Welcome to our brand new blog at City, University of London, where we are focussed on ISLA, a new acronym for Inclusive Synchronous Learning Activities. ISLA is our term for hybrid, blended, multimodal, hyflex, or dual mode delivery, to name a few common terms for teaching live to an online audience as well as to those in class.
Essentially the academic teaching staff will present to their class face to face and online simultaneously, using MS Teams or Zoom, with a camera showing them to the online audience and with microphones picking up all speech in the room for the remote learners. Similarly, those online can communicate with the class on campus by chat, or using their own webcams and microphones, these interactions would be relayed in class via the audio-visual technology specifically designed for this purpose. The key is inclusivity and equity in the design and integration of technology backed up by informed pedagogical practice.
