Education Information

- Closely associated with employers’ compliance training methods - No opportunity to ask questions - No interaction with other learners - No feedback from a tutor - L eads to “click and move on” rather than reading and understanding - Does not develop skills - Danger that employers will allow time off for e learning but not other types of training. - Allows for large numbers of people to participate and contribute. - Breakout rooms can be used to encourage participation. - Tutor can control access, who speaks, etc. - Allows for use of other tools such as whiteboards to aid collaborative working - Can be easy to help participants with any tech difficulties Disadvantages: - Can be difficult to manage the group - Numbers need to be kept to similar sizes to face to face courses - It can be difficult to build and maintain the momentum of an online course if it is run in short sessions Advantages: - Can accommodate very large groups - Large groups can give compelling poll results - No issues of controlling the group Disadvantages:

Online Meetings/Courses Advantages:

Webinars

- Very limited interaction with the group - Licences for platforms can be expensive - Difficult to offer tech support

Online Learning and Trade Union Pedagogy

Embracing online learning does not mean rejecting the existing pedagogic principles that have long underpinned trade union education. Instead, we can use technology to enhance these principles so long as we are careful in our programme design.

We have to get it right, it’s not necessarily easy (and it’s easy to get it wrong), but technology can support the following (and far more):

- Helping close the digital divide and equipping trade union members with essential day to day skills (in the same way that unions have helped address literacy and

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