Course Design Suggestions

Hello all. Last week I attended the League for Innovation Conference on Information Technology in Salt Lake City Utah. While there, I participated in the Online Teaching and Learning Track of sessions. A couple of great ideas that I would like to share with you:

1) Two presenters made mention of doing "trials" during the first week of class. What they mean by this is to give your students

• a short test and assignment sample so that they can get use to the interface with CE6.
  
• an introduction or other short ice breaker during the first week to get them acclimated to reading and responding to the discussion board.
• Any other "test runs" of technology that may be used during the duration of the course.
  

The benefits of which are to lessen the frustration for students trying to understand the technology, answer questions before grade anxiety plays a part, and to identify technical obstacles. This may take time at first, but could save the instructor and students valuable time and headaches later.

2) Extensively try out new tools and technology within your course in a testing environment before trying to execute it within your course. Even if you cannot fully try out the idea, you will gain exposure and credible experience.

One study at the conference found that nearly 65 percent of interviewed students felt more comfortable in online courses where instructors could convey prior experience (whether success or failures) about preparing to implement technology in their online course.

Hope you find this useful!