I disagree.
Online courses only differ in the manner of delivery of the material, online vs. in a physical classroom. That being said, the differences are narrowing. The technology now allows us to deliver lectures in real time. Software like Adobe Connect allows the instructor to speak to the students in real time, and use power point slides, or other visual aids to deliver lectures.
The reasons why it's important to take the time to do a good job in an online environment are the same as in a physical classroom. i.e we want our students to master the material. And, it takes time to plan, prepare and deliver the course material properly.
In fact, it can take considerably more time to prepare an online course properly when using a new platform. In addition, as others have mentioned, online classes require more written communication. That, in turn, means more proofreading.
Preparing a course from scratch online and on-ground both can take a significant amount of time. Overall, the online course would take longer. The online course must also be completed almost entirely before the start of the course where the on-ground course could be produced or modified as the weeks progress.
After development, the online course may take less time to deliver but interaction and assessments will add more time overall versus the on-ground time commitment each semester.
It does take time to develop a traditional classroom curriculum but it would take far more time developing an online class. All quizzes, chat topics, papers, assignments, etc have to be created before the class starts because all information about the online class should be apparent to the students when they first start.
Do you think that some instructors would skimp on a class to save on time?
I agree with John's assessment. Having participated in the development of several classes, both on-ground and online, the online classes require much more preparation time before being ready to present. I'm seeing a general consensus of opinion, reading through this thread, that most agree online development takes longer. I also believe that wether you are working alone or on a team and specifically, what subject you are developing will be a key variable to how one perceives the question.
Indeed it is. You must check all links to make sure they are still active as well.
I would have to strongly disagree. The time required to develop on online course is far greater than the time to develop the same course in a traditional classroom format. Design, creating media, ease of navigation, text, conversion to online, creating interest, assessments, making up for the lack of face to face contact, etc. are all time consuming activities.
Maureen
Along with making sure the hyperlinks that you use are active!
I believe that it takes more time to develop an online course than on-the-ground. Because there is no way to "improvise" with an online course, extra planning, creative thinking, and detail-oriented tweaking are needed to perfect the online course.
Since I have never developed an online course, I am not entirely sure, but it seems to me that it would be at least as demanding to develop online instruction as it is to develop classroom instruction. In teaching English, for example, much would have to be explained in writing that might be demonstrated with examples and discussion in a classroom setting.
Do you feel that a webinar or conference calls with your students would help with this issue?
Completely disagree. Online courses need to overcome the lack of face-to-face interaction. As a person who have taken college online courses I feel I miss on that. Also, online courses are more academically geared and I've found there's more time invested to cover all topics of the material.
I would disagree with that statement. I would think that depending on the instructors experience it may even take longer to develop the on-line course. At the minimum, I beleive it would take the same amount of time to preprae content for an on-line course as it would for a traditional classroom.
Hi Shelly,
I disagree. The time invested to develop a quality online course is at a minimum the same as and quite likely more than the time required to develop the same course for a traditional classroom delivery.
Because of the different dynamics, material that works well in a traditional classroom doesn't necessarily work in the online environment and often needs to be redesigned for online use. Simply taking material that was developed for classroom delivery and transfering it online usually isn't effective. Even supplementary materials such as PowerPoint slides, course notes and handouts usually need to be adapted. All of this takes time!
Thanks.
Susan Ceklosky
On the contrary, I think it is a more involved process. There are more factors for consideration - technology use and knowledge of participants, scheduling issues, learning environments, levels of learners knowledge, etc. Since there is no face time and less of immediate feedback, assessments must be more astute and accurate.
My experience has been that the online course takes significantly more time to develop, and also to facilitate while the class is being conducted.
Since the face to face feedback is not present online, you must plan and implement how you will overcome this lack. Your lecture must be converted to a multimedia presentation which involves at least more graphics to keep interest and audio to convey content. The lessons should be chunked down to manageable times and intractions planned to maintain interest.
During the course, you have office hours, papers to grade, plus discussion boards to moderate, and for some courses chat sessions.
False! From my limited online teaching experience (I've been teaching online since May), it can take just as long if not longer to set up a quality online course. From what I've learned in these lessons so far, it will take longer. In addition to teaching composition for a for-profit school, I also teach an online literature class for a private university. This lesson has opened my eyes to a great deal of new ideas that I can use to improve the quality of my online classroom in order to help my students learn to love literature as much as I do. I know when I taught on campus classes that I never wrote out my lectures--I made notes to keep myself on task, but with an online classroom, I don't have that luxury. I need (not want) my students to understand the material as much as possible, so I love this idea of incorporating the assignments into the lecture. I had never seen that before, but I will definitely be applying these ideas more to my classroom. Thanks!
I disagree because the lesson plan will not be different (all the information presented in lecture is the same as what will be sent out over the internet). I think the development of an online course will require more time to develop. If you are presenting something in a classroom and using a visual aid, the students can see what you have presented. In an online course, you have to take pictures of it and describe it in more detail so the student that is looking at a one dimensional representation of what your in class students saw as three dimensional object will get the same information.
Take care,
Mike Vigh
The calendar is a great tool. I would encourage the students to utilize their calendar as well.
Efficient tracking of the course is one of my concerns as well. I like how you are using reminders on your claendar and will definitely want to try this approach.
