This will be a follow-up to my previous forum news letter that talked about teachers and online education. As previously mentioned, teachers need to embrace the technology that is involved in online education. They need to look at it as a helping tool rather than a detriment to their productivity and creativity in the classroom. The first step that they should take is to decide on what subject area they want to work on before they start adding material to the LMS format.
The first file that I would start to develop is called the technology toolbox. Within this file you are gathering information for your online course that can be utilized as you are developing the specific information within your course. In other words it should already be in a file that you can click on to and add to your course. For example, you should be thinking about things that you can add to your videos, discussions, wikis, blogs, content, general information and the syllabus. There are specific areas that will need content information. They are the following:
· Introduction
· Syllabus
· Course Content
The introduction is going to describe the course, some of the learning outcomes, and the approximate length of time. The syllabus should be a skill that most teachers are familiar with. It has to be placed within the content of the online course. The course content will involve the number of units and subunits associated with that particular course.
I have been working on a course for environmental science for course sites.com. Within my introduction I give a brief explanation of the total scope of the course. I usually use a standard syllabus from other areas that I have used in that particular course. The course content in my opinion should be the exact titles of the units that you have used from other textbooks. The subunits should be listed under each unit. These three areas are the most important ones that you will have to work before you start on any other areas of the course development.
So let us go over what we would place in the technology toolbox thus far.
· A comprehensive introduction
· A standard syllabus
· Course content that shows all of the units and subunits contained in the course
The next stage would be to identify videos that pertain to each unit within your course content. Your sources for this information can be you tube, discovery education, slide share, and other sources, such as Houghton, Mifflin and Harcourt. Textbook publishers have a wide variety of videos for all subject areas. After selecting your videos, you will need to develop a set of discussion questions that pertain to each subunit. Most LMS programs have an area where you can insert the discussion questions for that topic.
The next topic will pertain to LMS programs that are easy to use within the online education format. Please send me an email with the name of the LMS program that you are working with. Is anyone using Angel, Blackboard or Moodle?
My email is craig@mydestinationtrainer.com
