(Kaufman Field, Evan Featherolf. www.upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c1/kaufman_field.jpg)
Allow me to be honest: I am not much of a baseball fan. I know, know. How can I be a true, All-American male if I do not have a love for America’s game? Beats me. I tried playing baseball when I was a kid. My parents put me in both tee ball and Little League. I wanted so bad to be a hitter. Or a catcher. Something. I ended up being coached to just look tough and not swing at the ball. Oh, and I got to play left field. A lot. I just wasn’t cut out to be a big league slugger. That did not stop me from enjoying the game from time to time. I have been known to take my boys to more than a few bush league games and to watch the World Series. It also did not keep me from developing an appreciation for baseball in popular culture. Take the film Field of Dreams. The quotes from this 1989 Kevin Costner vehicle stick with me. The most famous of these quotes is most likely, “If you build it, he will come.” This quote came to me while I was reflecting on my latest EDTECH522 project, the development of an online lesson. My mind worked on that phrase and turned it into “If you build it, will they learn?”
The question, you will notice, is not “If you build it, will they come?” because they most certainly will come. A report released in 2015 by Learning House found that, of the 18.6 million students enrolled in college in 2015, around 5.5 million were studying online to some extent, either fully or partially (page 5). That equates to roughly 30% of college students. That is just college students. This number does not take into account the number of high school students enrolled in online courses via concurrent credit or dual-enrollment. The students are most definitely coming to online education. But are they learning? And how can I, as an educator with training in the design and delivery of online education, facilitate the learning process?
These are some questions that I found myself facing as I reflected on my experience in designing and creating my online course. I utilized ideas from the readings in my EDTECH 522 class to help formulate a plan to develop the course. First, I considered a topic that I had good reason to believe would be of interest to adult learners. I talked to my coworkers and settled on a class on copyright for faculty at the school where I work. It is an area that is complex and in constant flux. It is also a topic of high interest among the members of the faculty.
The second concern was making sure that I ensured the learners would be successful in engaging with the material. I utilized techniques that would create a high degree of presence in the class. This included deliberate measures to facilitate student-content, student-student, and student-instructor presence. In order to foster interaction with the content, I created authentic assignments that encouraged students to actively play with the course material. I provided students with the opportunity to create artifacts with Web 2.0 tools they could use with their students later on (virtual magazine covers on public domain and an electronic poster on copyright factors). I came back to readings from Stavredes on building a community of inquiry. I also provided multimedia content to encourage engagement with the course content. I took guidance from Baldwin & Ching and incorporated graphics and pacing to draw students into a learning story. The modules were possibly not a pure form of “interactive storytelling.” However, I drew inspiration from their writing nonetheless.
Third, I used what I have learned about rich media tutorials to create effective and engaging instructional videos for the class. I took guidance from Ruffini and created a personalized PowToon animated video introduction to the course. The video helped to establish my presence in the class as the instructor and to begin building toward a community of shared inquiry. I also employed other strategies to engage the students in the course. Class discussions provided for the students to build social and cognitive presence. The course is neatly organized and humanely paced in order to allow adequate time to process concepts, interact with other learners, and engage with the instructor. I also followed the visual design principles of CARP (contrast, alignment, repetition, and proximity) in order to create a welcoming and accessible learning environment. One major decision I made early on was the choice to use Canvas instead of Moodle. The school at which I work uses Canvas exclusively, so I knew it would be important to use the learning management system with which the learners would be most familiar and expect to use in the future.
The most difficult challenge I encountered while creating this course was keeping the technology from getting in the way of the learner. Every design decision I made had kept the learner at the center. I constantly asked myself, “How will this decision help the learner achieve the course learning objectives?” While this was a very real challenge, the focus on the learner also kept me from getting distracted by the bells and whistles of technology. The one problem I ran into was a small irritation: Canvas kept trying to automatically embed a YouTube video that the rights holder had disabled so that it could not be embedded. I checked the customer support area for Instructure/Canvas and found the answer I needed right away. Canvas was very easy to use. To be honest, I experienced very few problems.
I have taken many online classes over the years, going back to 2003. During that time, online education has changed dramatically. The development of Web 2.0 tools has been a huge boon to those involved in online education and I have been in the thick on online education the whole time. That said, I have never created an online class from scratch before. It was an enlightening experience. There is a great degree of planning that has to take place prior to course launch. The online environment does not allow for on-the-fly adjustment and winging it that can take place in a face-to-face classroom. Prepare. Prepare. Prepare. And then prepare some more. This led to the most rewarding aspect of the project, which was receiving positive feedback from classmates who reviewed the course. Receiving critical feedback that affirmed my design choices and course content was incredibly fulfilling.
So, I can build it. And, if I continue to use sound andragogical principles and instructional strategies, the students will learn. And that is a home run.
References:
Baldwin, S., & Ching, Y. (2016). 5 Features to turn your online course into interactive storytelling. eLearning Industry.com. https://elearningindustry.com/5-features-turn-online-course-interactive-storytelling
Clinefelter, D. L., & Aslania, C. B. (2015). Online college students 2015: Comprehensive data on demands and preferences. Louisville, KY: The Learning House, Inc.
Ruffini, M. (n.d.). Screencasting to Engage Learning. EDUCAUSE Review online. http://er.educause.edu/articles/2012/11/screencasting-to-engage-learning
Stavredes, T. (2011). Effective online teaching: Foundations and strategies for student success. Jossey-Bass.
Lance McGrath: EDTECH Learning Log 