Erin,
Frustration should not be part of the learning curve. We want students to soak up the info.
Shelly Crider
I fully agree that the look and feel is just as important as the material studied. If the information is not accessible and the platform is not user friendly, students will be unable to benefit and learn from the course. Learning new material is sometimes challenging enough without the added hurdle of try to navigate a poorly designed classroom.
We would never hide a paper test for students to find somewhere in the room before they could take it in the traditional classroom, but if the page to access quizzes is not linked clearly in an online classroom tool bar, it has the same frustrating effect!
Hannah has a very good point with regards to clutter. Many of my students have ADD or ADHD, so too much clutter is a huge distraction. It is important in any career education class, in-class or online, to be neat, simple, and organized in presentation of information.
TAMARA,
Resources are so nice! Thank you for the resource you gave!
Shelly Crider
So far in the training, it is obvious that building a positive rapport with students is important their experience. One way rapport can be created is through synchronous communication. We get a lot of information through nonverbal communication. The look is part of this message we are sending about the course. I agree that is critical to send the right message and it does make a difference.
In a quest to help understand this more, I found that the following article pretty interesting when it comes to ideas of building rapport and creating an environment for learning. The article stated, "Establishing "an especially harmonious or sympathetic connection" with students is not likely the result of any single act. Rather, rapport is more likely the result of many things done consistently right." (Rapport-Building: Creating Positive Emotional Contexts for Enhancing Teaching and Learning/ By William Buskist and Bryan K. Saville at Auburn University http://www.psychologicalscience.org/teaching/tips/tips_0301.cfm). Synchronous communication can be part of this rapport process if students know that synchronous resources are available each week.
Having the ability to communicate is part of the look and the feel of a course. I did a search for more synchronous collaboration tools and found this website: http://www.mindmeister.com/12213323 . It gives an overview of different types of online tools and software based on different purposes: Event scheduling, Chatting, Instant Messaging, Web Presenting, Video Casting, White Boarding and Work Grouping are options for synchronous communication. I was surprised by how many options are available and more research is needed. Chat tools that I have used in the past are AIM and Live Chats/Seminars and holding office hours.
Rapport building is a third benefit. For example, topics like the weather can often bring students together as they share part of their day during a chat function. Chat functions allow students learn that they are not alone with their questions.
Synchronous communication give students the opportunity to make a personal connection with both instructors and peers. Many students may not choose to take part in synchronous communication but will feel good that it is an option. If they do, they will see that there are many benefits in creating better communication.
This is as important as the links and the colors we use in building a class.
Loren,
That is so true! Who really does not like technology.....when it works correctly!!
Shelly Crider
Given the richness of easily accessable internet content anything less than a well produced combination of video, powerpoint, audio, also allowing for creative presentation is absolutely necessary. Anything less will bore the student. Schools should easily understand the mandate for quality presentation by observing online training sites such as Lynda.com (not a college), and quality entertainment sites such as TWIT.tv (technology based infotainment). Too many online experiences are produced with old-tech, poor english speakers, and instructors with little or no knowledge of how to present on camera. Imagine your most boring teacher... now imagine that online in a video.
Vickie,
This increases the interest the student has in the subject as well!
Shelly Crider
I agree the look and feel of an online course is important as the knowledge and skills design.
carol,
Oh so true! I have had students give up due to not knowing exactly how to get to an ebook.
Shelly Crider
I'm even thinking that in some ways, the feel of an online course is even more important in some respects as the knowledge and skills gleaned from the course. The reason I say this is that as a student in an online course there were several students who dropped the course because they became overwhelmed or frustrated with one of the logistical aspects of the course. Without a neighbor to talk to that could be sitting next to them in a classroom, students just drop the course.
Jason ,
The new 2010 Microsoft PowerPoint has a way to add voice to them...this is a great way to add to the course.
Shelly Crider
joy,
We do need to stiumlate the student to learn the the content...excellent job!
Shelly Crider
Donna,
You are correct....if the weakest link of the course is the look and feel...it might as well be the content as well!
Shelly Crider
We are also new at this and are currently developing our first online courses for approval. Although we have been using Powerpoint based lectures for years with a high level of animations and interactivity, we have found that converting that content over to an online format is much more time-intensive than we originally thought. Appearance, overall feel, navigation, organization, lesson presentation, and division of content into easily digested portions is completely different when preparing the material for an online course. Although the content was already there (for us)and highly effective in a brick and motar classroom setting, packaging it up to make it interesting for our online students, who don't have the benefit of student and teacher interaction to keep them awake and involved, puts a whole new dimension of difficulty in the lesson planning. We found that when testing the courses, we needed bright colors, short lessons, frequent assessments and a high level of interactivity to keep the students engaged. Content is clearly important, but not enough to keep the learner centered on the learning environment unless that content was presented properly.
John, I could not agree more I have taken online courses and nothing worse than listening to a boring lesson then have no visuals. The power point must be stimulating and the lectures need to grab the attention as if the facult is right there in the room I guess that is why synchronous on line courses are good
I do agree with that the learner not only must feel that the topic is relevant but they wat to be able to relate to the topic. IN addition adding videos or power point. course need to be stimulating and interesting Providing web links is also important to those student who ma want to furthur explore the topic.
Trends can be good design, but aren't necessarily so. Its important the the look and feel of the class is appropriate to the subject and students.
In some ways, the look and feel of a course are equal to the content of an online course because without them students never get to the content. If the course is confusing or looks unprofessional, the ethos of the instructor, school, or developer is put into question. When the structural or navigational integrity is weak, many students give up the course after the first week, finding “the whole thing too confusing.†The learning curve of the course navigation has to be almost intuitive, especially in career ed courses.
One thing that I’ve run into on different presentation platforms is the ability to do exactly the same thing from several different locations in a course. To developers, this seems to be perceived as a strength because they tout this feature. To students, though, it is confusing, especially for students who take several online courses and are told different methods to do the same thing by different instructors. To the idea of navigational integrity, I’d add “keep it simple.â€
Hannah,
I so agree with you! You want to make sure that you try to particpate in those clases that are already done for you.
Shelly Crider
