My name is Timothy Reed. I'm the vice president of the Eden and it's my great pleasure to welcome you to the Eden annual conference 2021, which nominally is in UNED, but really as you can see is online. Unfortunately, because of the pandemic, we weren't able to actually welcome you here face to face here in Madrid, which is a bit of a shame, but there will be another opportunity in the future. It's quite an important conference, I think, because it's the 30th anniversary of the Association, and we're looking forward to what we think will be a very interesting conference. I mean, this last year has been a great challenge for all of us and everybody working in different forms of education with the change to online, which has affected some of us more than others. Nonetheless, it's been a, should we say an interesting experience and I think this is a something we can we can share in this, this event. This particular Eden conference is the largest we've had organized until now, I think with 270 registered participants and I think it's going to be a lot of a lot of interesting and active participation as the time goes on. Just to say that while you can actually be here physically in Madrid, my colleague and the local conference coordinator Beatriz Serrano has gone to a lot of trouble and recorded a rather nice virtual tour, which we'll be showing at 545 today so I would very much encourage you to participate in and see that because that will give you a taste of what you're missing really. And I think that's really all I have to say I look forward to interacting with you over these days. And I'd like to hand over now to Ricardo Moira, the director of our university, so he can welcome you as well. Thank you very much, Ricardo. Thank you very much. Good morning to everyone. Secretary of State. I would like to give my warmest welcome to our participants in this conference hosted by the Spanish National Distance Education University, UNED, and organized by the European Distance and Neel Erming Network, Eden. This is in fact, as Tim said, a very important conference, no matter, you know, it is the 30th conference. As you may all know, UNED has been an active institutional member of Eden for many years. We are really proud to form part of it with more than 180 institutional members and over 1100 members in the network of academics and professionals. UNED has supported Eden activities in a range of different ways. Our lectures and researchers have participated in projects, webinars, publications, and other initiatives coordinated by the Association. The institution has supported these activities both economically as well as providing access to institutional data from our innovative, innovative, sorry, methodological processes. And we will continue to do so because we are really feel, we really feel committed. As I said, we are really pleased to belong to this association and a number of our lectures feel very honored to be Eden fellows. To judge from the conference program. This is a really promising conference, and I'm sure that you will all make a profit of it, exchanging the scholarship and making new and fruitful connections with your colleagues from all over the world. Congratulations are such a stimulating and thought provoking lectures. It is certain, it is certain that we are living pretty hard times. An exceptional moment in history due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has made the whole world reconsider ideas and practices with respect to the quality and quality of distance blended higher education. However, however adverse and tough times might be, I feel that it's crucial more than ever to maintain our, our, our outstanding role in online and distance education through innovative education projects, targeting to the development of new learning models, adjusted to the changing and flexible needs of the 21st century society. This is why conferences like the ones that concerned us here today are very much welcome, and I will say that are really relevant to discuss the present higher education agendas universities will be nodes in many connections with societies. That's what I always feel. As we're learning will have a far more important place in tomorrow's society as careers become longer and upskilling and re-skilling are needed to nurture innovation. The transfer of knowledge and continuing education and professional development will take an increasingly important role in higher education systems. I also believe that there is a lot of potential for us to continue evolving and offering academic excellence and guidance, not only in Europe, but also in other countries and zones all over the world. I'm just thinking about Latin America, Asia, etc. I have always felt that cooperation is a key concept and we have the responsibility, not only to share our knowledge, results and good practices among ourselves here in Europe, but also to cooperate with those who might need to nourish from our knowledge and expertise. Yes, it is true that an important aspect that has arrived in these recent months, in my view, is that the ongoing pandemic has pushed us all to innovate, probably more rapidly than we would have otherwise. I'm convinced that universities have thought to be key actors to restore trust in society by strong value orientation, integrity, and ethics, and this is a role open universities have to play eminently. Unfortunately, as Tim said, due to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, we are hosting the Eden annual conference 2021 online this year with our technical staff providing the online logistics. We would have obviously prefer the event to be held at our Madrid campus, that you could enjoy a visit here in the capital of Spain, but we hope you will have the opportunity to come to Madrid and to the UNED headquarters in a not very distant future. And sincerely, I feel that these online Eden conference will be an unqualified success. And I would like to thank everyone who has worked entirely to make it possible, especially the president and the vice president of Eden, as well as the people involved for the magnificent fabulous organization of all the details that have made this event possible, and for your lifelong commitment to international high quality education. And of course, all the speakers and moderators who I am sure will show us many fruitful paths for thinking about the issues that will lead us to the University of the future. And so I would like to thank you all for your enthusiastic, thoughtful participation, which I am sure will extend far beyond the opening of a conference today. I know that you all may profit from the enlightenment of the educational topics discussing the conference that you will use this knowledge, that you will use this knowledge for the betterment of our students, our universities and society in general. I'm sure convinced that the aims of the conference will be fully achieved. That's what we are here for, but more importantly, this is what the game of science is about. Let me just conclude, may you all continue basking in the light of both knowledge and wisdom, and may all our universities continue growing and evolving in the good direction, but always together. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Ricardo, for your poignant and inspiring words. I think it's the perfect start for the conference. I'd now like to pass over to Alejandro Tiana, who's the Secretary of State for Education in Spain. Alejandro. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you, Rector, President, Vice President, Secretary General of Eden. It is my pleasure to be today with you, and to see, even through the screen, so many good friends, some of them not having seen for a long time. So it is my pleasure to, it is my pleasure to be with you today. And also, let me express my thanks for giving me the opportunity to say some words at the beginning of this session. Well, as I was before Rector of Eden, I was involved in Eden, and I know about Eden, but now I am in a different position and I have to deal with not only higher distance teaching, but for a more general view about basic and secondary education also. And I have to say that this year has been really, well, a very, well, I would say interesting year, interesting is a word which it was, it was a difficult year, I'm sure that you all agree with that. But it has, it has been a real opportunity to think about many things of education. About 15 months ago, face to face education suddenly stopped all over the world. In a few days, in all countries, and we have the same experience. And we have to adapt to a new situation. I prefer to take the face to face education, but that education start because education should continue and then have to continue. And we have to adapt very quickly and move to another ways, another mixed systems for giving education to the young people and that's so young, and that's the young people. And this has been really a challenge for all our education systems. It has really been for universities and for virtual distance and so on, or mixed universities, but it has been even more challenging for the general system of education. I, I think, well, it's not only my thinking that I'm sure that education systems, we're adapting to digitalization education, the years before, and we have invested a lot country has invested a lot for instance, in, in, in giving good assets of school to high-speed connection and also Wi-Fi and so on. But the use of these digital tools were, so to say, a long, so to say, and teachers were of course trying to implement new ways, new software and new programs, new ideas and methods and so on. But most likely that the system probably would be able to do. And this pandemic has forced us to, to speed up all the systems and has given us the view that we were looking behind in some, in some field, you know, and, and, and this situation has provoked a lot of, a lot of challenges for education systems. Digitalization and all the consequences connected with that is one of the, of those. I think it is very interesting for, for Eden and as, as, as it is this main way of work, but, but also the issue of curriculum, what knowledge, what knowledge is really necessary for, for the people, and what could be replaced and what cannot be replaced should we focus on, on that. But also, how we, especially for, for young people, how we adapt to the development of well-being of people in, in, in, in education systems and so on. This is very crucial for all education systems and we are thinking all about that. And I have been involved in a lot of meetings with education ministers in the European Union, but also in Latin America and also OECD and so on so far and more or less the challenges are and I want to say something which for me is very tenured and we have experienced the possibility of digitalization, which means also of developing online distance but also mixed methods in education. We have experienced that, that change and the values of those approaches, but at the same time, especially for basic and secondary education, we have really understood that face to face is also crucial for the education. And that means is really, really important, especially for young people, for adolescents, teenagers, and so on. And, and, and how can we take the best of the two worlds, so to say, I know I am not sure it could be only two or a mixture of them, but how can we use that in the most profitable way for developed education. And I think that probably for universities, for different universities, it is a great chance to give a step forward in that sense because people have realized the importance and the possibilities of the methods in open universities we are using and we are able to, to, to, to, to, well to develop, but, but at this, at the same time, for the rest of the, of the education system, it has also underlined the value of face to face emotional stability well being, and so on. This also affects to higher opportunities, of course, but this is more crucial for young people as saying as well. You know, and I am not trying to develop much more than that, but now we are in a situation in which we need to think about what we have to leave, what we have experienced, and what are the lessons you can take from from that. And we have, we needed to react very quickly and to take decisions, well, very quickly, and sometimes we found a strong evidence of what was going on, but we needed to keep education going on and have young people and other people and so on, and we are not involved in that situation, but now, after a while, in a more, in a more, why the situation, could we say, even not ended, but much more easy than the year before. There is a situation in which we need to think about, and we have to take lessons based on the experience we have with. In many countries, we are now involved in that, and we are trying to develop new kinds of, of experiences and ways of action, so to say, but we need people working and thinking and building knowledge on education, and developing administration, schools, universities, teachers, professors, and so on, to develop a more, a deeper knowledge of what are the possibilities we have, and we have had that experience, and from that I think that we are more conscious of the challenges we are facing. And that's why I think that meetings like yours now, today and these days, are really, are really helpful and valuable, because I am sure that you will contribute to this common knowledge we need to develop education in a more humanistic way, more adapted to personal need, but also to the development of normal education and science, which is really unacceptably in the times we live in. So, thank you very much for your kind invitation. I'm very grateful for that, and I'm very happy to have this opportunity to share some words with you, and I wish you the best in these days. With this opportunity, you cannot take the opportunity of being in Madrid or whatever, but well, life is so, and I'm sure that you will take this opportunity in another way. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Alejandro, for your, your, your wise and relevant words and speaking as a, as a lecturer at a distance education university I think we could be very, be very grateful for a government which supports and values the online and distance learning and education in general. Thank you very much. So I'd like to hand over to the President now, Sandra. Thank you, Tim. Hello, everyone. Welcome to the Eden annual conference on behalf of the Eden. First of all, I would like to greet Distinguished Secretary of State Alejandro Tiana, distinguished director of my dear colleague team, all the speakers and participants, all the people get around the organization of this conference, which is a way to celebrate the 30 years of Eden existence and work. Eden is what we often called a smart network for professionals aimed to help all those engaged in education together around to find a place to share their knowledge and experience to get new ideas and to make some changes, whether it's on the local or international way. This year, I don't want to repeat myself because my colleagues have already said very nice introduction and speeches. Yes, we are faced with the great challenges, and it was really challenging time. The only second that maybe so far we thought that education is something which is ongoing, and we didn't take it for granted, but maybe the challenges we faced so far weren't so maybe so high on the priority on our agendas and things to change took really time. Now we are faced with the challenge, but we do not have time to make thinking how to do changes, but we have to do such changes immediately we have to do them now, especially regarding the digital digitalizations and digital transformations, which is something which is present for us, but maybe we do take time to reflect on it and to see if we can wait a little bit longer to make some adjustments in our work. Even he's here to gather all those interested to share the so far gathered knowledge and expertise on this present challenges, and we should take them as an opportunities to make these changes which were needed maybe even before but now a definitely something which has to be done. Coming from Croatia and my universities and school education are very much oriented to the face to face education. We do have online learning, but it's not so much present and talking to teachers, especially in higher education every day. We can ask them, are you going to back to face to face teaching and learning after this pandemic finish because we think at the beginning we thought that maybe this is something just temporary and we could go back to the times when we had before the pandemic. The answers from teachers as no, we are not going back definitely changes which have happened have left significant impact that the awareness of teachers and the students have become such that they see there are no way back. What we have to do is not to stay on one position. What we have to do is to go forward. We have to move to the future and to adapt what we have experienced so far to the ways which will be in the future. Now we have really good opportunity to think how our education is going to look like not tomorrow but today as well, because we do not have times to think about it, what we will do in the next two years we have to act now. And we have to forget the past, because this is something which has gone and it cannot be go back, such as we forget about the cars which we had 30 years ago, the phones which we had 30 years ago, the industry which was 30 years ago. So we have adapted much more easily to new ways of using some facilities in our lives. I'm always surprised how difficult is for education to make such changes as we did in other ways of our life. I'm certain that this conference will be good place to share new knowledge, new information, new researches which we have gathered so far, and that we can jointly find the best proposals, guidelines, suggestions how we can proceed in our work. And based on the knowledge and ideas from others, we can shape our own experience and adapt it to the best way which is good for our situation. But not to go too much in seconding what has already been said. I think the importance is in messages and in lessons and this is why the title of this year conference is lessons from a pandemic for the future of the occasion. Let's just be aware that future is already here and we do not have time to make long plans for our future. I'm certain that with 370 delegates from 55 countries, among them 28 European countries, we will have quite wide global experience ahead of us in these days. We have over 50 papers, 13 workshops and a number of other sessions where our participants and speakers will present their so far gathered knowledge, research and experience, and every one of us can take something for us to implement in our everyday work or even in our daily life. In the end, I just wish to thank our host, the UNED, who has been for a number of years with Eden, but has taken the, I would say, challenging organization of this conference as is its online conference. This is something which I didn't even thought about when I started by presidency. I was thinking that everything was going to be face to face, but as we successfully accomplish this move to online environment, I think we are also possible for other changes as well. Also, I wish to thank the Blackboard and AskNet for solutions to be principal sponsors of Eden Conference this year. I wish to thank the conference program committee for their hard work in setting up and shaping the conference program. The PhD committee, symposium committee, which was yesterday, very nice, I would say, a session. Also, best research paper award jury, the Ulrich Bernhardt Foundation, I wish to thank to all keynotes, authors, moderators and chairs for engaging to make this conference, which we also have this opportunity to celebrate 30 years of Eden special and worthwhile, and which will give us each of us thoughts to think about what we can do better tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you very much, Sandra. Thank you very much to all of our speakers in the inauguration. I would just ask you to hang on for one minute please and smile at the camera because we're going to take a group photo to remember this occasion before we move over to the plenary session. It's just a minute to give our technicians time to get the cameras up and change the view on Zoom and take a screenshot. Thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed. I think I think you've had enough time. Thank you. So we're going to pass over to the second part of this morning, first morning event with our two keynote speakers. Each speaker will have half an hour for the presentation and then we'll be 15 minutes for the questions. I'd kindly ask you to formulate your questions in the chat and we'll capture these questions and then I'll ask the speakers the questions. I think prior experience shows that sort of people's microphones on and letting everyone actually participate would be within in some sense be a nicer way of doing it can be tricky with with the sound qualities. I think we'll, we'll do things in that particular fashion. Okay, thank you. So, let's start with our first speaker, Francis Pedro, who's the director of the UNESCO Institute for higher education in Latin America and the Caribbean. The UNESCO education sector in Paris in 2010, and his team looks after technology in education and education policies, including national policy reviews and comparative research in order to ensure the alignment with the SDG for Education 2030 objectives. Thank you very much, Francesca. It's really a pleasure for a number of reasons to be here today. First one is because it's a kind of a virtual comeback to the first university I had the pleasure and the honor to work, and that was unit. So, greetings or warm greetings to the current vector. Second, because it was the place where I think more than 30 years ago, I had a chance to meet Alejandro Tiana, Secretary of State and as I said, never. Well, we haven't seen each other for the past maybe for three years. And most importantly, because I've been following hidden activities online over the past months, and I have been enjoying many of them so I'm, I'm not sure if I'm going to bring any new insights to what I have learned over the past webinars. And finally, last but not least, because I'm really looking forward to hearing what Professor Laurelard is going to present so you know I'm, I'm going to do my best to just make a humble contribution, and I just wanted to make sure that the I'm doing this well. Yes, I think so. Yes, here comes my my presentation. I just wanted to make some reflections about, you know, innovation trends that were already in the landscape, well before the pandemic and how the pandemic is making some of them, even more attractive, so would say. So first thing, maybe we should start by asking ourselves, how was teaching. Well, I'm going to look at these from the perspective of traditional universities, not necessarily distance teaching university so how was teaching before the pandemic. And I'm here with you a picture that I think many of you, particularly those coming from European universities will recognize it comes from Malonia, and he stated from the 12th century. And I think that some of the phenomena that the painter already represented in this picture, where is still part of our memories as a students, and even as teachers, look at this. Some people talking while you are as a teacher lecturing. Some people discussing with having anything to do with what you are teaching. And let me see if I can find. Yes, my preferred one, which is, you know, the one that is taking a nap, which is something that I don't remember myself to have experience while I was teaching, but nevertheless it looks like it has been the traditional experience for many of our students and some of my colleagues would agree with that probably. So, well, this was certainly not the experience of many of us, but nevertheless, I would like to say that we have very little evidence about what is teaching in higher education in empirical terms so what what is the real meaning of teaching and how this teaching has evolved over say the past 20 years. Let me, while there is plenty of of indications. This comes from 237 European universities, where researcher Professor Leon is quite about the most used methods, teaching methods in a program that is usually geared towards the development of practical skills and competencies, it is business administration. Okay, so surprisingly, you know, the most used teaching method in such a practical program is still lecturing. I think that that was really, really shock for me. Then I look into something that can supplement this perspective, which is, you know, a similar program in this case it's economics in US colleges and universities, and just a few months ago, the research was published showing the evolution in method in the use of different methodological strategies when teaching economics. I'm going to give you the full picture quickly. You see, I mean there are some phenomena that have evolved quickly, like the use of PowerPoint on your left hand side, the introduction of films and videos, clickers, which is something that we don't tend to use so much in Europe. And a small step towards the use of games and simulations, but if you look at your left hand side, you will still see that most of the teaching is about lecturing and presenting graphs on blackboards, you know, with a piece of chalk. I mean, that is the reality of teaching and learning in some of the most prestigious universities in the United States as well. So it doesn't mean necessarily, sorry, and I just wanted to say also that you can see as well as small indication that some active discussions with among students as well as some attempts to promote cooperative learning have also been introduced but this is coming only from the very last decade. Now, it is not because we lack theories about the need for engaging in a more active perspective of teaching and learning just putting the student at the center. I think that more over or further than the pedagogical imperative that has been, you know, around higher education teaching and learning for more than a century already. I think that now we can certainly agree that innovation when it comes to teaching and learning higher education is more than a pedagogical imperative. And I would like to discuss with you four of the most important drivers. The first one comes obviously after the the experience of the pandemic. I'm bringing some data from the United States because it is probably one of the higher education systems, which is, if not the richest one of the richer in terms of data availability. You can see both the students and teachers have become more optimistic when it comes to the use of technology in teaching and learning in face to face campuses. I think that if you compare both sides, you won't see major differences, except when it comes to the very last point, which is online proctoring, where you see that the students seem to be quite happy with that, while teachers remain reluctant to online proctoring or at least, you know, tend to be more pessimistic than optimistic. And I would like to say, what I'm trying to say is that the pandemic has contributed to change our perspectives I think that it in president was elaborating precisely on these following her own experience and data certainly confirms that the second driver for me for is the current emphasis on the skills is not only about changing the perspective from content provision to the development of a skills related to the corresponding course or program. It is also about starting to think of the importance of some controversial skills that seem to be, at least, if you use data coming from surveys in companies that some of the most required skills by at least UK companies are not really related to the actual content of the profession or the degree, but go beyond that. And the question for us is, how much are we really assessing the development of teamwork or critical thinking in our students, or for that matter, in which, in which, in which ways, the means for evaluation that we implement in our courses really put the emphasis on problem and the second driver for me. So, the question is, you know how you combine the emphasis on making sure that academic progress is made, like the Pythagoras theorem with some room for creativity. So for you, this kind of answer would be an A or an F fail up to you. Now, a third driver lies in the diversification of the student academic profiles. I mean I'm taking here some of the data from the most developed countries in the world but I think a similar picture would emerge if we presented data coming from Latin America as a whole, or even from Southeast Asia, you would see that the net access rates show us that most likely a member of a young generation will go to some form of higher education nowadays. And that means compared to previous generations that we are gaining a lot in terms, certainly, of equality of access of democratization, but certainly, we're also getting more diverse students with less academic engagement. Just let's compare drawing again on a US study, the average weekly study hours of a student back in 1960, which were roughly 25 hours per week with what was happening only five years ago. So this is a reduction of 50% less. Does this mean that today's students are less clever, less intelligent? Well, not necessarily. It simply means that they probably are less academically engaged. So in a way, they have to find room for other activities at the cost of reducing the amount of time devoted to studying. It is probably because school systems nowadays prepare for a different type of teaching and learning activities. Well, in a way, the more diverse is our student body, the less we are going to find the speaks in the student engagement for academic work that we used to have when we ourselves were young. The fourth driver is the need to improve the productivity or the efficiency of higher education. Just look at the column which demonstrates the stark difference between the gross access rate to higher education, which is in orange color with the actual graduation rates in Spain in the same country. As you can see, there is an immense loss here. It is not only about individuals that see their expectations lowered dramatically, but it's also about an important amount of public effort and also of families expectations that are never fulfilled. And I think that there is a growing trend to see in which ways while keeping the same amount of investment in higher education and just into brackets. Let's remind ourselves that the next fiscal year is going to be even more difficult for higher education all over the world. I mean, how can we just keeping the same effort in terms of investment in higher education be more productive, make sure that we graduate more students. This is typically a problem we face in higher education in distance teaching universities, but not only that this figure corresponds to the overall education system. So these are the four drivers. Now, what is the response to these four drivers? How are higher education systems globally evolving? Well, now I have to say that what I'm going to present is the result of our institute's approach is not necessarily the only truth. There might be other innovations or innovation trends emerging, but we just gathered enough evidence as to make sure that the four I'm going to share with you are backed by data. The first one is the dramatic change from the perspective of how syllabus are to be designed. You may think that this is not really relevant, but we do believe that this is extremely relevant because it is an indication of a change of culture. When you stop creating your course programs in just as a continuum of content delivery and start thinking about setting objectives which are linked to the development of a specific skills or competencies be those academic or professional. Then you have a first, you have done a first step towards changing the pedagogic approach to your teaching. This shows the recent evolution between 2010 and 2015 in European universities, those that are members of the European University Association when it comes to the introduction of that kind of different perspective, focusing on the identification of the goals that the student has to reach by the end of the course, and you can see that the progress is really impressive. Just to give you an example of what I mean by that. I would say that what makes sense when using the objective setting approach is really to focus on a competency based approach and here you have examples coming from areas such as economics, communication, and biology where you can see, you know that the behavior, so to say the expected behavior at the end of the program is really well depicted. I mean it is far more complex than this in many cases and I think that it also applies certainly to distance education. Then second, more impressive I would say because it certainly translates into completely different learning practices and expectations on the side of the students as well is about the emergence of based learning PBL as the new paradigm for undergraduate programs in Western Europe and the United States what I'm presenting here is once again data coming from from US colleges and universities and you will see that roughly two thirds of universities and colleges require for all the students or at least for some students, the PBL approach and and this is a fantastic change because it's the one that follows not only the idea that we need to change the perspective about designing the courses. It is also telling a lot about how the actual practice of teaching and learning within the classroom is also changing. It also includes a good deal of cooperative work among students, but it cannot happen unless you have a very restrictive, I would say, working conditions when it comes to both teachers and students. However, I think that PBL is going to win this race because it's the most appropriate teaching approach when you focus on the development of practical skills. How can you learn how to write a bike. If it's not riding the bike. I think that that's that's the point. The third trend goes to hybridization. Just, you know, we all know and I think that has already been said by by some of the of the panelists before I think that hybridization was already there well before the pandemic as many of the other trends I'm presenting today, but I think that the pandemic has made us all aware as once again, Eden president was saying that hybridization I mean that kind of way of mixing the benefits of face to face exchanges with an intensive use of technology, particularly for content delivery that is winning again more and more adepts all over the world. I mean, if you just focus your attention on what the students say, you will see, once again, coming from very recent survey in the United States that the even in that context, where the students are mostly living in a campus which is not necessarily what is happening in the majority of European universities with some clear exceptions. I mean, you will see that, you know, it is telling us a lot that a student that really lives in a campus would like to follow some of her courses, totally online, or in a hybrid format. It is not only telling us about how well equipped they are, which we know it is still a problem in some regions of the world, it is not only telling us how well connectivity works in that campus, but it's also telling us a lot about their expectations and actually, I would say that the discussion about hybridization will go in parallel to the discussion about the how likely teleworking is going to stay also in universities for researchers, and even for teachers. So I think that a hybridization has gone, has got speed, you know, thanks to the pandemic, the flipped classroom, which is not certainly what the picture is showing. I mean, but I think it's a good example of hybridization provided that you work in a higher education system, where you can count on a student engagement which is not always the case. There is no experience in countries like Spain, France, Italy. I mean show that when you request students to prepare themselves, you know, at my time wasn't yet watching videos, but rather, you know, preparing readings. The fact was that the majority of students didn't find the time to make a room for those readings, and those who were able to do it, didn't dare to state clearly in the classroom that they had already gone through the material. So I think that this is a completely different perspective. When you teach in the United States in Canada in the United Kingdom, or in the Netherlands and probably in many Nordic countries as well. Sorry for the rest of countries never had the experience of, you know, judging by myself, the level of a student engagement. If your school system, so to say, prepare for that kind of engagement in learning processes which is not necessarily the case all over the world. Well, probably the flip classroom approach is a winner. Once again, because it provides teachers with the opportunity to really make things happen and not simply in the classroom and not simply telling stories and sharing content during the classroom, more maybe during the discussion afterwards. And finally, that goes very much for those of you who work in distance teaching universities I think that we have seen the consolidation of distance higher education for the masses I think that it is important. Maybe that you realize that the experience of many students in Latin America, nowadays for undergraduate programs is already in some countries like Brazil, or Honduras, or even Colombia tends to be increasingly online. And that doesn't go necessarily or only for for postgraduate students, I will the students so to say that are seeking an opportunity for an opportunity to get re-skilled or upskilled. I mean, it also goes for young students in context where they are expected to work, because otherwise they cannot afford to pay the fees that even public universities, even public universities I'd like to insist on that require them to pay. So, comes as no surprise that even before the pandemic, we could so speak a spike in the demand for higher education in Latin America and I think that more is going to come after the pandemic. Now, once again, let me turn to the United States, where you can see a very interesting comparison between what was happening before the pandemic that was the fall of 2019 in blue, where you can see that distance education programs were receiving less attention and actually losing at a rate of 4.5% yearly the demand from the students and after the pandemic started and fall 2020, you can see a spike again in terms of the rise of the demand. And more interestingly, I think that the ones that are winning this race are the ones going for the provision of part-time programs either graduate or undergraduate. I mean, it's not necessarily that people do not expect to go to university. I think that the experience, the massive experience of tele-studying so to say, has been really determinant in the appreciation of families and the students alike of the possibilities of distance higher education. Now, let me just go to the end. I just presented the very, I would say it's not personal because it comes from the Institute, it comes from UNESCO, but anyway, one possible approach to the current status of teaching and learning to the drivers that require us to look for innovations and what are the innovation trends that seem to be emerging globally? Of course, you can have probably different perspectives. Now, the question is, well, this is quite interesting, but are we going to make sure that through making these innovations happen, students are going to learn better or are going to learn more? What is the empirical research telling us? Well, I would say that the first conclusion, which I really hate, is that we always come to the same paradox, the same story. More research is needed. Okay, let me just share with you what we have been able to find. When it comes to the first trend, which is the objective versus content setting approaches to designing courses, well, I have to say that we haven't been able to find any empirical evidence. We can certainly claim that there is an implicit move towards a cultural change that is much needed, and it might well be that this has a powerful effects in the long run. But well, as you can imagine, it is very difficult to demonstrate empirically that the objective setting is superior to content setting programs. We also wanted to say a few words about the cost estimates because something can be really interesting. It can provide wonderful opportunities for learning gains, but their cost could be not available to all of us. So we just added another column, and in this particular case, I think that you would agree with me, the cost of such a move would be probably marginal, if not tending to zero. Well, PBL. Well, PBL is controversial. Let me say first of all, that according to cost estimates, designing PBL course or program could represent an investment equivalent to at least three times the amount of effort that it will be required by a traditional setting. But certainly, you know, we already have some evidence dated back already more than a decade demonstrating that PBL in higher education tends to be superior when it comes either to deep learning, not surface learning, or to long term retention concept. I think it is also important that the link between PBL and a skill or practical competencies development is made, and also that the satisfaction of the experience of both the students and teachers is superior. Yet, when it comes to the effect size, I mean, unfortunately, is not really so impressive. It goes to 0.11. Now let's go for the third one, which is hybridization. Probably we're going to see many more empirical studies coming in the coming months, I would say, when the universities restart courses, particularly in Western Europe, United States and Canada in September, certainly. And looking back, we can see that hybridization by itself doesn't mean necessarily an increase in results in learning games, but it can really bring a lot if used in combination with problem based learning. I think that there is also a proof of better student engagement through the use of the language, so to say, and the idiom that is more suited to their generation. However, the estimate says that if you decide to go for hybridization, you could prepare to pay double the cost of just keeping traditional. Once again, hybridization in combination with PBL may bring an effect size of 0.5, which is really, really impressive. Finally, well distance education. Maybe I shouldn't have said anything or haven't prepared anything about this. We all know. I remember when when I first joined unit. I started learning about the no significant difference phenomenon, and I have to say that I haven't been able to go beyond that. So I think that the most important conclusion here is that good distance education can be far more costly than face to face education, certainly, but if you want to really go for higher retention rates, and also promoting major learning gains compared to face to face teaching, then you have to increase the degree of interaction and basically it is as much as saying that one to one, no matter if it happens face to face or using some kind of technological support is superior to any other kind of group teaching. Okay, so that's how far I can go. Now, I think that I would like to finish simply telling you the story about this student. One child is a student in a Dutch university, a second degree, a second year program in in science and the Dean of his faculty has decided that next year they will be introducing an innovative approach to teaching and that's block subjects. You may have heard and read about this instead of having different courses along the same day changing every one hour, you have one, two or three weeks devoted to just one particular subject. Okay, now, the Dean is really excited about this because he went to the University of Victoria and and saw how impressive this was. And so he decided to go for it. So this is my very last point. Is this the right approach. I mean, shall we continue talking about teaching and learning innovations, simply because we see things that appeal to us, or we should start changing our culture and becoming more as we are all praised to be become more academic when it comes to teaching and learning and look first at what the evidence says. Thank you very much and congratulations for what I hope it's going to be an excellent event. Thank you very much back to you Timothy. Thank you very much indeed Francesca very interesting presentation you touched on some very, very key topics I think at the moment. We've got a couple of questions in the in the chat so I mean we've got about 10 to 15 minutes for questions so I think if it's all right with you all. I'll move on. I mean, the first one we've got a before we go to questions we've got a comment from my colleague Alastair Creelman here that he's saying you know isn't the main problem with what you're proposing that the difficulty the in our inability to actually quantify or assess deep learning I mean success is is typically determined by rather superficial assessment methods. Yes, yes. Look, let me give you an example of how I see this, this problem because it has been. You know, always mentioned in discussions like this one. I used to travel before the pandemic I used to travel a lot and I think that many of you did as well. And my experience when I came back on Sunday evening at home, hungry. I tend to fly economy class where you are now you don't get anything, you know, I just opened the refrigerator, and I used to find sometimes a small slice of tortilla the potatoes that's potato omelet, which was drying or aging, you know, in the in the refrigerator, and usually I tend to keep always some frozen bread. Okay, so the question for me every Sunday when I was returning was the same. I simply use the micro wave, you know, and heat the omelet and take some red and then so I can really go to sleep with something in my stomach, or simply, you know, wait until tomorrow. I think that the discussion about, you know, whether we are just talking about the surface, or really going into what deep learning is, is the lack of methods and techniques suited to the complexity of the issue. So now the question is not for me, I prefer to always have a small slice of tortilla the potatoes, because then I can inform my body that I have something that will help me to rest well. You know, I mean I think I prefer to go for that but I would understand if others said, Well, I prefer not to have anything and wait until tomorrow. Okay, we have been waiting for decades for that kind of, you know, impressive evidence that is not coming. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, and let's see how much longer we have to, we have to do it. Okay, we have a question from from cover don't go Rodrigo. We thank you for your presentation specifically interested in your opinion on the, on the future of what we might call by modal learning you know when you've got some students actually working from home and others in the class with with the teacher and I must say I've suffered this because my two elder children who in university are going through exactly that process one week they're at home one week they go in and it's complicated. What do you think about this. Well, I think it's the once again it is difficult to answer. My impression is that when it comes to first students age between 18 and 24 years old. I think that the experience of being in campus is a transformational one. And nothing compares to the social cultural, even political experience and learning experience, you know, of not only going to your courses but actually going to the cafeteria, just sitting on the grass and discussing with your colleagues and just learning how to become an engaged citizen. I think that that transformational experience goes, you know, with the real experience of face to face education for young people. Now that said, when it comes to postgraduate education, particularly when it comes to professional development. I think that nothing compares to the flexibility of that kind of by model approaches, because sometimes you will be in your desk just having plenty of things to do, and you won't find the time to go to the university to follow that course. And that day, you can simply follow that same session from the comfort of your desk I think that when it comes to postgraduate education. I think that that perspective that by mobile perspective that many universities all around Western Europe and the United States are introducing and investing a lot in technology making it happen. I think that has a lot of future, but certainly if I was a father of a university student, I would push him or her to certainly go on a daily basis to the university. Unfortunately, I couldn't agree more. Unfortunately, he's not always available, especially when you have social distancing and a number of students that are there in the classroom. But I mean you're completely right this is not just about acquiring knowledge or skills to social about maturing as a person and interacting with people the sorts of skills that at the end of the day will make your professional role in life, more or less effective. Okay, thank you. Moving quickly onwards our next questions from Sandra Regina. I mean if you take into account the amount of information that's actually available today the innovation, you know the changes in society, etc. Do you think that the actual duration of our study programs you know typical four years for IT specialist and engineers or maybe six years from medical doctors, etc. Do you think we need to change this, the structure of these courses. I think, well, that's not really something that I have in minus as one of the priorities that that UNESCO should have, or should promote. I think that in our perspective what really counts is to have a lifelong learning perspective, when it comes to the, you know, to particularly higher education I think that we have to follow the yogurt theory, according to which you know you have to be in a degree certainly and I wouldn't mind if you did the first degree comes after only two years of a study or for whatever, but they think that it has a consumption date that is preferred. So we should be forcing everyone to go back to universities for re-skilling and eventually upskilling, you know, to renew simply their competence base and their knowledge as well. So for me, it is more about making sure that we stop with this traditional idea of you go to university and then go to work and forget about university. I think that today's world requires us to come back to universities or any kind of professional and academic education, you know, regularly, recurrently, I think that that would be my priority. Thank you. Thank you very much. I would completely agree with that. I think I'll abuse my position as moderator here and actually ask you one of my own questions if you don't mind. I think one of the priorities we all seem to have in online and distance education is that a social inclusion, because I mean the idea is not just necessarily trying to improve the quality of the programs we have but make our educational offer available to more people in a wider space with a wider demographic and it's difficult. I mean, there are many different ways we've tried to do that, you know, with open education specifically moving away from our talk courses. How do you think we can address this kind of problem and what role do you think UNESCO would have in this process? I think that this is really, really an impressive question and I'll tell you why, because when we think about how to measure the impact of the, for instance, the pandemic will have on higher education students looking at the situation in middle income countries, particularly in Latin America where I am based now. I've always come with the key letter, right? You see that many students in wealthy families that were well-equipped, that enjoyed very good high-speed connectivity are going to get out of this crisis, reinforced in terms of having developed additional skills that were not in the programs, while others, the majority unfortunately in Latin America and the Caribbean, will not only have missed the opportunity to develop important digital skills but also will have important learning losses, equivalent probably of one full academic year. That is our estimate. So certainly, Timothy, I think that the issue of inclusion is extremely relevant and important and there are two ways by which we can struggle with that. I mean, unfortunately, none of them is an immediate recipe, you know, to our need. The first one is already happening, well, already happened in some countries and is happening even more now in some other countries is to make sure that access to the internet becomes universal human right. It doesn't mean necessarily that it's going to become free of cost, okay, same as water or electricity or housing, right? But at least having the political consideration of access to internet as a human right makes a lot in terms of ensuring the protection of particularly the most vulnerable ones. That's one thing. Some countries, particularly Finland, Singapore, or lately now in Colombia have introduced legislation that really fosters this principle. That's one thing. And the second thing is to make sure that we invest more in those who are more vulnerable, which is not really the case, right? So I would say that if you really want your distance education program, your university to be engaged and committed with inclusion and equity, you have to provide means to make sure that not all students are treated equal. The ones who need more should get more. Thank you, Timothy. Thank you very much. It's just an excellent reply. Thank you very much. Okay, moving quickly on. There's lots of interesting comments and questions coming up in the chat. I'm not sure I'll be able to process all of them, but the next one comes from my colleague, Mark Brown. He's a question and reflection relates to the research paradox. I mean, what are the major gaps in the research that we need to focus on in the post pandemic future and what evidence do you think we need to collect to be able to address these gaps? Well, that's a very important question. And unfortunately, I'm not prepared to respond. I think that I have only a very humble knowledge of what needs to be done. I cannot claim to be a thoughtful researcher in that area. I think that they are promising avenues, certainly, but I would strongly advocate for making sure that our claims about what seems to work are backed by evidence. And, you know, recommend strongly that you look to the most important pieces of innovation discourses and see to what extent you would really, if you were a university rector president or dean or head of department, you would really put your effort in promoting. I think that that's the key question because it's not only about demonstrating what works. It's also about demonstrating that that particular strategy, method or approach that seems to work is feasible. And I think that this is really this has to be part of the conversation. So I'm sorry to be so humble with this. I leave the discussion for the ones who really know, not me, but let me just provide my perspective. I simply add always the column on the past estimates because I think that this is going to be very helpful for the ones meant to take decisions. Thank you. Thank you very much. I think it's a very prudent, sensible answer. I mean, as the saying goes, there's no such thing as free. So, thank you. Just one more very quick question and I'm very conscious of time I do have. I apologize to all the people about the questions I can't ask. I think this is a good one. This comes from my colleague Diane and on it. And she's saying that you know PBL has been used in stem for for some considerable time, especially when supported by by technology I mean it's begging to be taken on online. But I mean, how do you see the challenge of actually planning and organizing these kinds of activities in combination with the cost, especially when we're trying to do it in in group is obviously considered by some kind of quality evaluation and accreditation agencies has not been valid for higher education or for professional education I mean people for the good old fashioned evaluation and teaching approaches I mean what do you think we should do to try and address this problem. Well, if that's the case, I'm well, sorry, sorry, let me start again. I was about to say, I mean you better kick off your quality assurance agencies if that's the way of thinking they have. But it's not my experience I would say that in in quality assurance agencies, you also have people that come from the field from the trenches or to say, and they are really inspired and willing to be, I would say prudent, but at the same time. And you know we're sponsoring innovations because all of them are aware of the need and the, and the pressing, you know, the pressing need that we all have to move to move ahead. Now, I think that something that I didn't have the time to elaborate on which I think is is really important is that we tend to consider that this kind of innovations, always come as the result of one individual or a couple of teachers who are committed and decide to go for one particular innovation I think that the success that I've seen in some departments and universities comes when there is a group project so to say a group of decision. And so deciding an institutional decision deciding to really bet for that major change. Let me give you an example. And with that, I would probably finish. Over the past 25 years, the technological Institute of Monterey in Mexico has been engaging in a major transformation of teaching and learning. And this wouldn't have been ever the success it looks like is having without the full support and a steam from the leadership so I think that we need to change the perspective, and we need to start thinking about how to scale up innovations and engage in institutions and governments, at least, there are fully committed to promoting change. With that said, thank you very much. I am fortunately I don't have the time to respond to so many questions. I'm seeing in the chat, but I hope to certainly to continue benefiting from the upcoming sessions. And as I said before, you can count on me for the webinars as an end user, a learner, so to say, thank you very much. Thank you very much indeed, that was a very interesting session and I think your opinions of greatly added to the quality of our conference. I'm going to give you a virtual class I'm afraid it's not the same as if we were all doing it, but that's what there is. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you. I'll pass on to our second speaker here during Diana Laurie Lard and I'm very grateful for your patience, Diana. She's a professor of learning and with digital technology at the Institute of Education at University College London she was formerly head of e learning strategy development for education and skills. And before that, Pro Vice Chancellor for learning technologies at the British Open University. Thank you very much, Diana. Thank you. And the first thing I'd like to do is to thank all of my distinguished colleagues here for the opportunity to join you in this celebration. Now, I've actually take that share screen that I tried to do. Are you seeing. Yes, yes, we can see you can see your presentation. Okay, okay. Thank you very much. I've got to remove all these people who floated on the top of my screen here. Okay. So yes, you've got a 30th anniversary and this is really something to be grateful for that the Eden network has been there all all those years because over the last 30 years or so we've really seen a lot of changes to the field of digital methods and education. They've also been so rapid as they have over the past year. And one lesson of the pandemic, I think is that the already appalling inequalities that we've seen in our societies have increased this is the exact discussion you were just having. And there's a broad consensus now that we have to use the experiences of the pandemic to reverse that shameful trend towards increasing inequalities in our societies. I have a question of what role can universities play in reducing inequality in this way. All universities have the ambitious social aims and our mission statements but what should we actually do to change the world for the better on the basis of what the pandemic has taught us. And I'm very grateful to Francesca for the basis that he gave me because he's been talking about the trends and the ways in which we're now developing change and what we should be doing for the future. And that's a very good basis for trying to think so how on earth do we actually do this and that's really what I want to try and focus on. And given the longevity of this network. Eden members are really in a very good position to reflect on what we can now learn from the pandemic so that's what I want to discuss with you is how we might move forward on the basis of that learning and in fact discussion that's just been underway I think has been extremely good in that direction. The first segments of universities are already ambitious, such as those from two of key British universities, world class research and education which benefits society on a local regional national and global scale, University of Oxford, and then engaged with a wider world and committed to changing it for the better for the long term benefit of humanity. That's our UCL mission. So, we are certainly very ambitious with respect to what we expect to do with respect to changing the world reducing inequality and so on. And higher education does have a critical impact on what the world and on the world as the pandemic has certainly shown us. Researchers are on our television screens every night it's been very impressive, but it's also shown us how those already huge inequalities have been greatly increased so that's the kind of thing I want to focus on. And I'm going to be offering just one simple kind of contribution that higher education could make to reducing inequalities and that is to scale up the value and reach of our professional development activities so it's not just within the undergraduate and postgraduate area but also beyond that as well with our alumni as they move on. Moving up is essential because the challenges are so great we all work within the context of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, and it's an explicit aim for many of us here to work on SDG for the education one to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all the very point that I think it was Sandra was making earlier on lifelong learning is one of the things that we do have to focus on. But for just education alone, higher education shoulders the responsibility for educating another 68 million teachers by 2030, just to achieve that goal of education for all. But it's worse than that because in fact education underpins every single one of the other 16 SDGs as well. The professionals in all of those areas need to know the latest research results and need help in developing their own teams and employees in ways that reduce inequalities. So we need those ambitious aims, because universities have the significant responsibility for developing the professionals who will be initiating the changes needed for all 17 SDGs. Those are the very people who are going to make this happen if it's going to happen at all. Well this is a huge task for Eden to address as one of the enduring organizations that's been investigating how to do online learning for three decades now. So we're well placed. The problem is that there's really very little help available for academics wanting to innovate with online methods. We all need support in moving to online and blended learning, even those of us who've been brought up in open universities and online learning for many years. To try and aid this process we've developed the learning designer, which is a free online design tool. It's open and available to all teachers and all sectors in all countries, and it turns the theory based conversational framework which I developed some years ago into actual action. This is by providing a structure for developing a sequence of learning activities to achieve the common outcomes that you define. So I want to go through this because it's, it's one of the means by which I think we can come together as an academic community to start collaborating on how best to achieve our ambitious aims. On the website you can see how to adapt or create a design, analyze or review your own or someone else's design and share or publish designs. So, in a sense, it's modeled on what we do as academics and science and scholarship in contributing to journals in sharing our ideas in in building on what other people have done except within this case. We're sharing ideas about how to teach, not something we typically do. So you can go to the browser screen to explore existing designs from teachers all over the world from other range of subject areas and sectors to see if any might be useful for you to borrow as a starting point. And here I've chosen those categorized as vacation education. And from those I've selected one called understanding the topic. This is being generalized from a pre existing learning design which was for understanding very specific topic. But if I look at this on the designer screen that sharing the basic characteristics of design at the top, and the progress through what students do from introduction to the topic applying the topic, analyzing how the topic could guide your future work and so on. So one of those. Sorry, and I can see that this might be appropriate for me and what I'm wanting to do on my topic let's say it's a topic like risk assessment and I want them to understand risk assessment. So I got to turn editing on. I can edit everything on this screen in my what's now my own copy of this design so you might get to see here I've changed all these topic names from risk assessment. So from the topic to risk assessment. Okay, so everything on that screen is editable and what I'm now going to try and do is give you an idea of how to generate your learning design by expanding the detail of this central teaching learning activity, which is now on applying risk assessment. So here you can see there are three of the six different learning types which are in the conversational framework these are learning through production, a produce activity, discussion and collaboration. And the other three learning types are investigation, learning through acquisition and learning through practice. No learning through practice is the sixth one. So you decide for each section of the learning design or planning what kind of learning the student is doing here. And you're current encouraged therefore by using this drop down menu to select which of the types of learning you're concerned with. You're encouraged to think about what actually is the student doing at this point of view at this particular point. And each activity has been assigned its unique set of pedagogical features which you can change if you wish to. So this is the time this is an activity lasting 10 minutes. This one's 15 and this one's 15. This is a group size of one students working on their own here they're working in threes. The teacher is not present in any of these is all being known online by the students so the internet icon is ticked. This one is asynchronous so the calendar icon is not ticked, and it's ticked in these two places because the students are coming together online, and so on. And you can change each of those where you can add different new kinds of activities and so on as you want to adapt this pre existing design to your own context. So the color coding for the learning types matches those in the conversational framework so you can see that each of these is color coded to identify what kind of learning it is. And because the software knows how much time you've assigned to each type of learning, it can provide pie chart as feedback on the overall distribution, you've now set up of learning types for this session and that dynamically updates as you develop. You can see total learning time by the way because you've specified at the start, how long this is meant to be say an hour and a half in this case, and as you design you invariably find that you put far more in that you originally plan to do so it's an important check. Well now I've clicked on the analysis tab to see what kind of learning experience I've designed for my learners. The pie chart shows I've got mostly learning through discussion. There's a lot of learning in groups and with the trainer. And there are also other kinds of activities as well a certain amount of learning through acquisition here, and learning through production and collaboration. Then from the smaller pie charts I can see it's entirely online it's all pale blue. The teacher is present for about a third of it that's the dark brown bit. The path is synchronous. That's the dark pink bit. And from the bar chart, I can see it's mostly individual work pale green with quite a lot of group work and some whole class work. Now there's no rules about what these distributions should be. But now as a designer, you've got feedback on what you've done, and you have the opportunity to consider if that looks appropriate for what you're trying to do. It's time to be part of a knowledge building process amongst academics it's important to put it through some form of independent evaluation. So that could be from a peer or a student for the peer review here the simplest way is to add it to this design as another panel, which I've done here. And as you do a review for the colleague of course, this makes you think in a bit more detail about your own design as you reflect on theirs in relation to the rubric. Then you can return to revising your own design with the benefit of that reflection, and also with the benefit of your colleagues review of your design. And then for the student evaluation is useful suggests that they comment on each panel and here both panels are part of the design and the student feedback is in these notes at the bottom. The design intended to help sports science students in learning to observe the actions of batsman and investigate the investigate activity in this first panel here is about asking them to watch the detail of a stroke in the video the student comments they spent much longer than the allotted time of 10 minutes and also that the collaborate activity did not have the full group attending. So from this quite detailed feedback on the nature of the students experience in learning from this session academics can begin to develop a clear ideas of what students need expressed as a continually developing pedagogic strategies which they're developing through these learning designs. So it's a bit like being able to experiment with a bit more detail of feedback than the usual standard kind of feedback on on liquor tests or whatever normally give you. So how do we best plan the mix of conventional and digital methods for blended and online learning. What I'm trying to argue here is that we really need a collaborative approach across the whole academic community, because university teachers can't do all this on their own. So when our teacher professional development courses we try to organize not just ideas from experienced teachers which can show us course videos, but the sharing of ideas among the participants themselves. I'll try and give you an idea of that through a course that we're running at the moment, which is on the future land platform. So it's available everywhere in the world. It's on blended and online learning design it's free and open to all teachers in all sectors and subject areas again. So this is one way of doing this kind of large scale orchestration of knowledge development about online learning by academics. There's the link to enroll the current runners going to carry on until next Monday when the next run starts again. And all the course exercises, many of them are based on using the learning designer listed the link here, which enables these participants to explore and exchange their ideas to adapt what they've seen on the course and so on. So I'm going to give you a quick taste of what this looks like. In week one the participants go through the basics of the conversational framework and then work through some exercises together. And in this step in week two they're now looking at the principles for good design and then at a learning design which is specifically aimed to help students learn to explain a complex concept. So this is very much oriented towards a particular kind of learning objective in each case. So the first example happens to be the concept in physics of the water cycle that's the one that they're given and they have to try and adapt it and then post to this panel of all the designer created, and this is a chance to. Sorry, Mr. There it is. The concepts they can, they can, they can find from understanding a digital mixing desk a planet conservation plan, regularly regular verbs vaccine rebellion child development or fellow. I mean, from a physics example, it's quite remarkable. And this is because when we describe our pedagogy, most of the descriptive words we're using about what students are doing, how they're meant to be working how they meant to be relating to each other on the subject. The actual subject matter is quite a small proportion. So these things turn out to be really quite adaptable and this is the beginning of being able to share to collaborate when you can share the cross subject areas like that. And by exploring different solutions to creating motivation and to engaging students in active learning. And many of the examples in the videos were contributed by teachers from different sectors such as this one, which is showing how students do peer review of each other's designs for a religious building, and they have to create PowerPoints and so on to do that and then they peer review and so on. And then it invites participants to adapt that idea for their own content context. In the final week they start exploring blended methods for formative assessment and the video here shows teachers ways of providing peer or blended or automated assessment, and then the participants create their own again using the design. Then they go on to do a peer review exercise to share and critique each other's designs beginning now to build that collaborative community of teaching learning innovation. So it's in this final week that we finally turned to talking about workload, and I'm very glad that Francesc introduced that because it's so important to understand, as we're doing these kinds of things not only the benefits it's creating for the students, but also the cost to assess teachers in terms of what it takes to organize this. So in a couple of slides, try and quickly go through this because it's, it's a numbers game, and it's, it's quite complex, but I think it's so important for us to understand the estimates for conventional and online methods, in terms of teaching costs versus learning benefits so here's an example I'm going to try and work through with beginning with a face to face lecture with Q&A, which will then transfer to an online one which we'll look at in a minute. To estimate the kind of time if you run this lecture over say three years, three repeats, three sessions, whatever, and you spend a certain amount of time preparing it so this is the blue is the preparation hours. That's just over three hours say repairing it, and then an hour to actually teach the lecture and then in the second run you spend say half an hour updating it. And then an hour giving it half an hour of dating and giving it so you have an estimate over three runs of the total teacher time required for both preparation and running it and support for the students. On the students side, what are they experiencing where they're experiencing 50 minutes of lecture, which is passive learning mode, and then 10 minutes of Q&A and discussion with the teacher, which is a more active learning mode. Comparing that with an online version that you'd have to turn that lecture into a series of online videos quite short videos readings quizzes and activities and so on class some kind of Q&A session. The first time you do it precisely as Francesca was pointing out is, it takes a lot longer. You're now not presenting a lecture where you're going to be there. You're doing things for students to do when they're not with you. So this takes much longer, and this is say nearly six hours to develop what is needed but then it's digital so it's quite a short amount of time to update it. So what I put built in here as the Q&A is a half hour online synchronous session, which actually gives the students a bit more time with the teacher in discussing, and then a short time, each on each occasion to increase the. Sorry to update what what is in all these videos. So you've got quite a different kind of analysis because now we've got just over half the time probably spent in active learning because of the quizzes and the exercises which have been set as part of this process. The class of learning time is going to be watching the videos and reading the readings have been set, but the shift the balance of what students are actually doing and this speaks to the, the flip learning point that Francesca was making earlier on I think is that if you flip all of that video to students watching on their laptops they're just not going to do it they're not going to watch 50 minutes of video you talking on a laptop. What they're going to do is five minutes of video and then a quiz and then another exercise and then collaborate with their colleagues and so on so that much more likely do that kind of thing. So that's the kind of analysis comparative analysis I think we should be thinking about. And in one such study. And precisely in those sorts of times the teacher time to prepare and support the session was 8% more over three runs. Of course, if you go, if you just compare one run.  It's very different. So you really have doubled the amount of teacher time if you just count one run. Very important to get that, that payoff over time. The students had 30% more guided study time online and the guided is important and not just left on their own students had four times as much active learning online. It's important to have considerable learning benefit for the long term with a relatively small increase in teacher workload over the long term, but that initial increase in teacher workload was 50% for one run in that particular situation. Now, you know, it's going to be different in every context but that's the kind of analysis I think we have to do. And that's what we're trying to get teachers to engage with. In the whole future we could now visit for the academic community teachers sharing innovative ideas in a collaborative community. Do they think this would be valuable. Well we did ask we've got about 11,000 enrollments in this course at the moment. So we're asking, what would you think it would be valuable and this particular comment is, is quite typical where Fatima says sharing lesson designs is highly important for expertise exchange. It can bridge the gap between teaching communities and foster transnational teaching cooperation, and this can create a universal experience that will benefit well experienced and less experienced teachers, as well as learners themselves. So the idea of sharing and building on each other's ideas and designs is understood and accepted by a lot of these teachers from all sectors who are taking this course, not to say it will be accepted by all, but this is pretty early beginnings. So this is the kind of play my making if we work together, we can share the great innovations needed now to guide the transformation to this bold new future for teaching which is hybrid and mixed and blended and however we want to describe it. So we should be in charge of it and we should be pushing that we should have the initiative, not allowing others to guide it for us. And my great anxiety is that the, the big tech companies that big corporations have now got the sense that online learning is going to be big now. And more than ever before they're going to pitch in and say we know how to do this we'll give you the AI and all the rest of it which will enable this to happen quite automatically. And people understand education they do not understand what it takes to teach and what it takes to learn. So important that the teaching profession owns this and really works on achieving it. And that will mean if we do this kind of thing we can empower the teaching profession to be much more influential consumers of the way that technology is used in education. How does it work. Well, many of the discussion posts in the course were enthusiastic. I've got lessons to plan lined up the design the last one I gave was observed formally towards PGC and it's very well received for the balance variety and methodology. And sharing best practice the best way to learn sharing my designs have been useful and I've received valuable feedback. Now this is not quantitative feedback it's different difficult to demonstrate in a positivistic way that this is an improvement that won't work for everybody probably won't work for everybody, but it does work for a lot of people and yes they have contributed their learning designs for public sharing into the curated design section of the browser. And across quite a range of subject areas as I showed you before we've got infographics on the digital divide purpose of communication linear and binary searches developing commercial awareness. Primary school shape and space. Design on that. All kinds of things. So, yes, it could work. Although, as I said this is still the early days. So we're experimenting with these new ways of extending the impact of HEE research outputs on professionals who need them, testing the feasibility of this model of collaborative professional development and it does begin to show some large scale effects. Last year in the desperate response to the sudden need to teach online. We launched a move on teaching online and this was in Arabic for the mean region where so few people had ever had any experience of creating online learning. And that's so far attracted over 46,000 real enrollments across that region where teachers who once rejected the idea of online learning hands down. They have nothing to do with it have now been able to discover its value and the party can play alongside conventional methods. So all everything that everybody was saying in the opening session this morning is absolutely true. It is really changing attitudes. Here are some of the comments in the post course survey that we ran. How has it changed your future planning for online learning. As I made many adjustments to the study plans and innovative new ideas and methods. We were using traditional education methods and became a transformation in life. And then have your students benefited the level of value of evaluation is very good to excellent everybody was ready and waiting for the next day's tasks. They've really sensed, you know, something new here so there is some evidence, a fairly immediate local impact beyond the participants in the course. To do something towards documenting the impact of the approach we've used Eddie and vendors value creation framework which I do recommend because it's quite useful these five different types of value creation. And the intervention itself could be anything because it could be a community project or citizens assembly or course anything that brings people together to make a positive change in the world. In our case, we categorize the survey comments in terms of the kind of value creation they evidence like immediately it was debate enriches information and gives you new dimensions, or the potential use of all these online tools increased student activity applied value moving from traditional methods to innovative methods of introducing students and parents in the educational process. The impact on parents is very important because that's one of the things about pandemic has done. It's shown the importance of these kinds of developments which has been made more possible, connecting to the school to the parent that was ever possible before the pandemic. I want some comments on reframing reframing is where the action triggers a rethink by the community of their whole approach and comments like this, expanding horizons and realizing the importance of distance distance education. And these teachers who had previously really rejected the idea so, even in the short course it was only two weeks it was about eight hours. This kind of interaction was having a demonstrable impact on many of these participants and their work students. By the way, the citations, the graphic references are in these slides when you eventually get them. It's a very different field of renewable energy we collaborated with colleagues in engineering and international development and researchers and Lebanon to create a course on energy and the SDGs, especially SDG 11 sustainable communities. So this course showcases the stories and solutions found in some of the most challenging communities, and the participants mostly community leaders and education professionals. I'm then able to share their experiences solutions with others, exchanging these experiences and useful advice is all part of the collaborative learning process. And we see the same thing again here in the paddlets and word clouds in the mini game that they created to try and run a mini energy grid supply and then share their experiences online. The paddlet, sorry, paddlet exchanges where again sharing their experiences. And when we asked them about how energy access impacts on you, and they were able to say this was a comment from someone in Iraq for example, talking on the negative effects on personal mental and physical health. So the point is that just as in the education examples, these are knowledgeable professionals, sharing their ideas, experiences and solutions with the help of this kind of collaborative learning platform, ground across the world, reaching into all of those their counties where understanding is needed and this is our university research, being reaching out being able to reach out into entirely different kinds of places. So I say the early results show from these trials is that yes we can scale up the value and reach the university research through these kinds of professional development activities, no matter what the subject. So to summarize, I just like to relate the implications of these approaches to some of the conference themes. The evolution of online distance learning well over the last year that evolution has been something like a Cambrian explosion of activity a great outpouring of experimentation and discovery by teaching communities all over the world online earnings actually has some significant advances over conventional methods that are beginning to be understood. Students have also woken up to this and they're now demanding more blended learning in their courses as we've been hearing. That's good but now there's a downside in that the move to online is expensive of teacher time, and we must be aware of those over enthusiastic he leaders and managers who now want to switch everything to hybrid and high flex and dual modes. These increase the workload even further academics are very aware of the additional upfront workload involved, and at the same time is learning about it. And at the same time is continuing to teach. So every strategy for moving forward must focus on the well being of both teachers and students, and the best way to do that is to listen to them. Do nothing without consulting them, give them the means to develop this new community knowledge of how to teach using digital methods and I explain how something we might do some of those. To effect this transformation, I think we must now focus on the scale of the innovation needed use collaboration to innovate as we do in science but always never doing teaching. And because we've never done that we don't have the mechanisms for spreading that load of innovation but we could. I've shown how developing a collaborative community of professionals online is possible. With technology to scale up professional development. We have moved platforms. So use them. Not for direct undergraduate education and not advocating that but as personal tuition doesn't scale but we can embed moves in our undergraduate courses again to lessen the load of innovation and work through the professionals. We need to do more to put professional education online and those professionals will in turn benefit their students or their colleagues or their employees to work towards those high ambitions of that first began with education the professionals who will learn how to meet the requirements of the NSDGs. Nothing less than that. That's what we have to do. And with your 30 year pedigree the Eden network is very well placed to influence these new directions. So this is what I look forward now to discussing with you. Thank you. Thank you very much Diana for a very interesting and relevant presentation knows as an engineer myself love to see systems are actually applied to educational applications because you can actually see in the data it doesn't leave so much space for discussion. Okay I can see the questions coming up but before I let other people participate let me please just ask you one question you were talking about, you know, tailoring our educational offer to the, perhaps the more to the realities and demands of the of the corporates and companies and such. How do you feel about involving them in the in the educational design from the very beginning, because sometimes I think we sometimes think that we educators. No best when we do it and afterwards our graduates pop out at the end of the process, ready for life in the in the professional context I mean how can we can we change that dynamic do you think. Who we are saying should be brought in from day one. Sorry the the corporate partners the companies where are. As long as the the academics are leading that process, but equally the students should be brought in from day one as well. We need to listen to their voices and learn from them because this is going to be a process of learning for all of us. I do think that's important. Yes, I agree. Thank you very much because I'm going to pass over to some of the comments and questions coming up in the in the chat interesting comment from my colleague arena that it's nice the way that you're actually visualizing the teacher workload because I think sometimes we we complain that we're taken for granted sometimes and the expectations and it's actually nice to to see that. So do you think the sort of tool you've got that in designer could actually be used for communicative internal processes as well as pedagogical ones. Well, actually there's another tool for assessing the the cost and benefits, which is, it's a bit more like it's sort of glorified spreadsheet because it really is about numbers. And whereas the learning designers about pedagogy. And it's possible that in, we might be able to integrate the two in future but it's a bit complicated we haven't quite got there yet. Yeah, so essentially but you know the other tool which does the kind of thing which is where those bar charts came from, showing that comparison. I think both teachers need to do that because they do become aware that way of how they're spending their time but most importantly the managers need to understand that because they tend to think online is cheaper and you know you can do everything easily and so on it's not the case it's not as simple as that so they have to be educated to. I quite agree I hope all the managers here, listening to you, please pay note of that because very wise words I think it's very relevant. Okay moving quickly onwards is a nice question from Mark Brown in the chat here that some learning design operates at different levels I mean we've got the individual lessons. We've got the course level and you've got the whole program level. I mean, what advice would you give to this in trying to apply this as the approach to the whole program level, not just at the lower level. Well I wouldn't apply the learning design at the whole program level. You have to to stand back from that, and you usually need to have teamwork round the table. One of the things we do with colleagues at UCL is work on a kind of workshop basis, and you've got large sheets of paper and post it notes and things like that because you're really thinking at quite a large level. The learning designer thinking about what does it take for the learner to achieve this learning objective which I've defined over this period of time and the period of time might be a week or so but it probably wouldn't be much more than that. So there are very different levels of granularity. That's absolutely right and I think for that, thinking through the program level. You need a bigger space and I wouldn't, I wouldn't do it on a spreadsheet to begin with but I would transfer to a spreadsheet or something like that. You've got to think imaginatively to begin with and that's where you want a kind of blank sheet of paper almost. I think that's out of the box. I think that's that's very good. I mean, nice comment and question from my colleague Diane and Donnie that she's saying thank you for the presentation and referring to another project which was also led by UCL and which President Sandra was a partner. And the question is that do you see, if you like a further development to include technology and tools. I mean specifically open educational resources and practices. Do you think how do you see this evolving and also in a related question how would this relate to the workload of the teachers who have to actually have to use these tools. Well, it'd be helpful if the tools are aimed at trying to support teacher workload and trying to minimize that and yes of course we're going to be developing new tools and resources but I think those have to evolve. And the more academics. I mean just talking about how education from the moment the more that academics are involved in the process of design, and it's not farmed out to a sort of central unit in the university to do it for them. You know, anybody would farm out there. The lecture for somebody else to create for I mean it's absurd you have to, you have to own the teaching you're doing. So you need the tools design that's why something like the design learning design is very simple to use and people kind of enjoy it because you get, you know, kind of pie chart. So it's important to have those kinds of tools, which have really never been created for teachers I mean the best we've had is LMS as I suppose and they're really not very good. So we do need that kind of help, but they will evolve all the more that more teachers and academics are involved in the process of doing that. It is my hope that will happen, but they have to be adaptive. So we have all kinds of digital resources which can be useful but you've got to be able to adapt that digital resource to your context and that's why the learning designer is about not just expressing your pedagogy but being able to share it with someone and then change someone to suit your own context. And then we begin to act as if we're, well I wouldn't I wouldn't say scientists exactly I think it's more like being design scientists, engineers, you know, it teaches teaching as an engineering issue it's it's not science it's engineering experimenting building on theory yes but we're finding the best solution to what we've got. It's going to be good if we are all engineers after a fashion. I think it's also still a role for instructional designers and institutional level because I mean necessarily assume that all teachers, while being experts in their own domain content will necessarily know the best ways to communicate. You've got to put the academic in charge of that process and enable them to develop the ideas and workshopping it is one way to do it and we can do that but also give them tools. I completely agree and done in a scalable and supportive fashion because I think sometimes the resistance coming from our colleagues is that I've got quite enough to do preparing my classes etc to now have to learn a new tool to use in my students maybe that's not your case but sometimes. But that is true. You know the tariffs we have for what it takes to teach usually created by people who don't teach. They are not knowledgeable. Okay, well thank you very much, Diane that was really very interesting presentation and some some great questions and comments coming from the chat I'm sorry we haven't got a lot of time to come with that once again I'm going to give you a virtual clap. Thank you very much. I'll join in the chat retrospectively. That's that's very decent to thank you very much indeed.


Hi, everyone, welcome to the first session. As mentioned, I'm Hanliang in Dr. Weston's department. So today, in the first session, we are going to have six talks, very exciting talks. For the time of interest, the first speaker will have 20 minutes, the rest speaker will have 15 minutes for both talk and the questions. So after at five minutes, you will see the yellow light. And then at two or three minutes, I will on the stage.  So the first talk from the Daniel Bradt from the Emory University, from about comprehensive and integrated analysis about the field's lower grade glioma.