Videos on online learning in post-secondary education

There is now a great deal of video suitable for teaching in post-secondary education available through YouTube, Vimeo, Ted Talks, the Khan Academy, iTunesU, MIT’s Open Courseware, the Open University’s FutureLearn, and of course, MOOCs.

My focus here is video about online learning, topics that won’t be commonly found on these more widely available sites.


May 2020: Five webinars on the Myths, Realities, Opportunities and Challenges of Online Learning

The recordings provide a rich source of material on developing advanced, quality online courses and programs.

The recordings are in Adobe Connect and each recording may take a few seconds to download. (If you do not have Adobe Connect already installed you will need to download the app.) Each recording is approximately one hour in length. Click on the titles below to access the recordings.

1. Leveraging online learning to develop new skills

Online learning is mostly associated with increasing student access and flexibility. However, in this seminar I argue that it is becoming increasingly important also for developing the knowledge and skills needed in a digital age, and I suggest some ways in which skills can be taught or developed online.

2. Choosing modes of delivery

This webinar discusses the continuum of technology-based learning, discusses the affordances of face-to-face teaching, suggests for criteria for deciding on the right mix of online and face-to-face teaching, and looks at the impact on the campus of blended learning.

3. Choosing a technology that makes a difference to learning

This webinar discusses the the difference between media and technology and whether the separation is important; provides a way of categorising media; examines the pedagogical differences between (or affordances of) media; and discusses two models for choosing and evaluating media.

4. Immersive technologies

After a discussion of Gartner’s hype cycle, the webinar examines the educational potential of serious games and augmented and virtual reality. In each case, definitions are given, examples provided, design issues are presented, and strengths and weaknesses of each of these technologies is discussed.

5. Artificial intelligence and learning analytics

This webinar looks at the definition and general characteristics of artificial intelligence and learning analytics, identifies different types of educational applications, then focuses specifically on teaching and learning functions.This is followed by a discussion of their strengths and weaknesses and a discussion of why AI and LA have so far made so little impression on teaching and learning to date.


April 2020: 12 videos on the main themes of Teaching in a Digital Age

Made at home during the Covid-19 pandemic with the support of the Commonwealth of Learning, these 12 shortish videos (10-15 mins each) provide an introduction to the main themes of my open, online textbook, Teaching in a Digital Age. Click on the titles to open the recording.

  1. Skills needed in a digital age (11 mins 39 secs)
  2. Online learning and teaching methods (9 mins 58 secs)
  3. Implementing online learning (15 mins 39 secs)
  4. Understanding the learners (12 mins 03 secs)
  5. Theories of learning (14 mins 30 secs)
  6. Learner support (15 mins 19 secs)
  7. Choosing media (12 mins 56 secs)
  8. Assessment strategies (20 mins 28 secs)
  9. Quality (8 mins 19 secs)
  10. Trends in open learning (11 mins 08 secs)
  11. MOOCs (9 mins 11 secs)
  12. Emerging technologies (13 mins 35 secs)

March 2020: EDEN NAP How to start teaching online

Made in March 2020, as universities and colleges were crashing into emergency remote learning, this webinar, streamed from my home in Vancouver, Canada, had more than 1,000 participants all over Europe, 300 on Zoom and the rest streamed live on YouTube. The video is just under one hour in length.

Click on the image to play.


2012 JISC

JISC has created a site with videos from five UK universities and colleges that document their experience in implementing e-portfolios across a relatively wide range of subject areas.


2012 Online learning and personal change for instructors

Gary Poole and Tony Bates

This set of YouTube videos (15 minutes each, roughly) from a faculty development session at Vancouver Community College in April, 2012, features two presentations, one from Gary Poole, of UBC, who focused on personal issues in dealing with change, and one from Tony Bates about the changes needed in post-secondary teaching

Online learning and personal change for instructors 

Courage to Adapt: Part 1

Courage to Adapt: Part 2

Courage to Adapt: Part 3

Courage to Adapt: Part 4

Courage to Adapt: Part 5

Courage to Adapt: Part 6

Courage to Adapt: Part 7


2011 Vancouver showcase of online learning innovations available on video 

The Justice Institute of British Columbia and Vancouver Community College hosted an ‘online showcase’ on November 30, 2011, sponsored by the Metro Vancouver Educational Developers Network. Video recordings of each of the sessions are now available from the website.

The videos are bundled into 2 pages:

Parts 1-5:  http://www.jibc.ca/online-showcase-videos1

Parts 6-11:  http://www.jibc.ca/online-showcase-videos2


2011 The European Links-up Project 

Five experts on Learning 2.0 were interviewed at the EDEN Annual Conference in Dublin. The experts were asked three questions:

  1. Is learning 2.0 really supporting inclusive life-long learning?
  2. Can isolated experiments be mainstreamed?
  3. Is learning 2.0 fundamentally changing the educational landscape?

The following attempted to answer these questions in about five minutes each (click on their names to see the videos):

  • Graham Attwell, Director of Pontydysgu and Associate Professor, University of Warwick and University of Bremen
  • Steve Wheeler, Associate Professor, University of Plymouth
  • Ingebør Boe, Board Member, International Council for Open and Distance Education
  • Roni Aviram, Chair of the Center for Futurism in Education at Ben-Gurion University
  • Maruja Guttierez -Diaz, Advisor to the Director, Education and Culture, European Commission.

2010 Understanding the difference between and the LMS and a personal learning environment

This 4 min 30 sec YouTube video is an ‘animated’ chat about the differences between Learning Management Systems (the man) and Personal Learning Environments (the boy). Excellent use of animation to get the point over by Patricio Bustamente.

Click on image to see video


2000 Envisioning the future of learning technologies

Learning Technologies @ UBC 2005. This 7 minute video was made in 2000 to provide a vision for teaching and learning at UBC as part of a strategic initiative to encourage greater use of technology in teaching at UBC. Looking back at the video over 20 years later, I am gratified by how well it has stood the test of time, incorporating later technology and online learning developments such as Siri/voice commands, big data, experiential learning, blended learning, project-based learning, collaborative learning and video networking. If you were to develop a vision of teaching over the next 5-20 years, what would it look like?

Click on image to play video


‘Statements’ about the challenge we face as teachers in the 21st century.

The next group are ‘statements’ about the challenge we face as teachers in the 21st century.
A vision of students today (5 mins)
Michael Wesch and Kansas State University

Academia 2.0 (10 minutes)
Another from Michael Wesch and Kansas State University: a good statement of the challenge

Education Today and Tomorrow (2 mins 30 secs)
Sets use of educational technology within the needs of 21st century work

Education 2.0 (7 mins 19 secs)

Carlos Morales Socorro talks about the relationship between IT and problem-based learning (Spanish, with English sub-titles)

E-learning 2020

A Star Trek/StarWars spoof done by the Centre for Learning Technology at the London School of Economics. The vision is of a world where learning is not necessary; you just download it. Sounds like some of the lectures I went to at the LSE in 1960.

A day made of glass

Not strictly about e-learning, but Corning’s vision for the future of glass set me thinking about new designs for e-learning using touch screens and haptics.


More videos on e-learning

Lastly, for many more videos on  online learning go to http://video.google.com/ or https://vimeo.com/ and type in ‘online learning’ in the search box.