Online course development takes much longer to develop. In the classroom you can follow up on any written instructions with helpful comments, suggestions and direction. This is not the case online so you have to make sure everything makes sense, flows well and is clear. This requires a significant amount of review. There is more flexibility in the traditional classroom. Online there is no flexibility. Poor instructions equal disaster.
No, I don't agree with that (less time should be invested to develop a quality online course), because, the same time should be invested to develop online course as the traditional in-class course as they both bear same weight when it comes to quality regardless of mode of delivery. We want our student to learn the course objectives same way in online course as they would learn in traditional in-class course.
I would disagree. I suspect that preparing materials on the web takes longer than doing so on ground. It takes more time to type html or other markup than to write lecture notes, as well as recording audio/video as opposed to just showing up. Also, office hours are easier when all of the students are in the same time zone.
I completely disagree with this. In a traditional classroom you can walk students through the material and show where it is and if you think of additional information that you may have ommitted you can quickly add that to your lecture. However, when you are developing an online course you don't have that option as you don't have that slotted time with students every week, unless you are using the Chat option of course. You may think of something on Friday that would have been relevant to the discussion and maybe was critical, but students already read the material and completed the assignments for the week. I know I will often think of things during my lecture that I left out when I was preparing for class. It is rare for me to think of a talking point outside of the class simply because I have some many obligations going on I don't have time to sit and rethink what I told the students and if I missed anything.
Disagree. You have to put in just as much if not more time into developing an online course.
Researching, questioning, discussion items all take significant time to prepare. If you are ill prepared for an online course, it will show just as it would for a traditional course.
I have to agree with Kathara. I have never developed an on-line course, but I do believe once it set up, if it has been designed well, takes less time to manage.
Disagree. Given the complexity of the design and instructional media requirements, online coursework may require 3-4 times the design/development time as an onground course that is lecturer-focused.
I would disagree. The time required to develop a quality online course often exceeds the time required to develop the same course for a traditional classroom because 1) all of the development and planning needs to be done before the course is delivered, 2) content needs to be created to encompass all (or at least many) learning styles instead of being focused on a few learning styles and adding more as needed by the class, and 3) setting up content with intuitive and natural navigation requires hyperlinking and other web delivery techniques in order to help students move through the course material in a logical fashion. All of these added together (and especially #3) result in a longer initial development than would be required by a traditional classroom course.
I disagree. When computer based instruction started to become popular, the formula for computing development time was 100 hours of preparation or course development for every hour of course content. With the improvements in learning management systems (LMSs), that ratio is not nearly as high as it used to be, but you still have to take the extra time to put your developed materials into the LMS. So development of online materials includes the same development time as in class materials, plus the time to put your course materials into the LMS.
I disagree. I have had the opportunity to develope both types and from experience have found that on-line developement takes just as long if not longer to develop. In class room settings you have yourself as a resource of information for the students. On-line it is differnt. Yes, you are still a resource, but actual direct contact is not there. Therefore, we have to find more resources for the students to utilize. This takes time to review these sources for there content, which takes up more time.
I agree that too much has been done to dumb down education and that the traditional rote methods of true/false, multiple choice, and other assessments from face to face classes do not apply. It takes much more time to come up with a good assessment process for online learners and it takes time to build the skills that you want the students to use in completing their assignments.
I actually believe it takes more time to develop a quality online course. An instructor must make sure the course is easy to navigate and that the assignments work well in an online environment. Initially setting up an online course can be very time consuming as the entire course is visible at one time. An instructor must make sure that all web links work, the discussion boards are set up, etc. In a traditional classroom, other than creating a syllabus and a first lesson, an instructor doesn’t need to invest a lot of time up front. Lessons can be made day to day.
However, once the online course is set up, I believe it takes less time to manage than a face-to-face course.
I disagree. The time required to develop a quality course is roughly the same. I find that it takes me a little longer to prepare online courses because I do not have as much experience with it. But every time I prepare a course I get a little faster. The thing that slows me down with the most is finding or creating exercises that work in the online environment and are still interesting for the students. With an onground class, I have a slightly different focus and am able to do more to explain the assignments to the students. This make the planning and prep stage a little shorter. But, as I previously stated, I do find that I get faster as I get more experience with online course development.
Good points - thanks for sharing! - Jon
Michael,
Yes, it can take much longer - it really depends on what you start with and how much support you have.
Jon
Don,
Good points - it really does depend on what type of support you have.
Jon
I would disagree with the statement. I believe that it actually requires more work developing online coursework, specifically with respect to discussions and lectures.
It's important to make students feel interested and involved with the online classwork, and to do so means more one-on-one attention to each individual student. Response and feedback from the instructor keeps students engaged and interactive. In a ground-class environment, students may or may not participate, nor will the instructor give feedback to each student at each class period.
Also, the lectures may require more writing and multi-media work to make the class interesting and engaging.
I disagree; in fact, more time is required to develop an online course to to the unique nature of the course and the though whuch needs to be put into it.
I think I would disagree with this statement. As of yet, I have not developed an online course, but having taken a few courses online, assessing the courses taken, and studying - to date - this learning module, etc., I would think that there are a great deal of structural, navigational, content communication, net-etiquette, quiz/exam model issues, etc., that have to be massaged and perfected for an online course to be successful. As an on-ground instructor, I can sense when possible confusion or misunderstanding may exist within the class as to a topic, discussion, quiz question, etc., but online I would imagine it will require a sincere approach to wanting to achieve full communication with students, making sure that the ability to understand, comprehend and execute is not impeded in any way.
