Sharing the Wealth

This month the Online Course Development Team is sharing “the wealth of knowledge” available on the web. Each week during the month of June, we’ll highlight an online article that we found worthy of discussion, particularly interesting or profound. Okay… maybe not profound, but definitely interesting!
As you already know, collaboration is a big part of how we [...]

Read Full Post »

Instructional Design with Community in Mind

What do you do in your spare time? Quilt? Fish? Read? We all have hobbies that we enjoy. However, to knit, fish, or read, we had to learn how to do it first.
Did your grandmother teach you to quilt? Maybe your father took you to the lake and taught you how to put the worm [...]

Read Full Post »

What does Community have to do with it?

 As educators one of our primary charges is providing an environment that fosters learning. How do we accomplish that foundational step, not only in a face-to-face setting, but how can we hope to establish such a climate online, where we lack many of the visual cues from our students?
I recently had a conversation with a [...]

Read Full Post »

Interactivity in Online Education

Online courses which include interactivity are more engaging and effective for learners. Interactivity gives students the opportunity to practice new skills and receive feedback while working at their own pace. It’s one of the features of learner-centered instructional design, rather than content-centered design.
William Horton, author of Designing Web-Based Training, says “Interactivity boosts learning. People learn [...]

Read Full Post »