Saturday, August 25, 2012

Designing Online Courses-ONTL-7101



I have to admit that when I first began to contemplate what it would be like to take this course, I wasn't quite sure what to expect. I never thought of myself as a designer in the basic sense but after thinking about it some more, I realized that we are all designers to some degree or other. The only difference is what we are actually designing. For example, a cook has to design and then cook a meal; a person who makes clothes conceptualizes them on paper first (design) and then makes them. An architect designs buildings; and so forth and so on.

I had some reservations about designing online courses because along with laying the course out in great detail the way I want students to see it, I know I will have to ensure that nothing is overlooked, or, if it is, something that will not require an in-depth amount of tweaking. Of course, as courses go through their evolution, they will have to be updated and tweaked but that is just another part of the process, kind of like adding an addition on to a house that a family has outgrown.

In the previous two (2) courses, Introduction to Online Teaching and Learning and Online Facilitation, I learned that online courses have to be user-friendly, not overly packed with information, have to be easily navigable, and instructions have to be presented clearly and it is probably a good idea to have important items in more that one place so that they are not overlooked or buried. "The devil is in the details" is a cliche, albeit an accurate one.

In considering the course I would like to attempt to design as an online course, I think my class room experience will be invaluable in terms of what to include, how to include them and will also outline some challenges that I have to address. For example, in the traditional class room environment, I already require students to collaborate in groups to create and present projects/assignments. This fosters group cohesion, an important ingredient in online teaching and learning. Also, I usually have students complete at least one or two presentations to become acquainted with speaking in front of an audience and addressing questions. In an online environment, presentations (i.e., Powerpoints) would work well, especially within a Course Management System (CMS) such as Blackboard.

I think the differences between an online class of this nature versus the traditional classroom environment are mainly in the tools used. For example, all information in the traditional class would have to be reflected in the online environment. The only issue I forsee that may present a challenge is how I would address meeting the needs of disability students and how that would look in an online class.

In this course, I want to learn more about the design process in greater detail, examine some courses with different design elements, and if/how the technology is roped into this process. Additionally, I want to learn more about the best practices so that my designed course ensures that students will have the best learning experience.

No comments:

Post a Comment