The experience of completing this assignment was very challenging yet rewarding. Some elements took more time and exploration, while others were easier.
It is a very hard task to create an entire online course, as well as just a part of it pretending to be a part of the whole. I think that I still miss some elements to achieve the clarity and experience of the whole course.
The course I created is a course on digital storytelling in education for adult learners, mostly teachers. I included only 5 learning modules while the whole course will have more modules.
Here are short accounts on dealing with each of the site elements:
• Overall quality of work, as per the overall standards listed above in addition to the calibre of the web design (including sophistication of look and feel and how user-friendly the site is) – I tried to keep my site as simple as it can be in, not including any distractions. I used simple pages created in Dreamweaver. I used traditional paintings to illustrate concepts.
• Splash page with a customized GUI with at least four (4) navigational components – It has been pretty challenging to learn how to do it. My solution was to create learning modules and then hide them from the front page by changing number of learning modules in course settings.
• Two (or more) complete learning modules (module shells or placeholder pages not acceptable), largely based on HTML pages – I used pages created in Dreamweaver and then uploaded them in Moodle.
• One (or more) module programmed for selective release – I left two modules visible, while others are hidden. I also set dates for the quiz according to the course schedule.
• Two general discussion forum topics – It was technically an easy task.
• One additional group discussion forum for (at least) 2 groups (must set up groups; they need not be populated) – I opened two groups and created only on forum with group settings. It should be functioning in a way that Moodle automatically opens a forum for each group.