PROJECT DOCUMENTATION
Course link: http://moodle.met.ubc.ca/course/view.php?id=658§ion=2
SUBMISSION UNIT
For Assignment #3, I created a content module for Module 1 of my course “Understanding WCAG2.0 and how to Build an Accessibility Compliant Course.” The title of this module is “An Introduction to Accessibility”.
TARGET AUDIENCE
The target audience for this module is vast. They include e-learning content developers, e-learning authoring tool developers, web accessibility evaluation tool developers, and anyone who want or need an accessible website to be created. Organizations that may use this include governments – WCAG2.0 AA standards is a Treasury Board mandated requirement across all departments in the Government of Canada; and private corporations that produces e-learning such as Canadian e-Learning companies, D2L (Design2Learn) and Instrux Media (the company I work for). It can also be used by developers of e-Learning authoring tools such as Adobe Captivate, Articulate Storyline or Trivantis Lectora (in fact, Captivate claims to create accessible courses – whether that level of accessibility matches the level required by the client is another matter as WCAG2.0 itself has 3 levels of compliancy.)
FUNCTIONALITY & AFFORDANCES OF MOODLE
The Learning Management System (LMS) I used for this assignment was Moodle. As an LMS, it had some great tools for the instructor such as grading and reporting functionalities, quizzes, and discussion boards. The great part about Moodle is that it can completely track which activities the student has or has not done. I have set mine so that the students must view each of the three SCORM packages, pass the quiz, and create and respond to a post in the discussion board in order to complete the module in its entirety. Moodle also allows the instructor to decide if the student can check off their own completion or to completely eliminate the completion requirement, which is what I did for the References for this section as it was not a mandatory section in completing the course.
For the discussion boards, it could be set up in several different formats to best suit the needs of the course. It is also a closed forum which allows a measure of security and control as students must log in in order to access the course and the discussion. When students participate in the discussion board, the LMS automatically indicates who created the post or response. This avoids the problem that the internet often runs across of trolls (people who post inconsiderate comments that they don’t have to be held accountable for as they often do not reveal their true identities). A closed forum ensures that only students registered in the course can see and participate in the discussion creating a safe and positive learning environment. It also makes students accountable for the comments that they post so that they will be more constructive.
The quiz functionality is probably one of the most impressive parts of Moodle. It allows the instructor to set up various styles of questions, create personalized feedback to each question, or just a general response to all the questions. It also allows the instructor to set up multiple attempts for each question and to provide different hints each time, with the intention that the hints would become increasingly obvious with each attempt. While I did not select this option for my quiz which is rather straightforward, this is a great functionality particularly if the intention of your assessment it to help the student learn the concept rather than to simply determine whether they learn the material. The quiz allows for very detailed reporting and even allows certain questions with multiple answers (such as a multiple choice question that must select more than one answer) to be calculated as percentage of the mark allocated to that question. For example, if a multiple choice question had four correct answers, the quiz will give 25% of that question’s worth to each correct answer.
LIMITATIONS OF MOODLE
One of the greatest limitations of Moodle is its aesthetics. There is a limited number of themes to choose from, and as a course administrator rather than the site administrator, the ability to alter these themes were even more limited. While Moodle is built on the codes submitted by the users, the fact that it is so heavily coding-based meant that it was difficult to navigate if the user was unfamiliar with HTML coding. This made Moodle very user-unfriendly. For example, there is no simple way to resize the text (a common function on Word and many text-related and even graphic creation programs). The size of the text has to be changed in the HTML coding in Moodle. For someone who does not have any background in coding, this increases the learning curve required for Moodle. Even using the HTML coding functionality, I struggled with some of the coding disappearing such as the CSS styles I was setting for the body, which forced me to repeat coding descriptions for each paragraph instead. Even with this level of detail, the text would sometimes change to be completely different despite the coding being exactly the same between two paragraphs. For example, a 12-point font of the same font face may look different for two paragraphs on the same page even though the backend coding is exactly the same. In such a case, I would completely delete the section and redo it which sometimes helped. This created a lot of rework, unnecessary stress and wasted time.
OPEN ACCESS PLATFORM VS. LOCALLY HOSTED LMS
This is a course where the learners are working adults who are taking this to enhance their working skillset. This course is marketed towards organizations whose workers would gain to learn this skillset. That said, if this was a real course, it would most likely be hosted on a LMS, such as Moodle, and owned by that organization. By not having the course on as an open resource, the organization can ensure only their employees have access to this course that they paid for, and not just anyone on the internet. As I already touched on previously in the discussion board section, having a closed platform ensures that student data is secure, and this remains true of the entire course, not just the discussion board though security in the discussion board keeps the trolls out and ensures the students have a positive and constructive learning environment.
UPDATES, IT SUPPORT, CONTRACTS, & FINANCES
The customer company who owns the LMS to host the course must have the IT support to maintain it. However, the instructional design company who created this course may also have a contractual obligation to provide technical support depending on the contract. As this course is designed by a third-party, any updates would fall outside the scope of the original project and would required a new contract to make the updates. Changes may be made if the instructional design company neglected to meet some of the agreed on requirements originally set out at the beginning of the project.
INSTRUCTIONAL DESIGN
This content module is divided into five activities. The activities include three SCORM packages each containing a sub-module, a discussion board that learners must participate in by posting their response to the discussion question and replying to another student, and finally a summative quiz at the end of the course. When the student completes each of the activity, the completion checkbox will automatically be checked.
The course content is divided into three sub-modules to engage learners in microlearning which has been shown to be an effective learning style for adult learners, such as those in this course. Furthermore, by dividing the module into the various sub-modules, it highlights the focus of each of these three unique learning points – what is accessibility, why is it important and what is the WCAG2.0. The learners are required to review all three sub-modules.
There are also two formative activities, both drag-and-drop activities, to engage the learner and to act as checkpoints to their knowledge up to that point. These activities are located at the end of module 1.1 and module 1.3. No knowledge check is included in section 1.2 as the requirement to participate in the discussion board, students must express what they learn in their own words, replaces the need for a formative knowledge check activity. The discussion board also acts as a means of peer-to-peer communication although the instructor can also comment, creating student-to-teacher communication as well.
Finally the summative quiz at the end is put in place to ensure that the students understand all the important points of the module. It consists of seven questions and the students must answer all questions correctly in order to receive a check in the checkbox.
As this is a course sold to an external client rather than a university building a course for its own purpose, the course deliberately leaves the role of the instructor flexible and the learner can be completely self-guided. The instructor can have very little participation (such as only responding when the student emails them with questions), or a lot (such as posting news updates constantly and actively engaging with the students in the discussion board and providing feedback). This design is because many companies that purchase such a course may have anywhere from one student or a group of students taking the course at any time, if it is only one or a few students, the company may not want to employ the resources of a trainer to guide this course and prefer the student to simply learn on their own.