100% online MA Education Technology

This module invites students to re-think teaching and learning with digital technologies. It evaluates the divide between ‘digital natives’ and ‘digital immigrants’, exploring how the lack of boundaries in online spaces changes the ways in which we communicate with and teach our students. The module also focuses on the impact of digital technologies in education on our identities as teachers, students and on our educational institutions, as well as considering the responsibilities educational institutions have in relation to online safety.

This module analyses the significance of reflective practice in enabling you to develop informed insights and perspectives on key philosophical, sociocultural and political debates about educational and workplace settings. You will engage actively with a variety of theories and practices associated with reflective practice, with more thoughtful reflection being put forward as the key to reflective practice. You will reflect on an aspect of your educational practice and develop an action plan for future practice.

This module enables you to critically explore the changing relationships between work and education and the implications for individuals and society. In the module, you are encouraged to interrogate the wider social and historical connections between policies, socio-economic change, education and work. You are invited to critically analyse the links between education, employment and the various social constructions of self-identity.

The module examines in-depth, using a range of materials, the ways in which professional identities are constructed and informed by wider social and economic factors.

This module examines the changing world of education in the context of social, political, economic, and cultural globalisation. It reflects on the ‘nature’ of international identity, both for teachers and students, and critically explores what ‘international’ means, educationally, in this context. The module aims to enable students to understand, and reflect critically on, the expansion, origins, tensions, and challenges experienced in international education. It invites them to critically examine the primary aspects of globalisation and their impact on education in any setting, and to explore the concept of professional identity in the context of a globalised education policy and practice.

This module explores a range of research methods – both qualitative and quantitative – and it introduces you to the advantages and pitfalls of these as research tools. You will be supported throughout to reflect on your own understanding of the social world and its implications for developing justified strategies for carrying out your research project. The aim of the module is to enable you to develop concrete plans for the development of the research methods and approaches in relation to your proposed thesis topic.

This module introduces you to key issues and methodologies underpinning research in the social sciences. You will be introduced initially to how to construct a research project by looking at how to develop and build research questions and how these might be operationalised in your own study. You will be encouraged to begin close planning of your own project. The outcome of the module will be for you to begin to develop both a design and a methodological rationale for your work and the methods you will choose to use.

This module introduces the principles of learning design for online and blended education courses and activities. Students engage with pedagogical and course design literature, as well as selected learning theories to develop an understanding of the learning process and of suitable teaching strategies to create engaging and pedagogically rigorous online materials. The module engages students in debates on different design approaches and educational theories to develop their knowledge around the ‘whys’ and ‘hows’ of teaching and learning with digital technology. Students build their own learning designs, justifying the proposed use of technologies to support learning in a variety of contexts for learners with a variety of needs.

This module introduces students to selected educational technologies to help them design technology-supported teaching and learning activities and assessments. Students explore approaches to, and the applications of, selected education technologies (e.g. video production, collaborative tools such as wikis, Padlets, Miro, Mentimeter, quizzes, etc.) within an educational context. It aims to develop skills in the operation and practical applications of these technologies for teaching and learning purposes as well as enhance understanding of the situations and types of learning activities where these technologies may be used. At the end of this module, students design and develop their own activities using educational technologies of their choice.

In this module, students specifically focus on the structure of their final dissertation. They are supported to develop specific sections of their dissertation which include: writing an introduction; conducting a literature review; writing a methodology chapter; choosing an appropriate approach to data analysis; and drawing conclusions. Students are also introduced to research ethics and supported to complete a research ethics application which is compulsory to start data collection.

The dissertation module provides you with the opportunity to carry out and write up an original piece of research at master’s level. You will draw on the knowledge you developed in the Research Methods module, as well as knowledge and skills gained throughout your postgraduate study in other modules, to conduct your research. The project could be empirical, text-based or a combination of both approaches. You will design and undertake your project in close collaboration with your supervisor and submit a dissertation upon completion.