Quick Transition to E-Learning – Resources in English
By Virna Rossi
Due to the worldwide coronavirus emergency, academics are having to switch to e-learning. Virna Rossi has created a series of videos to help academics transition to e-learning methods and methodologies in the midst of uncertainty.
These videos are also available in Arabic – Click here to view.
Swedish translations of these videos are also available on this site – Click here to access.
Virna Rossi is a teacher educator, currently Course Leader of the PGCert in Creative Courses and the upcoming MA in Creative Education at Ravensbourne University London. She have been teaching in various educational institutions, in London, for 18 years in a wide variety of roles and settings, including: primary, secondary, further education, adult education, higher education. However, her interest in education goes way back to her childhood. As a child, if someone asked her: ‘What will you be when you grow up?’ She would answer: ‘I want to be a teacher’. Virna has always been a people’s person interested in the learning process, in the development of others and how she can support that development.
Virna’s primary specialism is Languages: She taught Italian and French to primary, secondary and undergraduate students. After completing her PGCert (Greenwich University) in 2004, Virna also became involved in the delivery of some of its modules and she realised that teacher education was her ‘call’. From then on, Virna’s roles became more and more geared towards teacher education. After completing the Master of Teaching (MTeach) in 2007 at the IoE, now part of UCL, she further qualified to become an ‘Assessor’ (2009) so as to take a role as MTeach module lecturer at the IoE, until 2016 when she joined Ravensbourne where I currently lead the PGCert in Creative Courses.
During all these years as a practitioner, there have been many critical incidents involving her discovery of key educational approaches. When Virna read the research around UDL and particularly Sean Bracken’s work, she realised that this approach was going to improve the way she promoted and modelled inclusivity in her practice so she immediately embraced, promoted and modelled UDL principles in her practice.
Faced with the sudden switch to e-learning due to COVID-19 pandemic, Virna decided to quickly produce some bite-size CPD videos to support academics embed the pedagogy of care. UDL principles (for instance choice of input and choice of output) although not directly named as such in the videos have been core to the approach Virna promotes. It is Virna’s heartfelt hope that this video series can support academics as they support their students at this difficult time, and indeed later on. It is her intention to add 1 video per week to the series, so please check back weekly for the newest.
This series of ‘home-made’ videos is to help academics with this sudden change, promoting the pedagogy of care. The full list of the videos appears below. However, the series of videos have also been collated in a Vimeo album here:
https://vimeo.com/showcase/6967044
1. Introduction about the series
The basics
2. Where do I start from, when switching to e-learning?
3. How do I support students’ emotional wellbeing at this time?
4. How do I set up students for e-learning?
IT tools
5. Which platform should I use for video-conferencing?
6. How do I up my IT capabilities to cope with e-learning?
Adapting teaching and assessment
7. How do I adapt my teaching to e-learning?
8. How do I adapt my assessment to e-learning?
9. How do I prevent plagiarism in e-learning?
VLE
10. How do I set up my VLE space to support the switch to e-learning?
11. How do I support students’ academic skills development in e-learning mode?
E-learning activities
12. What would be good ‘week 1’ activities to start the Unit?
13. Fast e-learning switch 13: ‘How can learners work in groups and share outputs in real-time?’
14. ‘What best practice in feedback can I embed in e-learning?’ – Fast e-learning switch