- Start implementing the ITedu tools in your course in small steps. Start with relatively simple IT options. Organise small pilots to experience and test IT possibilities. Next, organise a pilot project for a part of your complete redesigned course with a small group of motivated students. Evaluate, discuss the results with your colleagues and adapt your design.
- Educause evaluated the online education experiences of students and teachers in different countries. I used these evaluation results to create a checklist. This tool makes it possible to evaluate whether your blended or online learning course will succeed.
- Possible teacher professionalisation activities are short courses, lunch meetings, websites, support from IT staff, education experts or student assistance. These individuals can help the teachers with small and more complex problems when designing, developing, applying and evaluating a redesigned blended learning course F2F via VLE, e-mail or WhatsApp.
- The introduction of IT in an educational institute should be executed step by step. Effective communication and knowledge exchange among management, students, teachers, supporting IT staff and educational experts must be considered seriously. The faculty and faculty members should support each other design activities, exchanging ideas and experiences. Short meetings (e.g. lunch meetings), where you and your colleagues can share information among the management and the IT staff about the experiences with the ITedu tools, the educational materials prepared for and used by the teachers, the students and the IT staff.
- A (university) website about blended learning and other IT applications allows teachers to show their educational ideas and products. The IT staff and educational experts can demonstrate relevant articles and other products. The information materials and experiences from the pilot projects helped prepare the other teachers to start teaching with IT. The experiences of the teachers involved with the IT staff in the first phase were used to improve the next steps. There are good reasons to consider involving students to support teachers. Younger people often have more experience using IT. These people are flexible in their time, have insights into the world of students and learn many things necessary for their careers. Still, teachers will probably ask for advice from their colleagues first.
- Teachers and IT technicians should work together to optimise the IT technical environments because the pedagogical possibilities and costs of ITedu tools develop over time. Also, during the implementation period, the teachers and IT technicians may discover new opportunities for using IT in education. All problems will arise when using the IT technical environment and these problems must be solved without delay. Many faculties have organised a task force or project group to discuss problems, solutions, questions and new desires.
