Innovative learning in action (ILIA) issue five: Learning technologies in the curriculum

Consideration of the papers and snapshots in this edition of Innovative Learning in Action, focused on learning technology, will provide the reader with insights into a range of excellent and innovative approaches to the application of learning technologies to enhance learning both in the classroom and at a distance. It also provides us with examples of how learning technologies can both stimulate and support partnership with staff and students and collaborative learning and working. This edition is particularly timely given the aim of the University’s 2005-2008 Learning Technologies Implementation Plan (LTIP), which is to enhance the quality of, and access to, learning, teaching and assessment by supporting and developing the curriculum through the appropriate and effective use of learning technologies. The LTIP is designed to help us to reach a situation where the effective use of appropriate learning technologies becomes part of our normal teaching, research and enterprise activities, and enhances access to our programmes by all our students whether they are learning on campus, at a distance, or in the workplace. The emphasis at the University of Salford has consistently been on the identification and creative application of the appropriate blends of ICT and traditional methods, shaped by pedagogical, rather than technological drivers, and acknowledging and reflecting different academic contexts and professional and vocational requirements. We have some excellent examples of how this has been achieved here, ILIA once again providing us with an opportunity to reflect on practice and student learning, to share experience and hopefully to identify future areas for collaboration in a key area of curriculum development

Designing MOOC:a shared view on didactical principles

The innovative impact of the paper can be highlighted by the following statements: 1. Applying the Group Concept Mapping, a non-traditional and power research methodology for objectively identifying the shared vision of a group of experts on MOOC didactical principles. 2. Defining MOOC didactical principles and their operationalisations in more concrete guidelines. 3. Formulating suggestions for combining xMOOC and cMOOC.Supported by European Commission, DG EAC, under the Erasmus+ Programm