E-learning in everyday (teaching) life

“E-Learning—Everyday Life, Not Just a Project!” was the motto of this year’s Workshop on e-Learning (WeL), which, for the 18th time, provided e-learning professionals with an opportunity to exchange ideas and engage in discussion. In cooperation between the Center for e-Learning at HSZG, led by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kawalek, and HTWK Leipzig, represented by Prof. Dr. Klaus Hering, the WeL has been hosted alternately each year at HSZG and HTWK since 2010. Unlike in previous years, participants were unable to gather in person in Görlitz this time; instead, the HSZG and HTWK Leipzig hosted the virtual WeL’20 on BigBlueButton on September 24, 2020.

With approximately 100 registrations from Brandenburg, Berlin, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia, and Saxony, among other places, the WeL once again attracted a cross-regional audience.

The Workshop on e-Learning 2020 was opened by Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kawalek, followed by a video message from the Rector of the HSZG, Prof. Dr. Alexander Kratzsch. This year, the event was once again honored to feature Prof. Dirk Ifenthaler, an internationally renowned scholar in the field of learning analytics, who provided fascinating insights into a highly topical subject.

In two consecutive sessions held in parallel, faculty members from various universities in Saxony shared their experiences from the past “COVID semester.” The“STEM Session”provided interested attendees with insight into virtual teaching in engineering and the interactive possibilities in mathematics education. In the“Economics and Social Sciences”session, participants encountered a wide range of presentations, including experiences with virtual international teamwork and the use of multimedia teaching modules. Three faculty members from HSZG—Dr. Steffi Heidig, Daniel Winkler, and David Sauer—delivered keynote presentations sharing their experiences and “lessons learned” from the online summer semester of 2020.

In workshops on the current e-learning SMWK projects, the networks (project clusters) took the opportunity to report on their current research paper. In the "Open digital learning worlds" network, current developments on usability in OPAL and ONYX as well as the provision of new e-learning services such as Videocampus Sachsen and H5P were addressed and discussed. The "Virtual Teaching Cooperation" network gave an insight into cross-university teaching networking, taking into account didactics of collaborative teaching and learning. The "Open Topics" network presented impulses for innovative teaching and showed the implementation of innovative scenarios, e.g. the integration of VR content, open innovation or gamification. And the "Advanced Learning and Examination Space" network showed what future-proof digital learning and examination spaces could look like.

Even if the usual exchange over the obligatory "conference coffee" during the breaks was sorely missed, the discussions in the sessions showed that online conferences can be an enrichment for scientific exchange. We look forward to the next Workshop on e-Learning 2021 at HTWK Leipzig - then again in presence or as a hybrid event.