Carpe Diem is a well-researched, well-rehearsed process that has been delivered in excess of 40 times within the University of Leicester and at more than 20 other institutions, both nationally and internationally.

At the heart of Carpe Diem is a two-day workshop in which discipline-specific course teams, in collaboration with subject librarians and learning technologists, plan, implement and review student-centred e-learning designs, focusing on learner activity, group work and assessment for learning.

By the end of the second day, course teams have a blueprint and storyboard for their course, a set of peer-reviewed online learning activities (or e-tivities) running on their institutional virtual learning environment (VLE), a transferable model for e-tivity design and a practical action plan.

The Carpe Diem process comprises:

• A pre-workshop meeting
  For motivation and preparation: Our facilitator will meet with core members of the course team to clarify the aims of the course they intend to design for, explore what material already exists and what ideas the course team have agreed on.
• The two-day Carpe Diem workshop

  

  The practical workshop involves a small course team in a single discipline (4 to 20 participants), a subject librarian and a learning technologist. The workshop takes place on two consecutive days, normally from 9.30 to 5.00. All team members must attend on both days. The second day of the workshop is run in a computer lab. At the University of Leicester, they are hosted by the Media Zoo.
• Follow-up meeting
  To review the latest state of the online course with the course team, and fine-tune the work done at and since the workshop. This normally takes between half a day and one day. It is conducted in a computer room.

Seize the day! image courtesy of Curtis Perry