Bettina Schwenger and Gloria Gómez contributed to this post.
Sustainable Education Practices: Highlights from FLANZ’s APODE Week 2024
We are exited to share the success of the Asia-Pacific Online Distance Education (APODE) Week 2024, organised by FLANZ in partnership with EDEN that held its European Open and Digital Learning Week at the same time. Our three webinars held from 12 to 14 November 2024 brought together educators, researchers, and professionals from diverse backgrounds to discuss and consider current topics in education.
Over 100 professionals, researchers, and educators actively participated in these webinars, contributing to rich discussions with our panellists, facilitators, and presenters. The diverse perspectives and experiences shared during APODE Week 2024 made it a valuable and impactful event. Read on for the highlights and resources for each session.
Gen AI past its hype and its impact on education in Aotearoa New Zealand
To kick off APODE Week, we had invited Claire Amos (Principal at Albany Senior High School), Stephen Marshall (Director at the Victoria University of Wellington Centre for Academic Development), and Steve Leichtweis (Head of the eLearning Group at University of Auckland) back for a panel conversation that was moderated by Kwong Nui Sim (Sydney International School of Technology and Commerce).
We explored learning and assessment in the changing landscape of education with particular focus on artificial intelligence (AI). Our panellists critically discussed several questions such as ‘How can and should educational institutions at all levels of education, from primary to tertiary education, support students and educators in this area?’
Claire, Stephen, and Steve engaged in an in depth and lively discussion about the impact of artificial intelligence and the factors that support student engagement, the impact of the digital divide and course design measures to create pedagogically sound and student-centred digital learning. They agreed that now is the opportunity to enhance critical thinking skills – at a time when these skills seemed to be needed more than ever.
Watch the recording of the panel conversation with the trio of Claire, Stephen, and Steve to hear their perspectives on AI in education for students of all ages in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Working together for change: Digital education meets the climate and nature emergencies
Our second APODE Week session was a workshop facilitated by British educators Geraldine Foley (Senior Learning Technologist at University College London [UCL]), Irina Niculescu (Senior Learning Technologist at UCL), Dominic Pates (Senior Educational Technologist at City St George’s, University of London), and Roger Rees (Design and Development Manager at University of Surrey).
The team brought to the forefront questions around climate change that educators involved in digital education should be thinking about as we all engage in the use of digital tools and need to understand our place and our role in contributing to the climate and nature crisis. They had designed activities that encouraged us to think about our own context and where we could influence behaviours, use of digital tools, but also where we could be part of policy conversations and what policies might already exist in our institutions that provide guidance in regards to sustainability.
Geraldine, Irina, Dominic, and Roger shared with us that they are working on a toolkit for educators that is designed to raise awareness amongst educators engaged in digital education to get to know their impact, start asking questions, collaborate with colleagues, and also hold conversations around what each one can do in their sphere of influence to be more mindful about the climate crisis that also affects digital education.
Watch the workshop recording and answer the questions for yourself or within your team to get started. Once the toolkit is available, we’ll share it.
Empowering STEM educators in Fiji: Integrating OERs and technology in the classroom
Mojito Jione from the University of the South Pacific (USP) concluded this year’s APODE Week with a presentation on a recent project in which the team at the Centre for Flexible Learning at USP, with support from the Ministry of Education of Fiji trained science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) teachers to integrate Open Educational Resources (OERs) and AI into their teaching. This project aimed at building resilience in the Pacific education system and building teachers’ and officials’ capacity in online distance and flexible learning.
Mojito walked us through the project, its background, objectives, the facilitator team, the team behind the scenes, and the design of the project. The project consisted of online courses and two face-to-face sessions each for teachers in the Northern, Central, Western, and Eastern divisions of Fiji to make it easier for the teachers to attend the face-to-face sessions, which can be challenging in Fiji due to some islands being very remote. The 14 facilitators engaged with 486 teachers in the two courses, ‘OER basics’ and ‘Introduction to AI and ChatGPT’. Mojito shared feedback on the usefulness of the project, challenges, plans to use the learnings, and suggestions for future improvements.
During the Q&A there was opportunity to reflect on some of the learnings. The teachers realised that they could streamline a lot of activities by using collaborative technologies, such as Google Sheets. The facilitators have encouraged teachers to set up or continue communities of practice after the workshops, not only as a way to continue to sustain what they have learned, but also to be exposed to different ways of innovating activities. Finally, an observation was made in terms of access to technology: a remote island had very good internet connectivity and technology equipment, e.g., laptops and interactive whiteboards, whereas an urban school located near a university, is still using blackboards.
Watch Mojito’s presentation to learn about this project that was supported by the Fijian Ministry of Education, The Commonwealth of Learning, and PACFOLD.
The FLANZ events team would like to thank everyone who’s been involved in this year’s APODE Week: Our panellists, workshop facilitators, presenter, and participants to share their insights, learn from each other, and gaining a better understanding some of the challenges we are facing today in open, distance, and flexible learning and in the wider educational context. We’d also like to thank the wider FLANZ team who’s supported us through session moderation and correcting of the transcripts of the recordings.
We look forward to bringing more insightful webinars to you in 2025 when we’ll restart our webinars in March 2025. If you would like to share your own project, research, or facilitate an online workshop, please get in touch with us.