Humanizing Education Article

Why We Should Humanize the Online Classroom

The impact of the global pandemic was worldwide, causing many people to reach the end of 2020 with a sigh of relief. Teachers, lecturers, and learners were no exception - the impact of suddenly transitioning to a remote teaching model due to government lockdowns and educational institution closures was not…

Accessibility in Online Learning

By Michael Passetti | Education and Technology Education and technology have always influenced each other. With advances in technology, we usually see parallel advances in education, as new technologies are used for educational purposes. A particular historical example of this was the invention of the printing press in 1440, which enabled…
An open textbook

How Do We Move Courses Online for a Future Beyond COVID-19?

By Melissa Taljaard | Online Universities, remote learning, and online courses are not foreign concepts, nor are they direct results of the recent pandemic we find ourselves in. However, online education demands are high; manufacturing of this product is so ‘hot’ right now that it is being called a driving force…
A chair

Online Learning is Democratizing Higher Education

By Ross Taylor | Higher education is critical to our social and economic success; it empowers people to become capable, well-educated, and skilled citizens who can compete in a sustainable, diversified and knowledge-intensive international economy. The ever increasing demand for quality knowledge has grown to the point where accessibility has become…
Birds flying away from the forest

Online Is the New Outside

By Sinethemba Nomatye | For the past year, our lives have changed in a drastic way in which we did not see coming where we had to change the way we live, the way we work, and our daily lives because of the deadly virus called Covid-19. Everything that we used…
Photo of Cape Town showing houses and a mountain in the background

How Online Learning Has the Ability to Help Create Job Opportunities in South Africa

By Sone Thasi | A job is not just the daily duties that one performs for a company; it is the very clothes that we wear, the food we eat, the house we call home, and the schools we send our children to. It is our way of making a living,…
An arrow rising upwards, on some slopes

Boosted Online Learning Experiences During Lockdown

By Carmenita Oersen | I began my Master’s journey during the year that I saw the world go into lockdown due to Covid-19. This meant no contact sessions, no physical presence on campus, and initial struggles accessing the university’s portals as they restructured for the new “normal” and developed ways for…
A map icon showing different gradients

The Power of Prospection: Psychology Lessons for Learning Design

By Richard Mee | What is it that draws a student into learning? Why would they invest time and resources, time away from family, mental energy, into the piece of learning that I produce? Why would they choose one course over another? We invest where we expect the greatest value. The…
A sketch image of a persons face pinpointing the different angles. Edtech Design.

EdTech Design and Psychology: Why ‘Pretty’ is Not Enough

It was the height of 1922 when William Addison Dwiggins first coined, the term, graphic design to communicate his technical abilities to lay out type settings and imagery for the books he published. However, contrary to popular belief, this was not the birth of graphic design. Graphic design truly began…
Two hands on top of each other outlined

Why Authentic Learning Matters and How to Cultivate It

  By Firdous Sonia Butoni | “Why do I need to know this?” If you've asked this question during a class you were taking you surely are not alone. One of the implications of education is the disconnect between what is taught in class and what learners encounter in the…
A Room turned into an office

Death of the Office Space (5 Pros of Remote Work)

By David Atherstone | Before I begin, I need to acknowledge that this is not a one size fits all approach. I realize that companies require office space for their business to run in the manner it was designed. My articles' main focus is on Construct and the tech industry at…
A cellphone with a wifi signal icon on it

The Digital Divide in Education

By Cara O'Malley | I fully believe that online learning has the power to democratize education and change the world. We’ve never had a time like this before. One where humankind’s collective knowledge is a click away and ever-growing. One where sifting through information is as easy as a Google search and…
an old school gaming remote control

Gamification in Education

By Ofentse Mabiletsa | Studying and going to school has become a chore. Personally, I day-dreamed through school and university. Apart from not understanding why I was going to school except to ”get a job,” I was bored and frustrated 88% of my school life. Until a few months ago, I…
A desk showing a computer, and notepad

Remote Onboarding: Lessons From the Virtual Classroom

By Laura Meredith | I started my new job at Construct in July when South Africa was in Level 3 of our lockdown. By that time, most businesses had moved to a fully remote setup. I had spent more time talking to my plants than other humans, and I hadn’t met…
Banner about adding character animation to your digital course.

Add Character to Your Course

By Justin Lawrence (updated 8 February 2023) | When creating a course, you want to make sure that the learner can easily grasp the concept. Crafting perfect learning outcomes that align with the course content often takes precedence over content such as graphics, film, or animation. However, you need to be…
A crown Icon

Failure’s Fortune

By Tauriq Latief | The Master and The Student “You must unlearn what you have learned." - Yoda If you love Star Wars, you’ll most definitely recognize the above phrase. Yoda schools a young Luke Skywalker in Star Wars Episode V, The Empire Strikes Back, as part of his Jedi training. To start…
Locations that Construct is in

Better Together: Online Education Services Acquires a Majority Stake in Construct

By the Construct PR & Marketing Team | Online Education Services (OES), the leading online education enabler in Australia, has expanded its operations in the US, UK, and South Africa through a majority stake investment in Construct. Both our team and the OES team, combined, serve learners in more than 190 countries…
The Textbook course model diagram

Make Your Online Course Better Than a Textbook

By Seth Crandall | Have you seen an online course that essentially resembles a digital textbook? Such courses contain page after page after page of informational text or lecture videos. Upon arriving at the end of a module or unit, there is a multiple-choice assessment (or something similar). In the next module,…

This Chaotic Time Will Pass, Leaving a Crop of “New Learning”

By Michael Atkinson | "Today is the day after the U.S. election and it is a close one, perhaps closer than some thought it'd be. I think it's a good idea to remember that close elections are not all that infrequent, and can even feel pretty turbulent. Anyone remember the ,hanging chads in…
The word Fun, and its meaning

The Ancient Art of Fun

By Chloe Fyvie Adams | We live in a world of scheduling, where every hour is planned and spontaneity feels like an unpleasant surprise. We spend our present time calculating how we will spend future time, and our “real” adult life has been reserved for a serious nature. In between all…