Do you teach online? And, do you love to play? Then, we have the right tool for you to reflect on your educational practice – to enhance your digital classroom: The TALON Online Education Card Deck.
Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic and the first lockdowns in early 2020, TALON, the Teaching and Learning Online Network, has engaged with questions of what it means to teach and and learn online – and what approaches and tools may foster student success and belonging. TALON has developed an interactive lexicon of tools and resources for remote teaching and learning, complemented by Voices and Letters to highlight current developments in EdTech and SoTL.
The TALON Online Education Card Deck represents TALON’s latest addition to its resources. The deck has been designed to help faculty start a conversation about online teaching and learning. It builds on extensive research on the possibilities and challenges of online education – and the stories collected to spotlight personal experiences (see, Abegglen et al., 2022).
The card deck poses 34 questions about online education ranging from “What equipment is needed for effective online teaching?” to “What makes a happy online learning space?” and “Is online learning here to stay?”. It can be used like a ‘classic’ card game, played with two or more players, or solo, as a single player. When played together, the card game offers opportunities for discussion – when played online it facilitates reflection and learning.
There are many ways to use the cards, and while we list a few below, the game can easily be adapted to suit your context and circumstances:
- Pick a card and answer the question without thinking too much. Let the unconscious speak!
- Write down your answer. Written answers can be collected and shared anonymously. Can you guess who said what?
- Collectively answer a question. Develop solutions and imaginaries. Prompt a wider discussion.
- Respond creatively and playfully to questions by creating a collage, poem, dance, painting… Exhibit and celebrate.
- …
We encourage players to develop and add their own questions. There is an empty card template included in each deck that can be used for this. In addition, a copy of the card deck can be downloaded from the TALON website under a Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 License) that allows players to add, adapt and share cards when acknowledging us.
TALON (2022). Online Education Card Deck. Available at: https://taloncloud.ca/TLN-Card-Deck
We are interested in hearing your feedback – and seeing your own questions. Please share with us on Twitter @talon_cloud or LinkedIn Talon Cloud using the hashtag #TALONcarddeck.
Have fun – and keep playing!
The TALON team
Sandra Abegglen (Project Lead), Fabian Neuhaus (PI), Krisha Shah (GAR), Kylie Wilson (GAR)
Acknowledgements
TALON is funded by the Richard Parker Initiative. The TALON team would like to thank its sponsor for the generous support, which enabled many initiatives including the Online Education Card Deck.
Special thanks go to our Graduate Student Researcher (GAR) Krisha Shah who has designed the card deck.
A big shout out also to all our Voice series participants who inspired us to develop the game – and who posed many important questions about online education.
References
Abegglen, S., Neuhaus, F. & Wilson, K. (Eds.) (2022). Voices from the digital classroom: 25 interviews about teaching and learning in the face of a global pandemic. University of Calgary Press.
TALON (2022). Online Education Card Deck. Available at: https://taloncloud.ca/TLN-Card-Deck
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