HSZG organized the annual Workshop on E-Learning online for the first time.
E-learning - everyday life instead of a project! was the motto of this year's Workshop on e-Learning (WeL), which for the 18th time offered e-learning stakeholders the opportunity for exchange and discussion. In cooperation between the HSZG's Center for e-Learning under the direction of Prof. Dr. Jürgen Kawalek and the HTWK Leipzig represented by Prof. Dr. Klaus Hering, the WeL has been held alternately at the HSZG and the HTWK since 2010. Unlike usual, this time the participants could not meet on site in Görlitz, instead the HSZG and the HTWK Leipzig invited to the virtual WeL'20 in BigBlueButton on 24.09.2020.
With around 100 registrations from Brandenburg, Berlin, Baden-Württemberg, Hesse, North Rhine-Westphalia and Saxony, among others, the WeL once again attracted a supra-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, Prof. Dirk Ifenthaler, an internationally renowned scientist in the field of learning analytics, was once again able to provide an exciting insight into a highly topical subject.
In two parallel sessions, lecturers from various Saxon universities presented their experiences from the past "Corona semester". The "STEM session" gave interested parties an insight into virtual teaching in engineering and the interactive possibilities in mathematics education. In the "Economics and Social Sciences" session, participants found a wide range of presentations such as experiences with virtual international teamwork or the use of multimedia teaching materials. Three lecturers from the HSZG, Dr. Steffi Heidig, Mr. Daniel Winkler and Mr. David Sauer, presented their experiences and "lessons learned" from the online summer semester 2020 in keynote speeches.
In workshops on the current e-learning SMWK projects, the networks (project clusters) took the opportunity to report on their current research work. 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.
Download proceedings of the Workshop on E-Learning 2020
Kawalek, J.; Hering, K. & Schuster, E. (Eds.): 18th Workshop on e-Learning - Proceedings. September 24, 2020, Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences. Scientific Reports, Issue 134 - 2020, No. 2751- 2766. ISBN: 978-3-941521-29-2.
