Online Course Design

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Online Course Design
ACADEMIC IMPRESSIONS
Jennifer Freeman

• CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

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Session Goals

• Recognize the logistics involved when developing
  online courses as a team executing the course
  development plan
• Understand the importance of the Syllabus in
  online courses
• Review content sequencing and the instructional
  design blueprint
• Explore storyboarding as a tool for lesson
  construction
• Identify accessibility and usability issues
  planning for scalability

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Logistics and Processes for the Course
Development Team

• The Lifecycle of a course
• Writing and designing the course
• Developing materials
• Validating instruction
• Development scheduling
• Tasks chart

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course is released
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Developing the Syllabus

• Why its so important
• What should be included
• Sample syllabus checklist

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Storyboarding and Lesson Construction

• Things to keep in mind
• Sequencing
• Linear vs. Hypertext
• Granularity Portability Reusability

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Lesson Model 1 Linear
advance organizer
multimedia
discussion
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notes
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textbook reading
www resource
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test
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summary
?
no
yes
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Lesson Model 2 Non-Linear (Open)
multimedia
discussion
advance organizer
?
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notes
______________ _________ ____ ______________
quiz __ ___________ ______________ _____________
_
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textbook reading
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www resource
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test
summary
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test
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Storyboarding and Lesson Construction

• Storyboarding steps
• Consider your goals/objectives
• Evaluate and organize existing content and
  identify gaps
• Develop a navigation plan
• Chunk content
• Add text to your storyboard

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Storyboarding and Lesson Construction

• Storyboarding steps
• Add multimedia and graphics
• Add activities
• Build linkages
• Review entire layout

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Usability Effective Text in the Online Course

• Consistency of Style
• Bullets vs. paragraphs
• Straightforward language
• Formal vs. informal
• Fonts
• Text Color, Formatting
• Whitespace-to-text-to-graphics ratio

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Usability Why Use Graphics in the Online Course?
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Usability Effective Graphics in the Online
Course

• Clip art vs. photos
• Fit with overall color scheme (link to an online
  color wheel resource)
• Decorative vs. instructional
• Examples of interactive graphics 1 2 3 4
• Graphics and media resources
• http//www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/peri
  odic_table.html

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Usability Effective Media in the Online Course

• Audio, video, animation, interactive
• Examples 1 2 3 4 5 6
• Instructionally appropriate?
• Talking head syndrome
• Limitations
• Accessibility issues (provide transcripts)
• Usability issues (plug-ins, broadband)
• Length of clips (2-3 minutes)

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Best Practices Web Design Principles

• Usability Navigation and Organization
• Use icons as visual cues
• Make use of orders and horizontal rules
• On long, vertical pages, make use of
  _____________links
• Next and Previous
• Too much hypertext too many choicessometimes
  linear organization is good

back to top
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Best Practices Web Design Principles

• Navigation
• Provide ______________________________ options
• Provide descriptive page titles
• Use clear, unique, descriptive headings
• Use a clickable list of contents on long pages
• Provide a site map

navigational
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Best Practices Web Design Principles

• Navigation
• Use glosses to assist navigationGlosses are
  ______________________________________________
• Use breadcrumbs to assist navigationBreadcrumbs
  are ____________________________________________
  ____
• Highlight critical information with formatting
• Use headings in the appropriate HTML order

short phrases that pop-up when hovering over a
link
text that identifies the path taken to arrive
at a page
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Best Practices Web Design Principles

• Accessibility
• Always provide ______________________ for
  non-text elements (alt tags for images, captions
  for media)
• Be sure to title all of your pages also title
  all of your links
• Allow students to skip repetitive navigation
  links
• Dont use color alone to convey information
• Limit the use of tables and frames

text equivalents
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Best Practices Web Design Principles

• Page Layout
• Make sure everything is appropriately aligned
• Allow for enough ____________________ to keep the
  page from looking cluttered, but not so much that
  students have to scroll excessively
• Consistently place important information near the
  top of the page
• Use fluid layouts, as screen resolution and
  monitor size will vary

white space
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Best Practices Web Design Principles

• Scrolling
• NO ____________________ scrolling limit
  vertical scrolling
• Facilitate rapid scrolling while reading
• Consider using _________________ rather than
  scrolling

horizontal
paging
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Best Practices Web Design Principles

• Links
• Use meaningful text link labels
• Match link names with their destination pages
• Avoid misleading or inconsistent cues to click
  (blue or underlined text)
• Within an LMS, external links should
  _______________________________ so that students
  can easily
• return to their place in the course
• Include title tags

open a new browser window
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Best Practices Web Design Principles

• Text
• Use familiar, common ____________
• Use plain, high-contrast backgrounds
• Use consistent formatting
• Dont use ALL CAPSon the internet, its the
  equivalent of SHOUTING AND IS CONSIDERED RUDE
• Use BOLD sparingly, or it ceases to draw
  attention and clutters the page
• Use text color sparingly, as it can be
  distracting
• Use at least _____________ fonts, or provide for
  users to enlarge text

fonts
12-point
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Best Practices Web Design Principles

• Color, Graphics and Media
• Use background colors to group related
  information
• Use simple background images or none at all
• Label clickable images
• ____________________ images for download
• Use images and media meaningfully
• Use thumbnail images to preview larger images

Optimize
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Planning for Scalability

• Course Design
• Flexible structure
• Use of objective testing
• Discussions vs. email
• FAQs
• Student-led help thread
• Student discussion leaders
• Group projects vs. individual
• Less grading
• Peer assessment
• Self assessment

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What Weve Learned

• The logistics involved when developing online
  courses as a team
• The importance of the Syllabus in online courses
• Storyboarding as a tool for lesson construction
• Existing instructional materials
• Important web design principles

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• Jennifer Freemanjfreeman_at_utsystem.edu