At the NGL Centre, we both produce instructional material and provide teachers with the opportunity to develop their teaching skills through courses in teaching at the university level that have a sound basis in research. With this as its foundation, the NGL Centre supports the goal of Dalarna University to be the leader within the field of Next Generation Learning - also referred to as NGL. As an academic term, NGL relates to innovation and the development of technology as a means of meeting the educational challenges of today's society.
Next Generation Learning (NGL)
The term NGL is one used by a number of institutions throughout the world; however, there is no clear agreement on its definition. In the USA, where a great deal of work is being done in this area, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation defines it as follows: "The intelligent use of technology to develop innovative learning models and personalized educational pathways."
It is our view at Dalarna University that the term relates to pedagogical development and innovation that involves the provision of support in the use of technology. With this in mind, we strive towards the ongoing development of our methods while supporting teachers in their instruction and students in their learning.
Education at Centre
Our educational organisation is wide in scope. We provide courses for teachers and students, and develop manuals to support learning and teaching using technology. As well, we are active in our discussions about teaching and learning, and offer courses in university-level teaching for staff members as well as other courses related to education.
Support
We provide support to all our users, be they staff members or students. This ability to access support has proven itself to be a key success factor and a clear reason that we are ranked so highly in the field of web-based learning. From Monday to Thursday 08.00 - 22.00 and Friday 08.00 - 16.00, staff and students can access technical support through a number of contact channels.
As well as this, we produce professional learning resources such as films for iTunesU and YouTube.
Study Tools
We offer a wide range of study tools for use in courses. On the intranet, employees can register for courses in how to use these tools, while students can register for courses in Fronter and Connect at the beginning of the semester.
- Learn: Dalarna University's web-based learning platform. Each course taught at Dalarna University has its own Learn room that is used for teaching and administrative purposes.
- Connect: the programme we use for online meetings in realtime for our web-based courses and programmes. In Connect, there are a number of meeting rooms that can be booked by teachers or that can be used by students upon availability.
- The university recording studio is used by teachers to record lectures that are then made accessible to students for viewing at a later time.
SMART Board is a large interactive whiteboard with a touch writing screen. Several of our classrooms are fitted with a SMART Board. A sympodium is a smaller type of SMART Board that can be connected to a projector. Adobe Presenter can change PowerPoint presentations into lectures with recorded sound and video. Urkund is the anti-plagiarism tool that teachers at Dalarna University use to detect plagiarised text in student papers and assignments.
