Due to social distancing requirements in 2020, face-to-face ABC workshops were suspended but many institutions, including UCL, wanted to continue to use ABC with colleagues and shared their experiences of moving the approach online in the 2021 toolkit.
The UCL experience
The most challenging component of ABC to replicate online was the element live participants usually found to be the most rewarding; the collaborative storyboarding. Several approaches have been tried by the community, including shared documents (Microsoft Excel, Word or Google equivalents), collaborative whiteboards (Padlet, Miro, Mural etc.) and Kanban-style tools such as Trello. At UCL the team settled on the Google whiteboard tool Jamboard and an Excel sheet to support the shape exercise. The workshop is based on the original format and has proved to be surprisingly effective. The cards and stickers can be reproduced easily online.
The social aspect of the online version is a little limited but much of the pedagogical richness remains, and the production of a shareable digital output is a real bonus.
Since 2021 on the UCL team have facilitated many ABC LD workshops online, here are the resources we use to facilitate the workshops:
- An overview of online ABC LD workshop 2021 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pnv_sFT8pQ (7’ video)
- ABC Online 2022 to share (PPT file, workshop presentation)
- Jamboard template (an example here: https://jamboard.google.com/d/1PHxGyEK0qk_T1WZYQpwu-vcvn8hP1ozSNgTEGwT_rqI/edit?usp=sharing , you can save a copy of it and adapt it)
- ABC shape tool, can be downloaded from UCL ABC website https://blogs.ucl.ac.uk/abc-ld/home/online-abc/, save it and rename it
- And (optional, depending on how much detail you would like to go into) Learning Designer tool https://www.ucl.ac.uk/learning-designer/ – an example that you can save as yours and edit https://v.gd/g71Zyg
Webinar recording
Many community members explored alternative online approaches, so we ran a webinar in May 2020: Running ABC Learning Design Online. The presenters were
- Clive Young and Nataša Perović (ABC LD team), Digital Education Advisory, UCL, London, UK, (ABC Online 27 May)
- Clare Gormley, Academic Developer, Teaching Enhancement Unit, DCU, Dublin, Ireland. Presentation (Online ABC: A contribution to the conversation)
- Tuija Marstio, Expert in Digital Pedagogy, Senior Lecturer Laurea University of Applied Sciences, Helsinki area, Finland (ABC_LD 27-5-2020)
- Allison Bell, Instructional Designer, Durham University Business School, Durham, UK (ABC webinar presentation)
The Mural version
Another very clever online version from our friends at Mural.
NEW: Presentation at UCL Education conference 2023 (slides): ABC Online: A digitally-supported module storyboarding process for staff and students,
Tim Neumann , Clive Young and Sasha Rappaport (Mural) Mural ABC templates here.
More ideas for running online versions of ABC Learning Design
- ABC and COVID-19: Learning Design in an Emergency – the lead partner of the ABC to VLE project discusses considerations for moving ABC LD online during the lockdown.
- Online ABC Learning Design Workshop Toolkit – adapted resources for running ABC workshops online by Dublin City University (Ireland)
- ABC went online and this is how we did it – Laurea University of Applied Sciences (Finland).
- ABC Toolkit online – Current and Future thinking tool – The University of Auckland (New Zealand).
- MOOC Design Mapping Framework (MDMF) – based on ABC LD by University of Glasgow (UK).
- Trello for ABC LD – Durham University Business School are using Trello to collaborate with academic colleagues to develop online modules using the ABC LD method (UK).
- Learning Designer – like ABC LD workshops, this online class planning tool is also based on the six learning types from Diana Laurillard’s Conversational Framework and helps teachers design activities and share their learning designs with each other.
- ABC LD adapted to the ICAP Framework in order to help lecturers move their teaching online – University of Potsdam (Germany).
-
ABC LD in Mural – Barbara Dolan used the Mural software to work remotely with a team of staff using a modified version of the ABC-LD process to plan their VLE course for a previously face to face workshop structured technical assistance program.
-
Online ABC LD (in Excel) by Jessica Gramp – use Excel to work through the ABC Learning Design method step by step (with the option of using Learning Designer for a visual representation of your storyboard).
- Towards an online ABC workshop: Using the ABC cards as reference for course design in online design sessions, with the help of Flinga boards. Sanna-Katja Parikka & Veera Kallunki, University of Helsinki Educational Technology Services.
- Designing and planning your online course with Trello, using ABC LD method. John Owen, Lecturer in Technology Enhanced Learning, University of Manchester.
- ABCD_ ABC to LD_Outil de scenarisation_Sorbonne Universite by Vassiliki Michou and Berni Hasenknopf, Sorbonne University. The notions of face to face / distance learning, student engagement time, synchronous / asynchronous teaching as well as the link with the learning outcomes are included.
- Online ABC LD in Excel, adapted by S. Kučina Softić i T. Radobolja, Centre for e-learning Srce, University of Zagreb, Croatia.
- Running ABC online using “draft” by Vassiliki Michou and Berni Hasenknopf, Sorbonne University. The notions of face to face / distance learning, student engagement time, synchronous / asynchronous teaching are included.
ABC LD for Schools
-
Remote learning options – ABC cards for schools by Jane Waite, Chair of Computing At School (CAS) Research Working Group, Teaching Fellow, IOC & Communicating and Teaching Computing, Queen Mary University of London
-
Online Learning Designer suite (spreadsheet canvas for learning design and web interface for visualisation) by François Jourde, Digital Education Coordinator at the European Schools (Belgium) and Erwan Gallenne, Computer science teacher, digital education coordinator, software developer (France).