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Neil Morris, Bronwen Swinnerton, David Bevington (Mentor), Catherine Bruen, Lynne Taylerson, Clare Killen, Diana Laurillard, Dawn Buzzard, Emily Armstrong (Mentor), Shaun Richards, Sarah Copeland, Christina Browett, Patricia Quinn, David Bevington, Emily Armstrong, and Christina Copperthwaite

Most FutureLearn courses run multiple times. Every run of a course has a set start date but you can join it and work through it after it starts. Find out more This course is open to everyone but particularly aimed at those working in the Vocational Education and Training sector, including: further education, skills training, vocational education, workplace learning and lifelong learning or adult education. The course is designed to be completed in around 4 hours per week. All activities have recommended times and there are plenty of resources and activities for you to explore further if you’d like to do more on a particular topic. You can join at any time during the course and you will continue to have access for 4 weeks after you sign up. You can use the hashtag #FLble3 to talk about this course on social media.

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Most FutureLearn courses run multiple times. Every run of a course has a set start date but you can join it and work through it after it starts. Find out more This course is open to everyone but particularly aimed at those working in the Vocational Education and Training sector, including: further education, skills training, vocational education, workplace learning and lifelong learning or adult education. The course is designed to be completed in around 4 hours per week. All activities have recommended times and there are plenty of resources and activities for you to explore further if you’d like to do more on a particular topic. You can join at any time during the course and you will continue to have access for 4 weeks after you sign up. You can use the hashtag #FLble3 to talk about this course on social media.

Topics Covered

  • Raising awareness of digital skills being used in the workplace
  • Ways of teaching digital skills
  • Managing a digital identity
  • Managing digital information
  • Creating basic digital content
  • Creating advanced digital content
  • Publishing digital content
  • Collaborative digital content creation

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Reviews summary

Foundational digital skills for educators

According to learners, this course provides a largely positive introduction to integrating digital skills into blended learning environments. Many found the content directly applicable to their roles in vocational, adult, and further education. Students particularly appreciate the practical focus on topics like managing digital information and creating basic digital content. While the course is seen as a solid foundation for those new to these concepts, some reviewers note that the 'essentials' approach means it may lack sufficient depth for more experienced practitioners. The recommended time commitment generally aligns with expectations.
Weekly modules are manageable and well-paced.
"The course structure, broken down into weekly modules, made it easy to fit into my busy schedule."
"The recommended time commitment per week felt accurate and achievable."
"The content flowed logically from one topic to the next."
"I liked the pace; it allowed enough time to reflect on the material."
"Well-organized modules helped me stay on track throughout the course."
Covers useful skills like content creation.
"The sections on creating and managing digital content were particularly useful for me."
"Learning about digital identity and information management was very relevant in today's online world."
"The course covers a good range of digital skills pertinent to education and training."
"I appreciated the focus on collaborative digital content creation."
"It touches upon essential skills needed for teaching effectively online."
Provides a good starting point for beginners.
"As someone relatively new to blended learning, this course provided a very clear and accessible foundation."
"It's a great introduction to the key concepts and necessary digital skills for educators."
"The pace was just right for getting a grasp of the essentials without feeling overwhelmed."
"This is a good starting point for anyone looking to develop their digital teaching skills."
"If you're already tech-savvy, some parts might feel basic, but it's solid for beginners."
Content is highly relevant for educators.
"I found the concepts and strategies presented to be incredibly relevant to my work in vocational training."
"The focus on applying digital skills directly within a blended learning context was exactly what I needed."
"This course gave me concrete ideas and tools I could start using in my teaching right away."
"It helped me see how to integrate digital tools into my existing classroom practices."
"The practical examples made it easy to understand how to implement blended learning."
May not go deep enough for advanced users.
"While comprehensive in breadth, the course could benefit from delving deeper into some of the advanced topics."
"I was hoping for more detail on specific digital tools and platforms."
"It covers the 'essentials' well, but doesn't provide advanced techniques or strategies."
"For experienced digital educators, this might feel more like a review than new learning."
"The course provides an overview but lacks the depth needed for mastery of the skills."

Career center

Learners who complete Blended Learning Essentials: Developing Digital Skills will develop knowledge and skills that may be useful to these careers:

Reading list

We've selected 50 books that we think will supplement your learning. Use these to develop background knowledge, enrich your coursework, and gain a deeper understanding of the topics covered in Blended Learning Essentials: Developing Digital Skills.
Explores the use of blended learning in English language teaching. It includes chapters on the history, design, implementation, and evaluation of blended learning programs.
This handbook provides a comprehensive overview of blended learning for educators. It includes chapters on the history, theory, research, and practice of blended learning.
Is essential for understanding a key contemporary trend in digital identity: Self-Sovereign Identity (SSI). It clearly explains how individuals can gain control over their digital identities using decentralized technologies like blockchain. Filled with practical use cases, it serves as a comprehensive guide to this paradigm shift for technical and business readers.
Explores the psychological perspective on blended learning. It includes chapters on the history, design, implementation, and evaluation of blended learning programs. It also includes case studies from a variety of educational settings.
Provides a comprehensive overview of blended learning in higher education. It includes chapters on the history, design, implementation, and evaluation of blended learning programs. It also includes case studies from a variety of higher education institutions.
Explores the use of blended learning in Latin America and the Caribbean. It includes chapters on the history, design, implementation, and evaluation of blended learning programs.
Introduces the SIFT methodology and lateral reading techniques developed at Stanford and the University of Washington to verify online claims in seconds. Equips learners with concrete habits for tracing source provenance, evaluating synthetic media, and resisting viral misinformation across social platforms.
Offering conceptual frameworks for navigating the landscape of digital identity protocols, standards, and solutions, this book is highly relevant for contemporary understanding. It connects established ideas like social login with emerging trends such as self-sovereign identity. This practical guide is useful for students and professionals aiming to design and manage identity systems.
A seminal work that critically analyzes how personal data is collected and used by corporations for profit, coining the term 'surveillance capitalism'. is crucial for understanding the broader societal and economic context in which digital identities are formed and exploited. It highlights the urgent challenges to privacy and democracy.
Coined and defined the modern concept of digital literacy, arguing that mastering networked information requires critical evaluation rather than mere technical keystrokes. Remains the foundational touchstone for understanding how hypertext, nonlinear reading, and knowledge assembly reshape human cognition.
Synthesizes five core digital fluencies: attention stewardship, crap detection, participation, collaboration, and network awareness. Offers a durable cognitive toolkit for managing information overload while contributing constructively to networked public spheres and collaborative knowledge commons.
Bridges sociolinguistic theory and hands-on analysis of multimodal communication, algorithmic timelines, online privacy, and remix culture. Guides students through dissecting how digital affordances shape everyday discourse, personal identity, and collaborative work across networked environments.
Examines the intersection of media consumption, personal identity, surveillance capitalism, and technological evolution in contemporary society. Provides structured exercises that help readers interrogate platform incentives, protect personal data, and navigate civic life online with agency.
Provides a comprehensive guide to designing and delivering blended learning programs in a corporate setting. It includes step-by-step instructions, case studies, and templates.
This practical guide provides step-by-step instructions for implementing collaborative learning in the classroom. It includes tips on how to create effective teams, facilitate discussions, and assess student learning.
Focuses on creating content that is truly exceptional and engaging, providing guidance on how to develop a unique brand voice and connect with your audience on an emotional level. It recommended read for those looking to elevate their digital content creation skills.
Establishes the contemporary playbook for AI literacy, formulating four practical principles for collaborating with large language models as thought partners while guarding against hallucinations. Helps knowledge workers and students integrate generative tools without surrendering human judgment.
Provides a practical guide for educators on how to design and implement blended learning programs. It includes step-by-step instructions, case studies, and templates.
Provides a research-based overview of the benefits of collaborative learning. It includes case studies and examples of how collaborative learning can be used to improve student outcomes.
Translates generative AI literacy into actionable classroom and workplace practices covering prompt fluency, information verification, and ethical attribution. Demonstrates how educators and learners can redesign research workflows to emphasize critical inquiry over rote content generation.
Exploring the critical issue of data privacy in the digital age, this book argues that the current model often exploits personal data. It discusses relevant controversies and proposes potential solutions, examining the roles of blockchain and AI. is highly valuable for understanding the privacy challenges central to digital identity.
Explores how conversational AI tutors transform digital learning, reading comprehension, and interactive problem solving across diverse student populations. Details practical safeguards for ensuring accuracy, privacy, and active critical engagement when adopting AI-powered educational software.
Provides an in-depth look at decentralized identity (DI) and its potential to enhance digital security and user empowerment through technologies like blockchain. It covers key concepts such as SSI, DIDs, and trust anchors, and discusses the role of biometrics. This valuable resource for cybersecurity professionals and those interested in the technical aspects of decentralized identity.
Dismantles Big Tech marketing narratives surrounding generative AI, teaching readers to distinguish statistical text extrusion from genuine machine reasoning. Equips citizens, educators, and workers to spot AI hype, recognize synthetic misinformation, and evaluate automated claims with rigorous skepticism.
Dives into the strategic side of digital content creation, covering topics such as content planning, audience research, and content evaluation. It recommended read for those looking to develop a comprehensive digital content strategy.
Focuses on the marketing aspect of digital content creation, providing strategies and techniques for creating content that will engage and convert customers. It is suitable for those interested in using digital content for marketing purposes.
This recent publication offers a comprehensive overview of the evolving digital identity landscape, covering strategies for decentralized identity, biometrics, blockchain, and AI. It explores the implications across various industries and discusses future trends. good resource for gaining a broad and up-to-date understanding of the topic.
Specializes in the art of digital storytelling, providing techniques and best practices for creating compelling narratives that resonate with audiences. It recommended read for those looking to develop their storytelling abilities in a digital context.
Outlines the Personal Digital Inquiry framework for guiding learners from initial curiosity to collaborative research, digital creation, and critical reflection. Illustrates how structured inquiry protocols build foundational online reading comprehension and multimedia synthesis habits.
Emphasizes the role of digital content in inbound marketing, providing strategies and tactics for attracting and engaging customers through content. It is suitable for those looking to use digital content to drive business growth.
Traces the predictable lifecycle by which digital platforms shift from serving users to locking in advertisers and extracting monopoly rents. Demonstrates how interoperability, data portability, and antitrust reforms empower everyday citizens to defend digital autonomy against predatory feeds and dark patterns.
Investigates how multilingual learners produce digital video projects to negotiate cultural identity, multimodal expression, and critical literacy. Offers researchers and educators a detailed ethnographic study of participatory media creation in culturally diverse learning environments.
Uncovers how commercial search rankings and ad-driven autocomplete algorithms encode systemic bias while presenting themselves as neutral information retrieval systems. Deepens digital literacy by teaching readers to question the socio-technical architecture behind everyday search queries.
Analyzes how broadband access gaps, public policy, and community institutions shape digital inclusion across underserved populations. Connects individual technical competency to broader civic participation, e-government accessibility, and equitable information infrastructure.
While not directly focused on digital content creation, this book provides valuable insights into the psychology of sharing and why certain content goes viral. It can be a useful read for those looking to create content that is more likely to be shared and discussed.
Explores the use of collaborative learning in language learning. It provides case studies and examples of how collaborative learning can be used to improve student learning in foreign languages.
Explores the impact of digital technologies on collaboration. It provides insights into how digital technologies can be used to support and enhance collaborative learning.
Provides a guide to using collaborative learning in online learning environments. It includes tips on how to create effective online teams, facilitate online discussions, and assess student learning.
Explores the use of collaborative learning in workplace training. It provides case studies and examples of how collaborative learning can be used to improve employee learning and performance.
Specializes in the creation of visual content, covering topics such as image optimization, video marketing, and infographic design. It valuable resource for those looking to enhance their visual content creation skills.
Charts how smartphones, algorithmic feeds, and commercial media platforms industrialize the extraction of human attention as a scarce economic resource. Connects cognitive distraction and emotional outrage loops to broader media literacy, helping readers reclaim reflective focus and deliberative civic discourse.
Reveals how opaque predictive scoring models govern credit, hiring, policing, and education without accountability or feedback loops. Empowers citizens with the quantitative skepticism needed to interrogate automated decision systems that impact their digital and civic lives.
Serves as a practical guide for implementing Identity and Access Management (IAM) solutions within an enterprise. It breaks down complex concepts into actionable steps, making it a valuable reference for IT managers and professionals responsible for designing and deploying IAM systems.
Provides a comprehensive overview of digital marketing, including a section on digital content creation. It good option for those looking for a general introduction to the topic.
Examining how digital practices shape online identities and cultures, this book explores topics such as community formation and the influence of social media. It provides contemporary examples and is relevant for understanding the social and cultural construction of digital identity in today's digital landscape. Suitable for students in media, communication, and sociology.
Explores the ethical considerations of living in a digital world and provides guidance on becoming a responsible digital citizen. It offers practical strategies and draws on philosophical insights to help readers navigate online interactions with intention and integrity. Relevant for a broad audience, including high school and undergraduate students.
Provides a practical guide to developing digital skills for students. It covers a wide range of topics, including using technology for research and writing, managing online learning environments, and using social media for academic purposes.
Discusses the impact of the internet on our brains. Carr argues that the internet is making us more distracted and less able to focus. It thought-provoking read for anyone who is concerned about the impact of digital technology on our lives.

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