Welcome to Beyond Text: using your voice online

New Practices in Flexible Learning 2005

Teachers engaged in flexible learning will have experienced the restrictions imposed on online teaching and learning by the text-based nature of online communication. Written text, even with visual support, limits the range and type of learning activity and communication that can be delivered online.

Online voice technologies offer a range of unique advantages and opportunities to support innovative teaching and learning, but as yet there are few practical or pedagogical guidelines on how these new technologies can be integrated into new teaching practices.

The Beyond Text: using your voice online New Practices in Flexible Learning 2005 project has explored the application of online voice technologies in different learning contexts and with different learner groups to develop some models of practice and practical guides for teachers in the Australian vocational education and training (VET) sector wishing to move beyond text and integrate online voice technologies into online delivery, assessment and support services.

What you will find here

This resource demonstrates ways you can introduce online voice technologies into your course design and delivery and provide increased flexibility and engagement for learners. It can be used as an individual guide or as a resource for professional development and training sessions.

There are three sections:

• Case studies
  See how teachers have used online voice tools to provide new learning opportunities for different groups of learners.
• Facilitator guides
  Gain an overview of online voice tools and how you can integrate them into teaching and learning.
• Future directions
  Explore the future directions of voice online and how it may assist to promote new practices in innovative teaching and learning.

Click the tabs above to move between sections.

Who is it for?

This resource is for VET providers and practitioners who wish to develop increased capability to deliver sustainable and innovative training in a range of national VET contexts.

The focus is on online voice technologies and the new practices in innovative e-learning that they make possible.

You will find models of practice and guidelines which will help you to move beyond text and integrate the use of online voice technologies into online delivery, assessment and support services.

‘There is now a wide range of tools on the Internet that enable the transmission of voice. To date, the power of synchronous [ and asynchronous ] voice interaction has been little used in online educational delivery and, given that speech is the main mode of human communication, this is somewhat surprising.’

Michael Coghlan (2004), Finding Your Voice Online – An Inquiry into the Use of Online Voice Applications in Higher Education (The Knowledge Tree 2004)

So, you can use the resource to:

• take audio/visual tours of how online voice tools work in different training contexts
• consider the underlying pedagogy for different tools in different courses
• find examples of learning and assessment activities that use online voice technologies
• find clear, practical information on specific voice tools
• explore solutions to some of the challenges in online teaching and learning
• follow the steps to setting up your own online voice activities
• provide professional development or training sessions.

Case studies

How have teachers successfully integrated online voice tools into different teaching and learning contexts?

The examples in these case studies demonstrate the innovative integration of online voice tools into teaching practice.

The section includes:

• Audio/visual stories
  Stories from teachers/facilitators on how they used online voice tools to provide new opportunities for learning and how they used voice to address some of the challenges to online learning.
• Learning activities
  Details of online voice activities developed for different courses and learner groups.
•  Pedagogy
  The underpinning theory of learning that forms the basis of the learning design.

Facilitator guides

The facilitator guides introduce the online voice tools and provide you with guidelines for incorporating them into new teaching and learning practices.

Each guide includes:

• sample learning activity
• what is this online voice tool?
• relevance to teaching and learning
• why use this tool? Challenges
• why use this tool? New practices
• integrating the tool into teaching and learning
• tips
• technical guide.

Future directions

What are some of the new directions for the future?

How can these new voice technologies be best used to create new teaching practices?

What are the new challenges that emerge with the new technologies?

In this section you will find:

• a summary of issues and directions that emerged from the Beyond Text: using your voice online project
• reflection report – an in-depth analysis of some of the broader issues
• accessibility considerations.