The challenge of successfully transitioning the content of an onsite-delivered, discursive, exploratory discipline into modes of online delivery that will facilitate both the nature and integrity of the discipline and its appropriate pedagogies is substantial.

Information qua information is (relatively) pliable and manipulable, and thereby, in principle, deliverable in a variety of modes—without compromising the integrity of the information or its pedagogy.  But is the same true of exploratory discussion—and, moreover, exploratory discussion which often touches on existentially significant aspects of the self-perception/life/ worldview of the discussants?  What is being sought for the religious studies redevelopment, thus, is software that will both facilitate and enable complex and sensitive discussion of this nature.

Kialo (https://www.kialo-edu.com/) is described as “an easy to use, yet powerful tool [enabling students] to engage in thoughtful discussion [and] understand different points of view … [and which helps] with collaborative decision-making.”  I was optimistic.

The design is uncluttered and the introductory material clear and engaging and—not always the case with introductory material—detailed and easy to follow.  Via samples and videos, it was easy to see the debate structure and process which Kialo offers—fundamentally, a pro/con, interactive, click-through, nested tree structure.  The user interface is easy to grasp and appears straightforward to work with.  Kialo claims that it will enable educators to host classroom debates, facilitate thoughtful collaboration, assess learning, explore complex issues, and promote well-reasoned discussion online.  A considerable set of claims.  In principle, all this should have been music to my ears, but the longer I explored Kialo the more apparent its limitation—at least for my particular need—became clear.  Kialo is designed for dialectic debate and for the dialectical refinement of argument (both goods in themselves, where appropriate).  However, my own teaching experience (and, indeed, the history of religions!) indicates that an oppositionalist approach is not the most fruitful mode of engagement for this particular discipline.  Given the concerns outlined above about sensitivities regarding the self-perception/life/worldview of discussants, software that advocates “attack” as a mode of engagement (Kialo’s own characterisation for (at least some of) its argumentation dynamic) is not the software I’m seeking.

Kialo is certainly worth investigating. There is a lot to be said for what it offers, and I can see additional uses for it (other than what I sought it out for initially) in the religious studies programme redevelopment.  I will keep exploring it but, for the moment at least, I am still in search of my software holy grail.

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Getting Started

You can sign up to the Microsoft Education Center platform via the url: https://education.microsoft.com/en-us or you can sign up via the CPD learnonline platform after you have registered your account (figure 1). The CPD website is available through the DigitalEd knowledge platform:

Click on Discovery Tool -> Learning Pathways -> Academic Pathway

There are 6 courses which you can complete as part of your training journey. Note that if you want to complete more training courses on the platforms there are several learning pathways that you can take. I will get to those later. For illustrative purposes I will use the “Social learning using FLIPGRID” course highlighted below.

Navigating Through the Course

Once you select the course you will be bought to an overview screen as depicted in figure 2. The table of contents on the left-hand side surmises the various topics that you will review. Each section contains informative examples, case studies, videos and so on. I found the resources section very helpful as it provides a suite of tools and documents which provide further information. Throughout each of the courses that I completed I found the reflection section the most beneficial. This section encouraged me to contemplate how I would use FLIPGRID in an online classroom environment. For example, I considered using FLIPGRID to enable students to create “ice breaker” videos which introduced themselves at the start of a course. The final section in each course comprises the quiz which examinations if you have achieved the learning outcomes. Each quiz contains a minimum % score which must be achieved before completing the course. Don’t worry if you don’t get it the first time as you can take the quiz over and over until you get the minimum standard. In this case you have to answer 10 questions and achieve a score of 80% to pass. It may have taken me more than 2 attempts :).

Digital Badges

Once you successfully complete the course you will be rewarded with a digital badge (e.g validated indicator of accomplishment/skill). This is one of the main reasons why I completed the range of courses on the Microsoft Education Center. It really does gamifiy the process and enables you to share your accomplishments on social media platforms such as LinkedIn. Figure 3 highlights the Microsoft courses that I completed. This personal repository of digital badges acquired supplies ample evidence for your continuous professional development (CPD) teaching portfolio.

Learning Pathways

There are several learning pathways for educators: basic, intermediate and advanced. Each course on the intermediate pathway that I completed lasted from 30 mins to 1.5 hours (figure 4) so you can fit one course in during your lunchtime or break time. In conjunction to digital badges you are also rewarded with points for each course completed.

Final Comments

I found the Microsoft Education Center platform quite easy to use and found the reflection exercises contained within each of the courses very rewarding. I intend to use the outcomes of these reflection exercises in my online classes next semester. Overall, I would give the platform 5 out of 5 stars.

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