CLOUDFIRST

Why Cloudfirst?

At Deakin, we are global leaders in online education

The CloudFirst approach enables Deakin University to fulfil our promise to provide students with a brilliant education, where they are and where they want to go, by putting the student experience at the centre of everything we do.

So why take the CloudFirst approach?

Deakin’s ambition is to be Australia’s most progressive university. Our CloudFirst digital learning projects are part of this commitment to innovation and best practice.

At Deakin, all students are digital learners, either completing their studies wholly online or mixing online study with on-campus experiences. Paying attention to this digital student experience is even more important as we adapt and evolve in an increasingly digital post-COVID world.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw the rapid pivot to online learning for all students across the higher education sector. Many believe higher education will be forever transformed as a result, leading to an increased demand for online and blended learning models. CloudFirst puts Deakin in a strong position to meet this demand, because of its focus the purposeful design of online learning experiences.

Online learning experiences are flexible and self-paced, enabling students to acquire knowledge while also interacting with peers and teaching staff to build connection and community. These experiences are complemented by active and collaborative seminars, either online or on-campus, in which teachers guide students to apply their knowledge and skills.

Put simply, CloudFirst enables purposeful design of learning experiences suited to a digital world because it leverages the strengths of the online learning environment to enhance student interactions with content, peers, and teachers.

PACKAGED ELEMENT	CONTRIBUTION TO LEARNING	PURPOSE
Short Video	sets the tone by providing students with a sense that the teacher is personable and guides their learning through to the completion of the unit offers an alternative to text-based delivery that promotes student engagement, as online learners don’t tend to watch long videos through to completion focuses on the relevance and purpose of the learning rather than the concept itself because students will be more motivated to learn if they have a disciplinary or professional context for the topic introduces ‘Big Questions’ that pique interest and highlight content relevance, and provides a lens through which students engage with readings and resources in a purposeful way	Builds educator presence; sets student expectations; engages and motivates students to acquire knowledge
Introductory text	introduces the student to a key topic complements the video without repeating the same information but refers to key points made in the video provides a brief introduction to the topic or focuses on a key aspect of the topic draws links between this topic and previous or upcoming topics and assessment tasks	Guide exploration and focuses learning for acquisition of knowledge
Call to action	prompts students to engage in active and collaborative learning for deeper understanding enables students to extend and consolidate what they have learned and apply it to an authentic learning task anticipates student diversity by allowing students to participate in a variety of ways (eg. investigation, collaboration, discussion, application, production, reflection) enables students to practice disciplinary ways of thinking (eg. decision making, discussing, reflecting) through application of knowledge to case studies and scenarios of real world professional settings and contexts consists of micro-activities that model and build towards major assessment tasks where students would complete similar applied tasks	Application of knowledge
Discussion forum	gives the opportunity to build the learning community, socialise and discuss what learnings through collaboration with peers allows students articulate their emerging understandings and try-out new ways of thinking develop relationships with other learners and overcome the sense of isolation which some online learners feel discuss their learnings as part of a ‘call to action’ and work towards an assessment piece	Social exchange and builds learning community; receive feedback on learning and makes learning visible to teachers and themselves