Glossary

A person with a disability is provided an equal opportunity to acquire information, receive a service, and participate in a learning experience with ease of use and independence.

The evaluation of the learning that has taken place against a set of achievement criteria. Assessments can take different forms, such as formative "ongoing" feedback and summative exams or coursework.

• Formative assessment is aimed primarily at determining the strengths and weaknesses of a student’s work, with the objective of improvement. Formative assessment demands feedback to the student in some form and may, but will not always, contribute to summative assessment.

• Summative assessment is aimed at evaluating student learning at the end of an instructional unit by comparing it against some standard or benchmark.
• Peer assessment/review is an assessment/review of students’ work carried out by other students.
• Self-assessment is an evaluation of one's own abilities.

Tools within an LMS (learning management system) that manage the authoring, delivery and marking of assessments tasks, such as assignments, tests, assignments, and surveys.

Assignments allow students to submit work to their teacher for grading. The work may be text typed online or uploaded files of any type the teacher's device can read. Grading may be by simple percentages or custom scales, or more complex rubrics may be used. Students may submit as individuals or in groups.

Not occurring at the same time; for example, a discussion in an online forum may not result in participants engaging at the same time as each other. Asynchronous learning is a general term used to describe forms of education, instruction, and learning that do not occur in the same place or at the same time.

The term is most commonly applied to various forms of digital and online learning in which students learn from instruction—such as pre-recorded video lessons or game-based learning tasks that students complete on their own—that is not being delivered in person or in real time. Yet asynchronous learning may also encompass a wide variety of instructional interactions, including email exchanges between instructors, online discussion boards, and course-management systems that organize instructional materials and correspondence, among many other possible variations (The Glossary of Education Reform, 2014).

The definition of blended learning is a formal education program in which a student learns: (1) at least in part through online learning, with some element of student control over time, place, path, and/or pace; (2) at least in part in a supervised brick-and-mortar (physical) location away from home; (3) and the modalities along each student’s learning path within a course or subject are connected to provide an integrated learning experience (Staker & Horn, 2012).

In summary, blended learning is a method of teaching and learning that integrates face-to-face and online delivery methods. The blend may comprise different proportions of each method depending on context.

‘Blog’ is an abbreviated version of ‘weblog’, a term used to describe websites that maintain an ongoing chronicle of information. A blog features diary-type commentary and links to articles on other websites, usually presented as a list of entries in reverse chronological order (the most recent posts appear first).

Computer tools and applications which run on a web browser via the internet without accessing the operating system of any individual computer. These applications are accessed through web pages.

Learning through the exchange and sharing of information and opinions among a peer group.

A unit of study, typically with a workload of more than 25–30 hours, that includes:

1. a study guide/syllabus with instructions on how to learn from the presented materials and interactions;
2. educational content, which may include video, audio, text, games (including simulations), social media and animation;
3. possibilities for interaction, such as social media channels, forums, blogs or RSS readers to build a learning community;
4. activities/tasks/assignments, tests and feedback, which can be automatically generated (e.g., quizzes), as well as peer feedback and/or general feedback from academic staff;
5. exams, including some kind of recognition option, i.e., an acknowledgment of achievements, such as course completion, by a competent authority.

Setting learning objectives, choosing media applications, planning evaluation and preparing instructional strategies in advance of students recruitment and development of course materials.

A licensing scheme which provides a way to share and reuse copyright resources under flexible, legal terms. Creative Commons licenses are increasingly applied to teaching resources that are typically made available using the internet.

An umbrella term for any education that is conducted at least partly in, with or through digital technologies. This includes the use of technology in traditional classrooms, blended learning and education that takes place entirely online.

Education designed for delivery where students and instructors are not in the same location.  Learning and teaching that is provided remotely. This often makes use of technology and / or the internet and online resources.

A mode of study that allows the learner to study most or all of a course without attendance at a campus-based institution. The distance can refer to material and/or interaction. Distance learning refers to improved capabilities in knowledge and/or behaviors as a result of mediated experiences that are constrained by time and/or distance such that the learner does not share the same situation with what is being learned.