In chapter 3, Ko and Rossen explain the process
of course development and introduce the basic elements of course design. “The development
stage involves the actual creation of a syllabus, class schedule, content, and
exams, as well as activities the class will follow”. Before starting to design a
course, the first thing we should do is to figure out the problems and needs of
students, so that the course design will move in a right direction and meet students’
needs. Creating specific course plans or storyboards is a necessary and
important step of course development. During this process, we need to consider
how to design and organize various instructional activities. These activities
are divided into the following categories:
1. Instructor-generated content and
presentation
2. Discussion/interaction/communications
3. Group-oriented work and student-created
content
4. Research
5. Assessment
What elements of design from Chapter 3 will
I be considering as you build a class? Although I am currently not teaching any
online course, to answer this question, I would like to take an online tutorial
I designed for a class project as an example. Click here to access my project. This
online tutorial is an interesting tryout of online course design for me. As for
the first category, I have used text, graphics, audios, videos and screen-casting.
As for the second category, asynchronous discussions via discussion forum and
synchronous discussion via Skype are both applied in this course. As for the
third category, discussions and commenting on each other’s work enhance the collaborations
among students. However, group project is not accommodated in my course. I
think this need to be improved in the future. I should think about some group
work to enhance student-student interaction. As for research, students need to
do some web research, library research and social bookmarking in this course.
As for assessment, I have used both formative and summative assessments. There
are many different types of assessments designed for different lessons. But I
think there is still plenty of room for improvement. It’s impossible to create
a perfect course, but we can make it better.
I like Pilar Hernández
and Vanessa Hollanda Gutierrez’s online class tours. Both of
them teach Spanish. I taught Chinese class via videoconference before, but I
didn’t get a chance to teach online, so I’m really interested in it. I think Pilar
and Vanessa’s online Spanish courses are good examples.
I think an online Chinese language class is a really interesting idea! I read about a Chinese game-based course a while back. Zhao I think was the name of the person developing it. Massive player game I think.
ReplyDeleteYes, I think teaching an online Chinese class is interesting but also challenging. I cannot imagine how to teach a language without face-to-face interactions with students. Even though videoconferencing is a type of distance learning, its communication is still synchronous and we can also see each other. Developing an online language class could be really different and difficult. I know that game. Its name is Zon, developed by Dr. Yong Zhao. He used to be a professor in Michigan State, but I heard that he works in the University of Oregon now. This game is pretty cool, but I'm not quite sure about its effectiveness. We actually tried to use this game as a complementary resource for our students few years ago, but it didn't work out very well due to all kinds of reasons. I'm really interested in it. Maybe I could do some further research about this game.
DeleteZhetao,
ReplyDeleteA tutorial is a good start for learning how to design an online course. It gets you familiar with the same tools you would use in an online class. It also offers the challenge of having to convey your information in a clear, complete and meaningful way. After all, you may never have any contact, or get feedback, from the viewer.
Walter
Fang says: Teaching a language would be an ideal subject for online course, and I do perceive as you said, interesting yet challenging. There are many unexpected factors that affect the smoothness and quality of the instruction, so it’s out instructor’s responsibility to ensure and maintain such quality by enhancing interactions among students and with teacher. I totally agree with you on this matter!
ReplyDelete