eLearning Critical Success Factors

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors
Curriculum Development Tim Hall
EMRC-Educational Media Research University of
Limerick timothy.hall_at_ul.ie 353-61-202294
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My Background

• Involvement in
• CE Post experiential Learning
• EU and International Projects
• eLearning
• EMRC-Educational Media Research

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• What is curriculum development?
• Is it different in eLearning than for a
  traditional face-to face approach?

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• What is it ?
• Define appropriate learning objectives
• Establish useful learning experiences
• Organise learning experiences to maximise
  cumulative effect
• Evaluate the process and revise to improve
  effectiveness (Tyler 1949)

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• What is it?
• A continuum from macro to micro
• Schools curriculum
• Curriculum for a degree programme
• The Syllabus for a course (module)
• A Lecture plan
• In our context the content and style of an
  eLearning course

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Is it different?
• Resource commitment
• Recent IFETS survey of procatitioners found that
  the development time for eLearning was in excess
  of 110 times delivery time
• For face-to-face its less than 10 times
• This implies a much more careful process must
  be adopted

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Whats involved?
• People
• Needs Analysis/Required Outcome
• Methodology
• Management Resource Provision

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• People Consider fully the needs of a wide
  constituancy
• Owners (University, company)
• Development Team
• Teachers/Tutors
• Students/Learners
• Customers (Society, Parents, employers)

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• People Development Team
• Manager administartive support
• Subject matter experts
• Instructional designers
• Content authors (words media)
• Delivery and support system expert
• Assessors/Testers

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Needs Analysis/Required Outcome
• There are many reasons why an eLearning solution
  is contemplated. It may be
• The most appropriate
• Expedient
• Required
• Expectation of value for resources expended is
  essential

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Methodology Initial factors
• The proposed curriculum must be suitable for an
  eLearning delivery
• The proposed learning style must be appropriate
  and understood by the designers
• An appropriate ICT environment must be available
• Learners/Teachers must have access and be
  familiar with eLearning
• A strategy must be evolved to accommodate any of
  these factors that are missing

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Methdology Development
• A team activity where the skills and experience
  of the team members are contributed through a
  carfully designed and managed process
• Or
• An individual process where a subject matter
  expert works within an east to use environment

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Methodology Structure Opportunity
• An opportunity to review existing learning
  methodology and exploit one which eLearning does
  well
• A clear framework for the instructional design
  stage must be established linking good design of
  presentation and navigation to appropriate good
  practice in ODL authoring

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Management Resource Provision
• Curriculum design for eLearning must take place
  in a supportive institutional framework where the
  immediate and on-going resource commitment is
  understood

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Curriculum design in an eLearning environment
  thus becomes a much more professional activity
  than here-to-fore

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• But a very big but in most of the above I have
  assumed a conventional approach to teaching and
  learning with a lecturer/teacher/instructor lead
  process based on a traditional curriculum and
  syllabus.
• I dont teach like that, do you?
• What about other more learner centred approaches?
  Collaborative learning? Self-directed learning?
  Self-organised learning? Ubiquitous learning?

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Do we have to start over? No, rarely are we
  working outside some formalised framework
• The people are the same
• The learning needs are the same
• The required resources and ICT support are the
  same
• The learning environment still needs to be
  structured and the learning process facilitated
  and managed
• A required curriculum is still being followed

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• So whats different?
• Content is being discovered, ordered, generated,
  digested and synthesized largely by the learners
  themselves
• The teacher becomes a moderator, mentor, tutor
• A much more rewarding process for all involved

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Curriculum design is still the foundation, a
  macro factor that acts as a link between the
  intimate eWorld of the student(s)/teacher
  interaction and the outside pressures of
  assessors, the university/school, education
  authorities, society
• As formal learning content disappears curriculum
  and learning approach remain as tangible
  confirmation that the prescribed learning is
  taking place

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eLearning - Critical Success Factors Curriculum
Development

• Curriculum development acts as a link between
  society, teachers, learners and resource
  providers.
• It is essentially a team effort
• It assumes a supportive and well resources
  environment