David Murphy's Occasional Blog

Continuing education through online methods is nothing new. Educational institutions have been pushing online education for years  and many others are looking into the possibility of implementing such methods. While you can spend the money having a solution developed and tailored to your specific needs, existing open source applications can provide the experience you are [...]

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Yes, I know I regularly extol the virtues of the International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning (IRRODL). That’s because it’s good, very good. Its latest special issue (Vol. 14, No. 2, 2013) has just been published, and you can view it all (you should know by now that it’s open access) at [...]

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Nearly a year ago I posted an old conference paper on necessary skills of instructional designers (How to identify an expert). Here’s another short one* on the same theme from my dim and distant past, which I boldly believe remains relevant. The paper continues the focus on necessary skills for instructional designers. I again applied [...]

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As a recent(ish) university graduate now working in the digital recruitment industry, I definitely have more of a vested interest than many of my peers when it comes to the future of UK universities – and I’ve been particularly keen to try and keep up to date with the recent changes that have been going [...]

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I admit I haven’t read it yet (it was only published on 7 May, after all), but Jeffrey Selingo’s book College (Un)bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students is set to inspire the MOOC junkies and challenge the traditionalists. Further, this post is playing the dual role of also highlighting [...]

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A few years ago the debate at my university was between Sakai and Moodle – which was the better LMS (learning management system) and how/when should we transition to one of them? Researchers favoured Sakai (good for collaborative projects), while teaching staff liked Moodle (in case you’re wondering, it stands for Modular Object-Oriented Dynamic Learning [...]

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Distance learning has come a long way since the days of postal correspondence courses. The greatest changes have occurred within the past five years as advances in technology and the prevalence of the Internet have opened the door to new modes of online teaching, learning and educational collaboration. Print PDF

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I’ve been vaguely aware of the growth in the use of infographics, but haven’t paid too much attention until recently when readers submitted some for possible uploading/linking. Apparently infographics has been a hot topic for a while, with opinion divided on their usefulness. Print PDF

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MOOCs are the current hot topic. And you might not be just reading about them, you may also be trying them. If so, are you one of the small band of ‘completers’, or did you discontinue? If you did drop out, then you’re not alone, as attested by the interactive graph produced by Katy Jordan. [...]

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Independent learning is a challenging task. You don’t have the physical presence of your peers, or your tutor present to answer questions and keep you focused. The motivation for study comes entirely from you, which can be tricky when your bed is just sooo cosy at 8am and you really don’t fancy dragging yourself to [...]

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