 Opryddwch arhaf yn ymgyrch i Ylchydig 2022. Hwy'n bwylltebolaeth i chi'n gweithio g졌e hynny, sut hynny i'n gweithio'n gweithio yma sydd 2019 i gyd yn ymgyrch yn unig, ac mae cyliaid na hynny, a chydwch chi'n gweithio'n gweld ei Bryf-Haesol yn gwneud hynny yn ymgylch chi'n gwirio'r hanfer. Dwi'n fydd i chynghwyl ar y spaces sy'n mae chi'n gyfach hynny ar Ylchydig. First of all, we've got lots of information on our conference website, and if you haven't had a good look around there, please do go and have a good look around. We've got all of our programmes on there, whether you're joining us online or in person. We've got guidance on staying safe, and we've also got lots of help and more information. If you're one of our speakers who's coming to join us either online or in person this year, we've also got guidance for speakers available under the help and more information area of our website. So if you haven't had a chance to familiarise yourself with that, please do when you can. Of course, I'm hoping you've already joined us via our interactive programme this morning. We are using that as the main hub of the conference, whether you're joining us online or in person. All of the sessions, whether they are on site here in Manchester or on the online programme, will be available here for you to watch. If it's online, you'll be able to join and watch through the online interactive programme, and you'll see each of the days listed at the top of the interactive programme, along with the sessions beneath them that will give you the abstract, the speakers, and where they are at the conference. If you haven't joined our social space already as well, please do come and join us over on Discord. We will be having some Q&A later on today for some of our pre-recorded sessions there. So do come along and join us, chat with your other delegates. You'll find resources shared from other sessions. You'll meet some of our exhibitors and sponsors there, and it's just a great place to come and chat. Get to know everybody who's joining us at the conference this year. If you're on social as well, please share anything you like on the hashtag alt C22 on LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, wherever you choose to be, and join in a conversation with us there as well. What we'll be doing throughout the week is any recordings from sessions will be made available as soon as possible via the interactive programme once they're available. Livestream sessions that we're doing from here in Manchester as well will be available on the interactive programme, and will be recorded and available for anybody who wasn't able to make it. And if you haven't already, we want everybody to enjoy the conference this year, so please do go and familiarise yourself with our netiquette and our code of conduct, and make sure that everybody feels welcome and safe here at alt C22. If you need any help during the conference, you can tweet us, you can go to our Discord helpdesk channel, you can go to our help information on the website where you can email us as well. So if you need any help, do get in touch with us. And if you're coming here two hours in Manchester, we have our helpdesk on the ground floor of University Place as well. So if you need any help, just get in touch with one of us or one of the conference helpers you'll find throughout the venue. And without further ado, I will hand over to Maron to introduce you and welcome you to the conference. Hi everybody, welcome and good morning for those of you who are joining us in the UK or wherever you might be in the world. Kerry and I are just two of a whole host of helpers and supporters and staff who are looking forward to joining you and supporting you throughout your next three days. It is my privilege as CEO of Alt to be the first with Kerry to formally welcome you and also to introduce you to our co-chairs in a moment. I can see many of you already in the chat and I want to give you a little bit of warning that we are just about to ask you all to put your virtual hands together to give the first warm welcome of this conference to our co-chair team as they join us here on stage. This is a very special year and many of us have had quite a journey here for the past two or three years and we are so thrilled to welcome so many of you this for this opening plenary. Now we will hand over to our co-chair team so please do put your hands together, get these emojis going in the chat and say hello to Elizabeth, Bella and Pete. We are just coming on stage now so here is Elizabeth, hello. There is Pete as well, there we go and there is Bella. Over to you co-chairs and a very warm welcome. Excellent. Thank you, Maron. As Maron said, we are three of the trustees of ALT and this year the trustees have been given the task of co-chairing. This very special return to both in-person and online conference for the ALT conference and it's a great privilege for the three of us to be able to do that. We'll introduce ourselves properly. My name is Associate Professor Peter Bryant. I am the Associate Dean of Education at the University of Sydney Business School and I have been a trustee now for five years and it's a great privilege to introduce my other two colleagues and let them introduce themselves and then move on with the rest of the agenda. Elizabeth, you go first. Thank you Peter and welcome everybody. Lovely to see you, virtually see you. My name is Elizabeth Charles and I am the Assistant Director of Library Services at Birkbeck University of London and I have been a trustee, I think, come up to six years now and I'm going to pass you on to Bella. Thanks Elizabeth, it's Bella Abrams here. I'm the IT director at the University of Sheffield. I'm currently beaming to you from not very sunny Sheffield and I'm very excited about nipping over the Anions to be in person tomorrow. I'm probably the longest standing trustee here and this is my last alt as a trustee so that's going to kind of feed into my perspective later. Good to see you all. So as I mentioned at the start, we have brought all the trustees together. You've seen the names of our trustees there. Some of them will be there virtually this week and some of us won't be, but we'll be around on the online and in the Discord to be able to have a chat too and it's been a very interesting process for all of us. Let's move to the next slide. So we want to have a quick introduction to this year's conference themes and we'll work our way through them. We'll start with Elizabeth. So digital transformation beyond the crisis. This is a theme that's quite close to my heart. It's really about what is the vision of learning, teaching and assessment. It focuses on the transformation of education and training through digital practice in the post pandemic world. Something that we I think is now our steady reality. So I'm really looking forward to some of the presentations and I should be whizzing around in the background online and hopefully also accessing some of the recordings later as well. The next theme is really one that is central to the whole notion of what it means to be involved in learning technology and that is about the notion of co-creation with learners. It is something that is very dear to most of us who are involved in working on units and curriculum and courses and working directly with the people who should be engaged in learning and co-creation, co-design, students produces whatever you want to call it is a very critical part of that. And then from that we also want in this conference to take a great focus on the idea of what it means to be an emerging leader inside organisations, institutions, working not just with our colleagues, but working across the spectrum of our institutions to develop a strategic vision for education, develop a strategic vision for learning technology and to develop a strategic vision for what the student experience should be as a result of our actions and our activities. And developing digital fluency. Again, I come from the information literacy world as well. So this feeds in very nicely to that big shift to digital skills and capabilities which will experience the ups and downs of that for both students and student staff, academics, professional services grappling with the move to digital and online and looking at that from the digital citizenship to critical data literacy and ethical considerations and what does it really mean to develop a digital fluency? And the final one, Amplify FE, very, very close to my heart and I work up the hill at the University of Sheffield but I did spend most of my career working in FE and vocational technology. So having so many people with us from FE in schools and thinking about how we can collectively work together to amplify the innovation and change that's happening in FE is a critical part of the conference for us. So on that, it behooves me to welcome you all to the conference. Welcome back. It's a lovely photo of a previous conference there. Really exciting to see that there are 450 people participating from the UK and 20 countries and 300 of those 150 are going to be hybrid like me coming virtually and then also being physical in Manchester. So that's a really exciting thing but the experience we hope is going to be the same across the piece. It's really, really exciting to see everyone both digitally and physically. So with most of these conferences we actively like to work with and have our sponsors as a part of our community. We exist as a broader learning technology community and our sponsors, exhibitors and partners are critical and important members of that community and on the slide in front of you can see our list of sponsors, exhibitors and partners and we want to sincerely thank them for their engagement with what we do. Many of them are in the exhibition area if you are physically attending so go and knock on their door and many of them will have sent you emails to also engage with them. So we really want to value and we do value their participation and engagement in this year's conference and particularly we would like to note our primary sponsor is VBOX this year. You can see how you can engage with VBOX that all speakers and panellists will get a complimentary VBOX pro plan after the alt conference and a great opportunity to engage with one of our leading sponsor for this year's conference with all the details about how you can get more information on using VBOX there at the bottom. Thank you to VBOX. I'm the key welcomer today. So another special welcome to everyone that's joining us from AFI colleges vocational providers and schools today. We're really excited to have you. And a special welcome and shout out to everyone who's attending on a scholarship. Welcome to the conference. So now we're going to have an opportunity for the three of us co-chairs to I guess have a little bit of a reflection about how we got here particularly to this conference, how our shared experiences and different perspectives have sort of focused our attentions and brought a particular lens to how we want to think about this year's conference and the themes that we're going to explore. And Elizabeth gets to go first. So I shall introduce. Thank you, Peter. I will bring in the lens from certainly the institution that I work in, Birkbeck. COVID I know for everybody resulted in that digital pivot where we were all sort of running to catch up. And two, three years later now we've still got a camp in Bofit, hybrid blended learning, et cetera. But learning technology is definitely more mainstream. For my institution just before COVID we'd actually brought in some learning technologist which before we didn't have any particular named individuals doing that work, working with the academics, looking at digital pedagogies and the learning technologies that could be used depending on the discipline and what the academics wanted to achieve. So that movement, mass movement has seen what was possible. Also in that emergency, reaching for whatever was nearby I have to admit that there have been instances where something has been reachful to plug a gap. It was more about just striving to keep up and I think now we're much more in a position where it's about thriving. So we are liaising and reflecting on what's worked and what hasn't worked, what we should keep and what we should perhaps review and look at to produce and use in a different way. And the thing that has changed but has always been there I think at the core of OLD is that sharing of experience and learning and support and community of practice. I felt that really supported by the OLD community and the different specialist groups as well during that really frantic period. And now we're at this point where we are have an opportunity to reflect and to review and to really sort of systematically I think look at what we're trying to achieve and what is best for that rather than we need to get something up there, let's see what we can do. And I think that is a real common change. Key theme is that mainstreaming now. And in some ways somebody, anybody can say well everybody is using learning technology. But I think also it's the fact that it's now seen as being a core activity in supporting the delivery of the curriculum. And tangential to that obviously is ensuring that both academics and students actually have the skills and the capabilities to be able to fully exploit learning technologies to their both for their learning and teaching. So yes, we're here. It's great finally to be able to step out and we have our first hybrid conference. And I think that's also enabling us to be more inclusive as well as being a sign of the times that I think this is going to be the new norm for quite a while to come. One of the main themes that is for me is really relevant and I think I mentioned it before as I come from the information literacy world. So developing digital fluency is part of that continuum. How do you support and provide those skills and capabilities at the point of need, but also how do you ensure that you deliver it to scale in a considered and nuanced approach because we'll have different ways of wanting to engage with our learning and the amount of front loading that needs to be done by learning technologies when at what stage are they brought in but also providing that support and that training for staff and students. And I keep saying staff and students but also I need to also mention because it's something that was sort of hidden in the past was professional services certainly in my institution. They also are engaging and interacting with learning technologies and needed to ensure that they have the skills to fully exploit the learning technologies that they're using. For me what is important in how we go forward is that all continues to be inclusive of the diverse membership and community of practices that we have and that continues to represent the individuals and institutions that are part of ALT. So, as well as representing the individuals and institutions I think it's also to hear of the issues that are coming up and to take a lead on that and that is definitely something that has been happening with ALT in this sector as a whole. So I'd mentioned that the launch of the ethical framework Open COVID Pledge for Education and the anti-racism and learning technology special interest group and I mentioned that I have been involved in that that's a special interest group. So it is just a sort of a key point of some of the themes that are coming up and are being taken forward with ALT and also being represented by individuals and the community itself. So I'm going to pass you on now to Ella. Thanks Elizabeth, that was brilliant. So I'm going to kind of follow on the same theme and it's going to be a bit of a many, many, many element at the beginning because I'm going to do more of a how did I get here but that I think is kind of how my relationship with ALT was evolved over time as well. I'm feeling very reflective because I'm coming to the end of my term. So how did I get here? I have been a trustee since 2016 and it's been one of the most fantastic outside of my daily work experiences that I've had. So I'd really like to thank my fellow trustees and Myron and the ALT team for just being wonderful people to work with. I'm not a learning technologist but I have worked in digital education in learning and teaching for my whole career moving into FE and then HE more recently. It was lovely to see UFI as a partner on the form because that was the job I worked for UFI limited to the previous incarnation of the trust when I graduated in the early 90s and it was a fantastic place to learn my trade kind of turning into the now different to learn direct which is very sad. And I think what it gave me was a really holistic view of how digital teaching learning can be applied in the post-16 market and the concept of digital natives didn't even exist then. We were all kind of finding our way at the time but it's given me a lot of understanding about how people experience technology particularly when they have struggled to engage with education in the past. I moved to FE in 2015-2016 and there were vastly different views within FE at the time and the sense then which is still the same because of FE's position in the sector is that technology has been an enabler in many, many ways, not least around reducing cost critical ways of engaging and improving learning success and adapting technology particularly to support vocational learning. One of the reasons I love FE and feel that it is my spiritual home is that FE's always been a centre of innovation and has been for a really long time and really excited that schools are joining us now particularly because of the pandemic and how that rapidly changed models which I've received for as a parent and it'll be really interesting to see how that kind of beds in in the longer term. So back to the pandemic the last three years have been really difficult, challenging I would go so far as to say wild at points. I started in FE just before the pandemic and I work in a research incentive university so a hugely different kind of funding model but definitely much more conservative and very very federated compared to where I was before. The pandemic gave all of us such an opportunity but it did feel like being on a rollercoaster I don't know if that was how you guys felt but it was rapid, it was unplanned and it was unprecedented and that kind of donning your superhero underpants and kind of digging in and doing all of those things was hugely exhilarating in some ways exhausting in others but it created a huge dependence on us as technologists and learning technologists in a lot of areas but it did where we weren't available then I think that it kind of led to poor experience when a lot of our students were just dealing with two things for me of how we've kind of exited the pandemic around hybrid about genuine conversations about digital pedagogy student engagement which is a huge part of what we're going to be talking about in the conference and from my perspective of where I sit in the hierarchy at the University of Sheffield thinking about that as Peter said earlier in terms of whole institutional strategy so again technologists being able to influence big items and think about significant levels of investment so my sense of our shared experiences you might not agree with me in this is that over the last two years there's definitely been more funding in many places to think about the use of technology better there are more staff available but that then has turned into different levels of experience different levels of training and being able to work with colleagues and peers can often be difficult especially with the levels of demand I personally have got a greater sense of institutions understanding how they must change in order to accommodate the needs of students and changing approaches to technology and demand for technology but this brings a huge amount of risk I was really really pleased to be part of the work in the ethics on the ethical framework and I think without having guide rails frameworks things to inform our practice we are walking into a complex digital environment that does need to be carefully thought through I think that Elizabeth already touched on this and there are different perspectives that really need to be thought of carefully when we bring them in over the next few years and that's why the conference seems so important genuine inclusivity is something that I think we've all got to strive for and that comes across the broad range of students that we work with the broad range of staff that we work with whether they're engaged in this process or completely disengaged I've put in capitals on my notes as well engaging management and I say that as someone who is often referred to as management thinking about how to influence different ways of doing things bringing that kind of groundswell of experience that we've all had from the pandemic but turning that into something that is fruitful and beneficial for the whole institution I think is really needed but it needs to be thought through very carefully and of course we're all kind of facing into what the long-term view of education looks like the fact that we are more and more into market pressures and facing different decisions is going to be a new government soon in the UK but also thinking about what it means for the different types of students that we have and how we're going to engage with them so just to summarise then for the future for Alton, for all of you as conference participants and people that work in the sector is so bright and I'm sad not to be a trustee but I'm going to be around and just kind of thinking about how we all respond to challenges but these challenges are significant and the conference themes are based around how we as a collective as a group of people who've got excellent skills and experience response to them Co-creation Peter has already talked about I think that is a huge part of the benefit of what we can do as learning technologists it does require a really careful thought and isn't just something that we should play at, we should be able to demonstrate how it gives benefit both to students and academics Emerging leadership for a new strategic vision I've already talked about my role in management and how that can be how we can apply influence and other things I think that's going to be a really big part of it and the digital fluency that Elizabeth talked about as well and the real joy that I'm looking forward to is just seeing what else FE can do now we are going to amplify the things that they are already doing and looking at things that in future FE in schools will be able to do so now it's over to Peter Thank you very much Bella as you may have noticed I'm in Australia and I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land that I'm on which is the magical people of the Eora Nation it's something that generally a number of countries tend to do to acknowledge the traditional owners of the land and it's actually quite important particularly to the university that I'm a part of because our buildings are on land that has been sites of learning for 40,000 years or more and I want to pay my respects to the eldest past president and the merging of the communities that I am currently on a bit like Bella I've been a trustee since she was 2016 I was 2017 so I'm coming into my last year as a trustee and I very inconveniently after being elected a trustee about five months later told Marin and my colleagues on the board that I was moving back to Australia after 10 years in the UK and then since then have done all of my trustee work apart from a couple of conferences remotely which I think was quite was quite prescient for what then happened with Covid. What I want to talk about in terms of my connection to the themes and the shared experiences that got me here is I want to take a slight future forward perspective on this I think it's quite important that we start to think about what comes from the experiences that we've had we are deeply experiential people and we understand our experiences through the frame of reflecting on those experiences and turning them into something that can adapt for the next set of scenarios and worlds we're going to enter then I think that takes a very future forward lens on the conference and what we're going to be talking about over the next couple of days. The first thing for me is one of the really shared experiences which many people have had is this feeling that 2020, 2021 and for some of us still 2022 that that never happened that we're just going to ignore a lot of what we've learnt over these years and then snap back to the way we were in 2019 and that scares a lot of people because we've learnt so much about our practices so much about our institutions so much about ourselves as professionals and as humans working in this area that snapping back to 2019 just doesn't feel right it feels like a regressive step so I think some of the thinking through the themes in that lens about where do we want to go what is the future perspective to take about learning technology and not well let's snap back to where we were in 2019 however comforting it might feel sometimes we mentioned the notion of co-creation and I used the sort of synonym of co-design at the heart of co-design for me is a sense of connection because co-design is a process co-design is a communications sort of structure and co-design can also be a very strategic way of undertaking the design of curriculum and design of teaching learning and assessment but it's also at its very heart the connection that we make with students the connection that students make with each other and that the connection that students make with their institution and with their faculty and their departments and their academics at the core of what technology can do is facilitate connection effectively there is a massive opportunity for us to be a part of the narrative that reimagines teaching and learning because we saw through the last two and a half years a little bit of the looking glass we saw how capable our institutions were to pivot quickly we saw how things that we may have struggled to get institutional attention on for a long time we were able to turn those things on and do it effectively for student learning very quickly in the emergency crisis situation but what do we take from that what do we use to reimagine teaching and learning not just for 2023 but for 2032 2042 what is both at an FE level and in a higher education setting what is education teaching and learning going to look like and how does technology play a critical role in shaping that I think something that is actually really sort of quite hard I think for a lot of us including myself over the last couple of years and it ties into those shared experiences is that we've got used to a sense of crisis we've got used to a sense of rolling things not going well they're almost like a sense of controlled chaos and I use the phrase that it's an opportunity for us to resist that becoming the normal that we feel like we're in what a lot of people refer to as the never normal that we never find a set of practices that we have enough time to be able to experiment to understand to analyse and reflect I think resisting the fact that that we are constantly pivoting is actually going to be good for us as a sector but also us as leaders to think about what it means to reflect on what we're doing because what we are doing has resonance and what we do is something that actually benefits people not just in the classroom that they're in now but is something that they will take forward with them through their lives as a form of lifelong learning and I think the final thing I just want to say around this is that there is a massive opportunity here for us to learn from what we've experienced to learn from the crisis that we've been a part of understand what has occurred think about it through both an analytical frame and some people want to do that through the areas of research please publish in the RLT journal he gets the plug in as the chair of the editorial board but also just understand it from a practice sense your own internal practice sense because if we don't learn from the crisis we are doomed to repeat it and I think that is a really important thing that this conference gives us an opportunity to do is hear from people who want to share their experiences of the last two and a half years so I will leave my presentation at that point this is a great opportunity for all of us to find new spaces in our profession new spaces with colleagues make those connections with other people find transdisciplinary understandings of people that you have never worked with before who approach learning technology with different perspectives and different ideas and bring those together so thank you for that thank you Peter and thank you Elizabeth and thank you Bella I think you can see all the comments in the chat and also see all the comments online and discord when all of us really reflecting with you as many of you listening to this part one of the opening plenary we will know part two is later today live here from Manchester where you will get to meet more of the co-chairs of the conference and where the plenary is going to take these reflections and how we got here and turn our thoughts to the future and where we might go next so Peter, Elizabeth and Bella have kicked off our conference in good style and we want to leave you this morning with a little preview of what's in store for this week including today the learning technologist of the year awards and many of you have been involved in this year and we're finding out this evening who the winners are and hopefully celebrate with everybody who can be here in person or online. Tomorrow, importantly and I know that my trustees will find this particularly relevant please do join us for the ALV AGM which is on Wednesday it is open to all, you don't have to be a member of ALV to attend and you can attend in person or online. Also tomorrow evening ahead of reception with live music there will be the launch of digital transformation chaired by our chair Helen O. Sullivan and this is a real highlight of our social program for the conference this year which is the second year of our award nominated collaboration with ITN Business helping to showcase the work of our community more widely into a broader audience and then on Thursday morning here at the conference join us for the morning plenary which will showcase the winners of this year's awards and really delve into the excellent practice research and projects that are in the awards this year and then at the very end of the conference last but certainly not least we're going to take to the airwaves as we go for our online after party which will be hosted very kindly by the Thursday night show we're very excited to see some DJs returning who've been partying with us for the last few years but also some new voices so from Peter, Elizabeth Bella and us here welcome to the conference and I'm now going to hand you over to Kerry to play us out with a deeper delve into this year's conference themes say hello to Steve Steve is a university lecturer and he loves nothing more than providing engaging and interactive classes but that wasn't always the case you see he sometimes found it hard to connect with his students and to gauge their understanding but that's all changed now Steve uses Vvox Steve can now let his students actively collaborate in his lectures with live polls and quizzes he's even removed the fear of asking questions and getting instant honest feedback is a breeze not only is Vvox really easy and quick to implement it also works seamlessly with Steve's preferred tools so Steve can focus on keeping his students engaged now let's meet Emma Emma's new to Steve's classes but her past experiences of online learning and large lectures aren't great she struggled to engage and found it difficult to ask for help hang on though Emma's been asked to use Vvox it looks like Emma's going to be able to respond to polls ask questions anonymously and upvote those sent by others Emma seems surprised but also intrigued Steve kicks off with a poll it's a great way to gauge understanding and know which areas need to be focused on he makes the most of his Q&A time by answering the most popular questions and to test their knowledge and end things on a high Steve is going to finish with a quiz Emma's impressed she's never felt so included in a class Steve decided to try Vvox because of the hundreds of 5 star reviews online and the fact that he can speak to a real person at Vvox and get help and advice on using it nice work Steve another great lecture and happy students if you want to be like Steve and provide unmissable lectures too sign up now for your free trial at Vvox.com My name is Peter Hirst I'm the sales lead for higher education for Europe, the Middle East and Africa for OpenLMS OpenLMS is the world's largest moodle hosting and services organisation and we provide support for about 10,000 students around the world some big universities, some FV colleges some government organisations and also some private companies as well we've got a really varied set of clients and they've come to us with all sorts of stories about how they've coped during the pandemic and since the pandemic and that's why we're really excited to sponsor the theme, Adult C for digital transformation beyond the crisis which is also going to be the title of my talk going to give on Tuesday at half past two it would be brilliant if you could make it along I'm going to talk about how we form habits and how that has influenced the practice that's continued since the since the pandemic's all but finished in the UK in particular we're going to share some stories from around the world from some of our clients and also from the wider community of educators that we come into contact to through our community via our eLearn magazine and the other initiatives that we have to gather best practice and to disseminate it amongst our clients and beyond we'll be really excited to speak to you either on our stand or if you can make it along to the talk and it will be brilliant to continue the conversation about digital transformation As an educator you're facing a lot of challenges and changes it can be hard to know which software is best for you with Canvas you know you're being good hands as you study or teach with the world's number one learning solution whether you study or teach in person online or a mix of the two Canvas can help you streamline your education experience so that you can help your students reach all their academic goals our technology is made to be easy to use for people of all ages More than 30 million active users choose Canvas across thousands of institutions from kindergarten to all the Ivy League universities in the US Let's meet some people who are on a learning journey with Canvas This is Lee a teacher He's using Canvas virtual classrooms to make his classes lectures more engaging Students Alice and Sunnel are tackling their homework and tracking their progress with all the latest apps including Zoom Microsoft Teams Microsoft Suite Studio, Catalog and Impact Sunita is behind the scenes in administration She's checking detailed student data and tracking performance in a meaningful way and Daniel is up to date with his son's progress whenever he wants to check in There are no walls to effective education in a virtual classroom Canvas simplifies it all Canvas makes it easier for Sunita to set up the semester from organizing enrollments to notifying faculty staff on a platform set up for desktop and mobile The fully streamlined platform enables Lee to personalize coursework depending on how many of his 20 students this term he's teaching face to face and how many students are logging on from home like Alice and Sunnel Let's see how Canvas connects the dots for these people over the course of an academic term Canvas brings hybrid education to life so that both face to face and online learners can enjoy their experience With Canvas' mastery paths tool Lee can look at real-time performance data to create targeted learning activities for each student Here, he assigns top performers to the advanced path in their own discussion group and those who need a little more help he assigns extra materials to support their studies so that no student, including Alice feels left behind As the semester progresses Lee can stay on top of Alice's progress at any time by tracking it through Canvas Gradebook and giving feedback to keep her motivated on her online learning journey Around holiday time when students are on the move Lee records a mini-lecture using Studio Screen Record and shares it with the entire class Then, it's up to the students to decide how they hand in their homework Alice opts for a Google Doc that she submits as a PDF and inside it there are links to YouTube videos spreadsheets and even some hand-drawn diagrams Sunnel has a different approach He records a presentation on his mobile and submits a video directly to Lee All of that can happen in Canvas When you empower learners to take ownership of their learning it's proven to improve both student outcomes and larger learning goals overall Imagine what you can achieve when you connect with the largest, most active community in education Be a part of bringing the world together through online education The opportunities are endless with our virtual classrooms and find out how Canvas can help your organization thrive today Hi, I'm Laura Pacy Product Director for McGraw Hills Higher Education Division in the UK Student engagement and inclusive learning practices are core areas of focus for us at McGraw Hill so the theme of co-creation with learners is a very interesting one to explore As we know from the online learning consortium's five pillars of quality online education student satisfaction is a central pillar and one where students put a primary value on appropriate, constructive and substantive interaction with faculty and other peers Co-creation can be a big part of this It's not a new concept of course but with advances in technology it's become more available But where to start? My advice is to start small Where are you already giving students a choice in their course and where can these pathways be strengthened to give students even more agency in how they learn Check in with them for feedback to see what's working well and perhaps less well to see what vigorous you'd be comfortable with in letting students co-create their learning At McGraw Hill we see a lot of value in creating safe spaces for students to fail So co-creation, especially if initially ungraded can allow students to build creativity, confidence and critical thinking skills with assessment based on participation rather than perfection With these new skills and confidence and an understanding of how to apply knowledge co-creation can even guide future career decisions and increase employability One good example I've seen is in the creation of practical videos in vocational disciplines which can then also be peer assessed Some of the tools that we embed in our learning platforms such as GoReact allows easier recordings and assessments but there are of course lots of different examples and we look forward to continuing the conversation today