Session 10: Responses to Prompts

1.      Identify five key concepts or themes related to eLearning Design and Development and explain what you know about each.

1. Underlying Goal is an essential piece of the design and development of an eLearning course.  It is not imperative to understand the needs and wants of your clients, but it is also crucial to gather as much information as possible to ensure that the goal(s) of your client(s) and project come to fruition.  It is also important to keep your goal simple and only teach what learner’s need to learn.

2. Learner/Instructor needs and abilities is another key concept of eLearning design and development.  Very much like understanding the needs and wants of your clients to define a goal, it is equally important to understand, anticipate and incorporate resources to accommodate the needs and abilities of both facilitator and learner.  Because the instructor(s) have to facilitate the learning activities and objectives and learner(s) have reached those objectives, both instructor and learner have a symbiotic relationship.

3. Test or exams can be used to gauge learners’ ability to recall facts discuss in the readings and lectures in the course or gauge learners’ understanding of material presented in the course.  The goal of the exam to measure students’ knowledge and how well students’ achieve the objectives of each lesson, but it is also equally important to create tests that can be reliable tools that reflect the expectation(s) of the course.

4. Learning Activities (Absorb, Do, Connect) are activities that produce different sets of learning experiences, which is driven by the goals and objectives of the course.  Again, the instructor has to go back to the underlying goal and objectives of the lesson to incorporate a variety of activities to accomplish those goals.  I believe in an eLearning environment a combination of these “Absorb, Do, and Connect” make learning a bit more interesting and engaging. 

5. Media selection is important in the design of eLearning because it keep students active and engaged in the content.  Because it is important to express clear and concise ideas to learners, selecting the correct media to achieve one of the designed objectives becomes extremely crucial.  More importantly, media selection can reduce the amount of ambiguity in a lesson to create a learning environment similar to face-to-face instruction.

 

2. Speculate on the future of eLearning and what your role in that future might be.

            I speculate the future of eLearning will expand from higher education into K-12 and continue to develop in higher education to include international students that do not have to physically be in close proximity to their school.  With the development of the Internet and the affordability of personal computers, I predict eLearning will one day take the place of traditional classroom instruction/training and my role in that future will be both as an online guidance counselor and instructor.  As eLearning begins to trickle down from higher education to elementary and secondary institutions of learning, the demand for online guidance counselors and instructions will increase.

3. Revise the eLearning development template/instructional design process you developed earlier for yourself. Be sure to:

a) List all of the roles of people who will be involved in the typical development.

1. Project Manager: liaison with client and subject experts; installation and maintenance of the package; management of piloting and evaluation

2. Instructional Designer: Content analysis, curriculum design, and screen design. 

            3. Graphics Designer: Development and production of graphics and animation

            4. Programmer: Coding; integration with learning management system

            5. Audio-visual (Media) Coordinator: Sound and video production; still photography

b) Identify your role.

My role would be either Project Manager or Instructional Designer, or a combination of both.

 

c) Explain the type of courses or other eLearning development the template is for (higher education course, corporate training etc.)

            This type of eLearning development template is for a higher education course

d) Provide a clear label for all included elements.

*11 step instructional design process as presented in the text with my provisions from the previous week:

1. Identify your underlying goal—What is the goal of the course? What is your goal for the course? Is it financial, intellectual capital, attract/ retain customers/ employees, operational, or public image? What is the purpose of this course?

2. *Analyze learners' needs and abilities/ Instructor’s needs and abilities-What are the needs and abilities of students and/or instructors?  What are the most important needs and abilities of the learner for this class?  What are the minimal skills set and traits must the learner have in order to successfully complete the class?

3. Identify what to teach—What will students learn?  Will these subjects bridge the gap between what the students already know and the goal(s) you set for this course?

4. Set learning objectives-- What is the learning objective of this course?  Is it to create/ design X that does Y? Decide X, given Y or Do procedure X to accomplish Y?

5. *Modify objectives when necessary—It is ok to revisit objectives and modify the areas that does not accomplish or hinders the underlying goal.

5. Pick the approach to meet each objective-- What types of activities do you do in your class? Lecture, demonstration, student work, reading, discussion? What activities do you feel are the most essential to the course?

6. Decide the teaching sequence of your objectives-- In other words, what order would you like to see your students learn the objectives of the class

7. Create objects to accomplish objectives—completes a learning objective and can verify it.

8. Create tests-- What types of test would like to see created for this course: learning games, practices, simulations, or work assignments? What would you like the test to gauge? Knowledge of the material or something else?

9. Select learning activities --What activities do you have in classroom based course? Which of these do you feel are the most important to your course?(Not all activities may have an online equivalent, or will need to be adapted for online use)

10. Choose Media—Select appropriate media to will maximize the learning experience and develop the skills and knowledge necessary to fulfill the expectation of the goal(s) of the course.  

11. *Course Evaluation—Test the course and evaluate areas of improvement, or modify sections that no longer fit the goals of the course.

e) Provide a clear description of each included element.

            See above

f) Provide a narrative explaining how the template would be used.

            This template is designed for the used in a higher learning environment or can be modified to fit the needs of K-12 instruction.  The design and development will first assign roles and responsibilities, then follow the 11 steps to meet the expectations of the instructor and requirements of the educational institution.  Most importantly, I want to express that this template is merely a guide and changes can be made to fit the needs and abilities of the designer and audience it is created for—very much like the edits I made to the original 11 Steps of Instructional Design.

 

Sources:

Horton, W. (2012). Social learning. In E-learning by design. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Newberry, B. Media For eLearning (Word Document). Retrieved from http://studyonthebeach.com/csusb/classes/fall2012/etec_541_fall_2012/

Newberry, B. New Media. (Word Document). Retrieved from http://studyonthebeach.com/csusb/classes/fall2012/etec_541_fall_2012/

Newberry, B. New Media Second Life. (Word Document). Retrieved from http://studyonthebeach.com/csusb/classes/fall2012/etec_541_fall_2012/

Newberry, Brian. Content, Instructor and Student Characteristics Word Document). Retrieved from http://studyonthebeach.com/csusb/classes/fall2012/etec_541_fall_2012/