and the last two to the DFDS3101 2015/16 excerpts (figure 24). What is most interesting however is that the 2014/15 quotes belong to the "What is particularly good" section, while the 2015/16 quotes belong to the "possible improvements" section. This shows that the perception of an increased workload is both a source of praise and complaint by the students.

Teachers

A higher workload will most likely be perceived by the teachers, and the title chosen for this document was not an innocent choice — a ubiquitous classroom calls for a ubiquitous teacher that conveys the perception of 24/7 availability to the students. Increasing the online content will inevitably mean an increased online workload, but an appropriate balance with on-campus activities may even things out. Just as a matter of curiosity, the image below shows the teacher's inbox after an afternoon spent working on one of the previous sections of this document — all but three of the new messages seen represent contributions posted by students to the Canvas DFDS3200 course discussions, and they all expect a comment from the teacher.

The expectation of 24/7 availability is of course unfair to the teacher, and indeed unreal. It is nevertheless a fact that quick feedback motivates the students to go the extra mile required by their active learning role and is highly appreciated, as exemplified by the following excerpts from the "What is particularly good" section of the DFDS3101 2015/16 edition (first week on-campus, all remaining weeks online):

• "Teacher is always available, regardless of being out of the country all semester."

• "Enthusiastic teacher. Impressive feedback from teacher at all time during day and night."

A much stronger online presence becomes a key success factor for both teachers and students, be it for blended learning or fully online delivery. This shifting role of the teacher is not however the only challenge posed by the delivery model described in this document — appropriate content (presentations and discussions) needs to be included in Canvas, and on most occasions it will have to be created by the teacher. Plenary classes required slides anyway, but using them to record short presentations means a very long extra mile for the teacher — scripts have to be created, and recording is far from trivial for most of us. It is however true that this extra mile taken earlier in the teaching and learning process means shorter distances to walk later, and nicer teaching and learning routes.

Detailed planning becomes even more important in blended or fully online delivery models, where the students need to know exactly what is expected from them at any moment. Providing the complete calendar of activities from day 1 may be seen by many teachers as an additional challenge, but it will greatly simplify their work, and play a key role for student success, particularly when they are largely responsible for deciding when and where to carry out the proposed learning tasks.

Last but not least, reflection upon the results of each course edition is mandatory to meet institutional quality assurance (QA) requirements, and particularly important whenever innovative teaching and learning practices or technologies are used. The platforms hosting online content provide a wealth of information about their usage, namely Canvas statistics, and analytics data for YouTube videos. Collecting and analyzing this information becomes particularly important to support reflection, especially if opportunities arise to discuss them in department or faculty meetings — as in the case of the two seminars that will be referred to close the "Institution" section ahead. The extended data set corresponding to the 2017/18 edition of the DFDS3200 course is presented in appendix #7 (and partly used in the second of those seminars). A shorter version is always necessary in the form of the standard course report, which is presented in appendix #8 for this same 2017/18 edition of the DFDS3200 course.

Institution

Innovative pedagogical approaches are frequently driven by emerging technologies, but successful educational frameworks go far beyond technology. The human factor (essentially our commitment and availability to cope with change) plays a key role with this respect, but another important enabling factor comes from institutional investment in three main areas:

• Technical

• Training

• Quality assurance

Creating short video presentations to flip a classroom is far from the wish list of most teachers, but willing to do it will hardly make it happen, if recording facilities and tools do not exist. Fancy recording studios aren't really necessary, and indeed for most purposes a built-in webcam will be sufficient for good quality recordings, assuming that appropriate lighting and acoustics are available — which is not the case in just too many situations. The quality of the content itself is important, but the way that it looks cannot be disregarded. Institutional investment with this respect consists of providing enough resources for content creation, and involves a small investment in equipment, toolsets, and technical support. The last two are normally already available, be it in-house or through shared support services such as those provided by the Norwegian Directorate for ICT and Joint Services in Higher Education and Research (Unit / Uninett). The lack of appropriate local recording spaces is however still an obstacle waiting for attention.

New forms of content demand new production skills, and teachers are no exception to the need for training in the new tools of their trade. Lack of training has never prevented anyone from designing a slide presentation, although the consequences are occasionally embarrassing — but it may indeed become a blocking factor when considering more elaborate forms of educational content, such as video lectures. Moreover a video on YouTube can easily reach a global audience, creating more demanding requirements for quality of content and presentation. Providing a regular training program to their teaching staff becomes particularly important to enable educational models based on blended or full online delivery.

Last but by no means least, QA becomes even more important to enable effective assessment of new frameworks for teaching and learning. Course reports and student surveys have never been listed among the favorite activities of teachers and students, and an institutional commitment to collect them and to promote reflection upon their content becomes particularly important for dealing with emerging educational technologies, and their associated teaching and learning frameworks.

The three areas considered above are by no means the only ones to consider, but they are at the forefront of institutional commitment required to facilitate the task of the early adopters that can lead the way, and are willing to share their experience with fellow academic staff. In response to institutional invitations with this objective, I delivered two seminars presenting the model and tools used in my teaching and learning practices:

• The first one was delivered at HBV in December of 2014 (appendix #9): “Flipped (e-)classrooms: Active learning environments based on BIBSYS' edX server and Google Apps”

• The second was delivered at USN in December of 2018 (appendix #10): “Don’t lecture! (you may ruin it all!)”

Since both of them advocated the use of fully online content and flipped-classroom methods, all the materials were made available beforehand on the web.

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