Digitising a learning activity: Challenges and opportunities

Abstract

As the world contemplates a new landscape in teaching and learning due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the strategies and approaches used for teaching and learning must ensure all students have access to digital resources. This paper explores the challenges and opportunities faced by the researcher and her students when a learning activity previously implemented in face-to-face sessions is transferred into an online learning environment. The learning activity, known as Work-the-Walk (WTW), is a transformative learning activity designed by the researcher, and the researcher owns the copyright of WTW. The objectives of this paper are to identify the challenges and opportunities raised by transferring WTW to a digital format and, ultimately, to suggest the best ways to make the transition from a physical learning activity to a digital format effectively. A qualitative approach was used to obtain data for analysis and discussion. Preliminary findings suggest that the Digital WTW (D-WTW) presents two main challenges and two main opportunities for both the researcher and the students.