I found this assignment to be challenging and exciting. It was my first experience designing a course on a LMS. I chose to use Blackboard, since the college where I recently started working uses this LMS exclusively, and in the future I will likely need to create and modify online content for course delivery. The college is very interested in exploring new learning technologies and modes of delivery. I could imagine a fully online course, or at least course component, being of interest to the ESL department in the near future.

Through this project, I had the opportunity to learn about Blackboard tools and get a better understanding of the limitations of many of them, especially in terms of having students complete group language production tasks. I am used to using more open platforms, so it was a challenge to design activities suitable for this environment.

The readings related to instructional design helped me more fully understand the backward design approach, how to develop very clear and measurable learning outcomes, how to design educative assessments that are well aligned with the outcomes, how course activities must prepare students to succeed in the assessments, and more importantly how to actually apply this knowledge to a course. I also gained an understanding of how to use storyboards to organize content in more logical ways online and different ways to structure learning paths. I based the course loosely on a course I am currently teaching, but the more I read, the more I my online course veered away from what I am currently teaching.

I now feel much more confident making decisions around instructional design and actually creating courses. I really look forward to working on the content module next.

Check out my introductory module project documentation here.