This was a really interesting piece of reading from this week's learning over on 'How to teach online' this week - https://www.futurelearn.com/courses/teach-online #FLteachonline The Difference Between Emergency Remote Teaching and Online Learning https://er.educause.edu/articles/2020/3/the-difference-between-emergency-remote-teaching-and-online-learning

'These hurried moves... could seal the perception of online learning as a weak option, when in truth nobody making the transition to online teaching under these circumstances will truly be designing to take full advantage of the affordances & possibilities of the online format.'

'What we know from research is that effective online learning results from careful instructional design and planning... and it is this careful design process that will be absent in most cases in these emergency shifts.'

There are a number of moderating variables at play -

So this is the important part to remember here - 'In contrast to experiences that are planned from the beginning and designed to be online, emergency remote teaching (ERT) is a temporary shift of instructional delivery to an alternate delivery mode due to crisis circumstances.'

Our evaluation of online learning needs to change if we consider it within the frame of 'emergency remote teaching' instead. We'll ask different questions and expect to see very different outcomes.

'We are not advocating for no evaluation of whether or not learning occurred,or to what extent it occurred, but simply stressing that the urgency of ERT & all that will take to make it happen in a short timeframe will be the most critical elements to evaluate during this crisis.'