Time to get started

Digital literacies for online learning (LiDA101) is an open online course. The course materials are hosted on this web site. Learners participate and interact using their own personal learning environments. We will show you how to set these up during Session 0.

5 things you should do before starting the course

1. Register on this course site (if you haven’t done so yet) by clicking on the “Log in/register” link at the top of your page (or the head icon () when using a smart phone).
   This will enable you to post comments on the course website using WEnotes, manage your registered course blog url and receive course instructions via email. (Note: As an open course, registration is not mandatory and we publish copies of the course announcements on the course site.)
2. Familiarise yourself with the web site navigation to find the location of the:
   • Course syllabus
   • Learning materials (see learning pathways in the menu above), and
   • Course guide.
3. Review the course guide; in particular, check out the:
   • Learning outcome and course objectives, and
   • Syllabus
4. Post a comment on the course feed page:
   • Log in to the course website
   • Type a comment in the text area at the top of the course feed page, for example, say hello to your fellow learners, and tell us why you are taking the course.
   • Click the “Post a WENote” button and after a few seconds you comment should appear in the course feed.
5. Please complete the optional OERu new participant survey.

Need help?

First consult the OERu support site and the Frequently Asked Questions section on forums.oeru.org.

The support site also provides additional guidelines on how to search the support forum and post questions on forums.oeru.org.

Study tips

There are a few things you should know about the Digital literacies for online learning (LiDA101) micro course.

1. Course tag: The course code is “LiDA101“. Write this down because you will use this course code for tagging your blog posts, forum posts and web sites which support hashtags, for example : “#LiDA101”. (These tags enable the OERu to automatically harvest posts from selected sites on the Internet for the course feed).
2. Course feed: The course hosts a live feed where you can monitor posts from WEnotes, registered participant blog posts using the “LiDA101” tag or label, the course forums site etc.
   • WEnotes is the locally hosted microblog technology for posting comments to the course feed from the course site.
3. Suggested study time: This is an asynchronous course so you can participate at times which are convenient for your own schedule. The course is divided into 3 learning pathways spread over two weeks. You should aim to spend approximately 2 hours per day on the course activities. However, as an open course you may “sip and dip”, participating in the topics or activities you find interesting. The time you will need to successfully complete the Learning challenges will vary according to your own experience and previous knowledge of using digital technologies. We estimate you will need about 20 to 25 hours hours of online study time to complete the course activities. Learners participating in this course for formal academic credit will need to allocate an additional 15 to 20 hours required for completion of the final assessment.
4. International time zones: OERu courses typically register students across 24 time zones. You should study this course in your own time zone. For example, carry out the instructions for Tuesday on your Tuesday, not the time zone of your facilitators.
5. Using social media technologies: If you are new to using social media technologies, we provide instructions to help you set up your own personal learning environment during the orientation session. We recommend that you establish your personal learning environment before the course commences. Using a course blog is recommended as a good way to interact with course participants, while maintaining control over your own content. You can create a new personal course blog or use an existing blog.
6. Information overload: At times the aggregated feed can generate a large number of posts. You are not expected to read everything. Read what is current when you log in and follow the links which you find interesting. After a few days you will identify participants with similar interests and you can then follow these posters in the feed.
7. Learn by doing and sharing: Most of all, have fun! We are changing the world for the better by returning to the core value of sharing knowledge in education.