Ever wonder why so many online courses are dull, uninspiring page-turners that put learners asleep? Much of the tedium comes from the way that some course authors create online courses. They approach writing an online course as if they were writing a book, academic journal article, or technical manual. The results are predictable: a very…
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When talking about user accessibility to online learning, the conversation is usually around things such as W3C web accessibility standards or the Section 508 law and standards in the United States. These are important initiatives to make online material accessible for individuals with disabilities. However, there is also a broader perspective that can be taken…
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Confession #1: I’m not a big fan of quizzes as a method of assessing student learning. Quizzes tend to measure lower level learning objectives focused on knowledge recall. Higher level learning objectives focused on applying knowledge, synthesis of knowledge, and evaluation of ideas are better measured via things like project work, essays, case studies, etc.…
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While working with a Psychology instructor recently, we engaged in a very common debate on whether or not to include a group project assignment as part of the learner assessment breakdown in a newly revised online course. She acknowledged that she had some very bad experiences in the past with group work assignments in other…
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Many of my previous articles have focused on the importance of following solid instructional design principles when developing online courses. In this article, I would like to focus on a different, but equally important facet of design, namely graphic design. There is one shortcoming that I see over and over when reviewing online courses in…
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When considering online learning, many faculty and administrators will ask me about the potential for online learners to cheat – either by having others do the work, or by plagiarizing the work of others and representing it as their own (i.e. cutting and pasting). My response is that an integrated strategy of education, penalties, technological…
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My job involves coaching and mentoring a great many instructional designers – both within our own eLearning development projects and as a service for many of our clients. One of the biggest challenges I face in this regard is getting designers to get to the essence of a training challenge and cut out all extraneous…
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I came across an interesting online conversational podcast with Clark Quinn (Quinnovation) and Cammy Bean (Kineo) on the topic of “instructional design malpractice.” Of course there is no such crime on the books, but perhaps there should be. The upshot of the admittedly tongue-in-cheek conversation was that there is too much boring eLearning out there…
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I received a press release about Thomson Learning and Tata Interactive Systems collaborating on a new project called the Thomson Learning Lot. According to the press release, “Tata will…develop systems for content-creation work flow, as well as for publishing and archiving objects, then rendering the learning material on the portal… The project involves combining such…
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If you are in any way connected with the fields of training, learning and development, or eLearning, you are probably regularly inundated with messages about the wonders of mobile learning. Mobile devices, such as smartphones, personal digital assistants (PDAs), and tablet computers are becoming ubiquitous and increasingly powerful with respect to their range of functionality.…
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