This assignment, spanning course planning, content development through web design; represents an intense and extensive constructivist journey. Reflecting on my blog posts from the past few weeks only skims the surface of the experience. Not only am I newly-equipped with content creation, I have greatly expanded my knowledge and respect of good code. Knowing very little at the outset about HTML and CSS in particular, I experimented with three HTML editor programs and undertook a great variety of online tutorials, Moodle documentation searches, and outreach to my community of practice. After much trial and error I was left with an HTML code that was a complete mess of bits and pieces from the individual editors. I cleaned up my basic structure in notepad and using this structure, the content into a streamlined product that I feel could actually be applied in a real-world context.
General Course Context:
While the pre-placement course is hypothetical, the proposed internship program is not: it is described in the CAF Campus Operational Framework as a steady-state strategic capability that would “…engage suitably qualified students from colleges or other academic institutions to help develop high-quality learning content.” (p. 22, National Defence, 2013). The internship is prospected to be coordinated nationally but managed at local training authorities, of which there are eleven potential sites across Canada.
Structure and Content:
Theoretical grounding for course content and design started with the big-picture theory considerations of Anderson’s (2008) Towards a Theory of Online Learning and Bates and Poole’s (2003) Framework for Selecting and Using Technology. Actual authoring of introductory course content was a new domain for me, and so practical support for content creation came from two OER resources: Design and Teach a Course from the Carnegie Mellon Eberly Center for Teaching Excellence & Educational Innovation, and Training Educators to Design and Develop ODL Materials (2008) from the Commonwealth of Learning. In addition, design considerations were informed exploration and application of the ETEC565a eLearning Toolkit section on Web Design and HTML authoring.
Course and Module Structure:
Because of the mandatory nature but short time-frame of this course, it was a learner-centered decision to provide a familiar interface for a broad range of students. Without knowing the participant’s prior knowledge or experience with Moodle, I decided the best way to support this goal to do this was to structure the course look and act like a website. This also speaks to the ease of use construct of the SECTIONS framework (Bates and Poole, 2003).
Course and Module Content:
The knowledge center of this course designed to provide a standardized baseline for students embarking upon their internship. As such, I have kept the required materials at a minimum, while providing ample opportunity to reflect on each section of the text; best practices as noted by Anderson (2008).
Because the course is a mandatory pre-requisite, and to encourage active participation in the forums, the assessment is structured around mandatory participation on a pass/fail basis, as well as qualitative feedback from the instructor and peers. This supports the SECTIONS (2003) construct of teaching and learning as well as Anderson’s (2008) concept of assessment-centered environment: Students will be engaged in authentic activities that supports future participation in the internship program, in addition, peer assessment for a wiki project will facilitate the knowledge development of students as well as help decrease the assessment burden of the instructor. Because the stakes are high with the combination of a pass/fail assessment but the course is a mandatory component of their following internship, additional learner-centered environment considerations result in multiple avenues students to seek and receive help.
Introductory Activity:
The introductory activity includes a textual introduction, pre-existing knowledge statement, as well as a personal story delivered through toon. Tooning has been described as a foundational and established component of educational technology (Petrina, 2011), also serving the learner- and community-centered environments in this module. In their discussions of the theory and measure of online social presence, Biocca, Harms and Burgoon (2003) note that it is important to mediate the sense of “being with another.” While the text component of the icebreaker is intended to identify pre-existing knowledge, the toon is intended to develop and evoke a sense of trust, as each story is a personal account of choice and circumstance.
I choose this tooning activity because it not technically demanding (drag-and-drop interface), results in a good looking artifact, and it illustrates a personal element to the starting community of practice. I have included my own example to ground students with expected communication, as well as to further develop the community of practice.
Web Design Considerations:
- A simplified student view including a landing page with one link to “news and announcements,” importance as identified by Ausburn (2004); and one link to the course website. All other pages that comprise the Moodle module content are restricted from student view.
- Multiple navigation options, including linear navigation available on the footer and index navigation in the custom HTML sideblocks.
- A standard header and footer fashioned using horizontal linebreaks. With my user permissions on MET Moodle, I can’t access the course stylesheet, otherwise I could have created standardized CSS header and footer.
- Ample white space. I limited the amount of text content per page and restricted line width using a div tags. I also ensured that images had a white-space buffer, and kept a standard paragraph break between text and the header/footer lines.
- A course schedule provided in PDF format, as HTML tables are commonly advised against in web design literature.
- A course logo that appears on every page to provide a cohesive experience throughout the course site, and links back to the home page if clicked.
- Optimized images files that support necessary illustration, without superfluous use of images.
- A link to the announcement forum, help section, and forum search option that appears on every page.
- A theme that corresponded to the look and feel of a government-based program.
References:
Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
Ausburn, L. (2004). Course Design Elements Most Valued By Adult Learners In Blended Online Education Environments: An American Perspective. Educational Media International, 41(4), 327-337. Retrieved February 9, 2013, from http://www.uwec.edu/AcadAff/resources/edtech/upload/CourseDesignElementsMostValuedByAdultLearners.pdf
Bates A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A framework for selecting and using technology. In A.W. Bates & G. Poole, Effective teaching with technology in higher education (pp. 75-108). San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. 4.
Biocca, F., Harms, C., & Burgoon, J. K. (2003). Toward a more robust theory and measure of social presence: Review and suggested criteria. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments, 12(5), 456-480. Retrieved February 9, 2014, from http://dx.doi.org/10.1162/105474603322761270
Design & Teach a Course. (n.d.). Eberly Centre for Teaching Excellence and Educational Innovation. Retrieved February 10, 2014, from http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/designteach/index.html
National Defence (2013). Learning without boundaries: CAF campus operational framework. Individual Training and Education Modernization Initiative, Canadian Defence Academy [Kingston].
Petrina, S. (2011). ETEC 511: Foundations of educational technology course syllabus. Media and Technology Studies. Retrieved February 9, 2014, from https://blogs.ubc.ca/etec/files/2012/03/ETEC511-2011.pdf
Training Educators to Design and Develop ODL Materials (VUSSC course) . (2008). Commonwealth of Learning. Retrieved February 9, 2014, from http://www.col.org/RESOURCES/CRSMATERIALS/VUSSCCRSMAT/Pages/TrainEd.aspx
Web design and HTML authoring. (2011, December 21). ETEC565 eLearning Toolkit. Retrieved February 7, 2014, from http://wiki.ubc.ca/Web_design_and_HTML_authoring
