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Online Course Design
CONTENT DEVELOPMENT Jennifer Freeman
ACADEMIC ■ IMPRESSIONS
• 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
Session Goals
• The Lifecycle of a course– Writing and designing the course– Developing materials– Validating instruction
• Development scheduling• Tasks chart
Logistics and Processes for the Course Development Team
course isreleased
• Why it’s so important
• What should be included
• Sample syllabus checklist
Developing the Syllabus
• Things to keep in mind– Sequencing– Linear vs. Hypertext– Granularity + Portability = Reusability
Storyboarding and Lesson Construction
Lesson Model #1: Linear
no yes
advanceorganizer
summary
multimedia
discussion
notes
textbook reading
www resource
test
Lesson Model #2: Non-Linear (Open)
summary
multimedia
discussion
notes
textbook reading
www resource
test
advanceorganizer
_______________________ ____ ______________
quiz
__ _______________________________________
test
Storyboarding steps:1. Consider your goals/objectives
2. Evaluate and organize existing content and identify gaps
3. Develop a navigation plan
4. “Chunk” content
5. Add text to your storyboard
Storyboarding and Lesson Construction
Storyboarding steps
6. Add multimedia and graphics
7. Add activities
8. Build linkages
9. Review entire layout
Storyboarding and Lesson Construction
• Consistency of Style– Bullets vs. paragraphs– Straightforward language– Formal vs. informal
• Fonts• Text Color, Formatting• Whitespace-to-text-to-graphics ratio
Usability: Effective Text in the Online Course
Usability: Why Use 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/
periodic_table.html
Usability: Effective Graphics 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)
Usability: Effective Media in the Online Course
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 choices…sometimes linear
organization is good
“back to top”
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
Best Practices – Web Design Principles
navigational
Navigation
• Use “glosses” to assist navigation…Glosses are:
______________________________________________
• Use “breadcrumbs” to assist navigation…Breadcrumbs are:
________________________________________________
• Highlight critical information with formatting
• Use headings in the appropriate HTML order
Best Practices – Web Design Principles
text that identifies the “path” taken to arrive at a page
short phrases that pop-up when hovering over a link
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
• Don’t use color alone to convey information
• Limit the use of tables and frames
Best Practices – Web Design Principles
text equivalents
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
Best Practices – Web Design Principles
white space
Scrolling
• NO ____________________ scrolling;
limit vertical scrolling
• Facilitate rapid scrolling while reading
• Consider using _________________
rather than scrolling
Best Practices – Web Design Principles
paging
horizontal
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
Best Practices – Web Design Principles
open a new browser window
Text
• Use familiar, common ____________
• Use plain, high-contrast backgrounds
• Use consistent formatting
• Don’t use ALL CAPS…on the internet, it’s 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
Best Practices – Web Design Principles
fonts
12-point
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
Best Practices – Web Design Principles
Optimize
• 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
Planning for Scalability
• 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
What We’ve Learned
Jennifer [email protected]