E-learning and Digital Cultures is aimed at teachers, learning technologists, and people with a general interest in education who want to deepen their understanding of what it means to teach and learn in the digital age. The course is about how digital cultures intersect with learning cultures online, and how our ideas about online education are shaped through “narratives”, or big stories, about the relationship between people and technology. We’ll explore some of the most engaging perspectives on digital culture in its popular and academic forms, and we’ll consider how our practices as teachers and learners are informed by the difference of the digital. We’ll look at how learning and literacy is represented in popular digital-, (or cyber-) culture. For example, how is ‘learning’ represented in the film The Matrix, and how does this representation influence our understanding of the nature of e-learning?

On this course, you will be invited to think critically and creatively about e-learning, to try out new ideas in a supportive environment, and to gain fresh perspectives on your own experiences of teaching and learning. The course will begin with a ‘film festival’, in which we’ll view a range of interesting short films and classic clips, and begin discussing how these might relate to the themes emerging from the course readings. We will then move on to a consideration of multimodal literacies and digital media, and you’ll be encouraged to think about visual methods for presenting knowledge and conveying understanding. The final part of the course will involve the creation of your own visual artefact; a pictorial, filmic or graphic representation of any of the themes encountered during the course, and you‘ll have the opportunity to use digital spaces in new ways to present this work.

E-learning and Digital Cultures will make use of online spaces beyond the Coursera environment, and we want some aspects of participation in this course to involve the wider social web. We hope that participants will share in the creation of course content and assessed work that will be publicly available online.

This course has been developed collaboratively by a team of experienced teachers and researchers in online education, who run the international MSc in E-learning distance education programme at the University of Edinburgh. It will be led by Jeremy Knox, with contributions from Dr Sian Bayne, Dr Hamish Macleod, Dr Jen Ross and Dr Christine Sinclair. You can find out more about all of them and their work at http://online.education.ed.ac.uk/team.

No background knowledge or skills are required.

• Will I get a certificate after completing this class?

  Yes. Students who successfully complete the class will receive a certificate signed by the instructors.

• Do I earn University of Edinburgh credits upon completion of this class?

  No. The certificate of completion is not part of a formal qualification from the University of Edinburgh. However, it may be useful to demonstrate prior learning and interest in your subject to a higher education institution or potential employer.

• What resources will I need for this class?

  We will be viewing and discussing videos and video clips. Most of these clips are found on YouTube. Please ensure that you have access to a computer which meets the requirements to view YouTube videos, and that you have speakers or headphones so that you can hear sound. You do not need a YouTube account to participate. However, if you wish to upload content to YouTube as part of an activity, you will need an account for that.

  We will also be using some free services, such as Twitter and Flickr to discuss and share our work. While all of the web spaces we participate in will be free to use, most will require registration with a valid email address.

• What are the learning outcomes of this course and why should I take it?

  You will learn about how popular digital culture, cyber-culture and sci fi can help us think about digital technologies in education. You should take this course if you are interested in education and want to build an understanding of cultural developments surrounding the use of technology.