Since the mid-1990s, online learning has become an increasingly common way for learners to gain new skills, study with experts, and practice integrating new knowledge into their existing skill sets. Over that time, the online-learning space has evolved from a focus on content – the ‘what’ of learning – to the design of learning interactions and spaces – the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of learning.
Early online learning experiences were heavily text-based, primarily because there wasn’t yet widespread access to high-bandwidth internet service that would allow audio and video to be accessible options for the majority of learners.
Fast-forward to today, when the digital divide is rapidly closing, thanks to the leap-frog effect of affordable mobile internet bandwidth and access devices, especially mobile phones. Instead of the limits being ones of scarcity – where capable devices are expensive and bandwidth infrastructure is not yet in place – these days, we collectively have the opposite problem: while mobile devices and access to networks are low-cost or even free, the number of hardware, software, and app tools has exploded. There are now so many different online techniques, environments, and tools that individuals cannot hope to stay current in all of them. Every school, organization, social group, instructor, and support person seems to have a different definition of the ‘core’ things to know.
Starting in the early 2000s, Learning Management Systems, or LMSes, were one attempt to simplify things so that everyone was learning within a common set of tools. But, like most technology systems over time, LMS companies have been adding more and more features to their environment, until these very systems that were supposed to make things simpler for all of us are now unknowable and complex.
If every technology system is doomed to die of ‘feature creep’ eventually, how can we lower or even eliminate some of the barriers to online and technology-mediated learning? As you practiced in the pre-activity for this course, you’ll learn next how to use the principles of universal design for learning (UDL) to focus less on the systems and tools themselves, and more on the interactions that you want your learners to have with content, one another, their instructors, support staffers, and the wider world.