Episode One: The future of online learning with Dr. Neil Fassina
Online learning is a hot topic these days. Dr. Neil Fassina is the President of Athabasca University, Canada's online University. Athabasca U is celebrating 50 years as an innovator in delivering remote education.
They pioneered the world's first online MBA 25 years ago and now, they are boldy creating a fully integrated, immersive "digital campus" to bring online learning to the next level.
We talk about...
We talk about...
- AU's place in the academic landscape within Alberta and its unique focus on "democratizing" access to education by taking learning to the learners
- Moving from delivering "books in a box" in the 70s and 80s to online learning
- Launching the world's first online MBA in 1994 (on dial up!) and pioneering the use of the internet for education
- Delivering complex STEM courses like chemistry to home-based learners (safely!)
- How online learning can be for everyone and how AU leverages the unique aspects of online delivery to create great learning experiences.
- Where Professors and Instructors fit into the process of designing learning experiences that can be delivered at scale and how this shifts the traditional notion of their role
- The importance of delivering full support systems for learners in an online format, not just the educational content.
- Why current learning management systems aren't sufficient to provide a fully integrated learning environment and what needs to happen to change this dynamic.
- Future predictions for the fully cloud based "digital campus" and envisioning the university of 2067, the role 5G infrastructure and augmented intelligence will play and why we might one day be learning philosophy from Socrates on the Holodeck.
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