Digital technologies used in course implementation

Abstract

All courses developed in relation to the CARE/SS project except for one used a learning management system (LMS), that served to present course participants with a single portal to a course virtual learning environment (VLE). The partners used the LMS infrastructure offered by their respective university institutions. The most prevalent was the Moodle-powered LMS. One partner used Canvas to host the VLE course-sites. The blended course for in-service teachers offered by the Malta partner was the only course that did not employ a standard LMS. This was due to several mitigating factors making it impractical to expend expensive human and financial resources. Instead, cloud spaces were used as a VLE portal to the online elements of the course. One partner remarked that apart from the institutional LMS and the array of generic and specific application software applications incorporated in the course design, there is also included in the courses the use of the interactive whiteboard, interactive presentations and movies, and websites (Poland Partner). This observation rings true also for the case of the other courses expect perhaps for the case of the interactive whiteboard for the case of flexible, online courses. The Cypriot partner explicitly referred to the use of digital tools integrated in the LMS such as the discussion forum, resource-sharing possibilities and the online quiz tool. Put together the courses developed by the different partners feature a substantial selection of digital technologies forming an integral aspect of the learning activities and assessment tasks. All courses featured an array of digital technologies acting as a means for learning and/or learning productions. Tabulation 1 presents lists of digital tools, media and services pinpointed by the partners. This accruing list pinpointed by the partners, puts on show the wide and varied range of computer-based and online tools and services incorporated in these courses.