Get Your Students Hired
No way, online course development is more time consuming than traditional classroom delivery development. The simple fact is that in a traditional classroom students are in front of your and you can read the faces of either understanding you or complete confusion. Being able to see the student allows you to immediately know if the developed content is grasped and immediately make adjustments or more on to more information. In an online setting you have to plan for multiple variable and the unknown. For this reason, I have not gone from one session to the next without having to revise, expand or condense taught information. Not to mention you are continually being asked questions you simple were not prepared to answers. For some reason, I have found that face-to-face instruction mitigates higher order questions. Or maybe it is that you usually have less time to deliver instructional information online than in a traditional classroom.
It might take longer to set up an online course, you are building the environment as well as filling it with content.
Yes. Sometimes it can take a bit longer to prepare visual materials. Since I am also a visual learner, I like to create the types of courses that I would enjoy being in!
Kevin,
Visual classes are what online learners like. You can find visual cues everywhere!
Shelly Crider
Grace,
Yes. That initial framework needs to be in place to make the facilitation process go smoothly.
I disagree. Even as a student in online classes, I found there too much more work in the average online class. Online course need to be designed more visually with ideas of usability in mind in addition, to the core class objective(s).
Charlotte ,
Even for established courses, there should be time to reveiw each and every page as well as each link. Things can break and change!
Shelly Crider
Joel,
Thank you for adding the word "quality"! We can throw a class together, but we want good quality as well!
Shelly Crider
I would have to say the amount of time invested in designing an online course is about the same for designing a ground course. That is, unless the online course is a new course without a traditional course to mimic. Depending on the familiarity of technology (to the designer/instructor/facilitator) the online course may even be a little more difficult and time consuming. Various multimedia are used less frequently in the traditional classroom. I also find that the more I have taught a course, the easier it is to predict what questions may come from students; which also helps me to deliver a quicker turn-around when editing and designing curriculum and when writing my lectures.
Having taught in both environments, my experience is that it takes more time to develop a quality online course.
Nashid,
this is so true! Confidence can make or break a student's performance!!
Shelly Crider
I truly believe that performance is also enhanced by confidence. A person may have the gift of communication but does not have the content or background to effectively deliver a lecture. This pulls away from the confidence. The student can sense this gap and the atmosphere of the course is hindered.
Trista,
We can reuse our classes, however, we need to double check our links each and every time the course is offered.
Shelly Crider
Alan,
We do need to take competencies into consideration when creating our classes.
Shelly Crider
Thank you for your assessment as an SME for both online and on-ground courses, Mountasser. I only have experience with this process as an online instructor and so rejected the idea that preparing for the course took less time and assumed at least the same. After reading your posts and others, I do now understand that the time involved in preparing an online course is indeed front-end loaded and greater than the time invested in preparing a traditional classroom ~ but that the on-going process for the same course does become streamlined as Mark Begley explained in his post.
I disagree with the concept that the time required to develop a quality online course is less than the same for traditional classroom delivery.
While I will admit that I have only ever been on online course facilitator, the components of a quality classroom are the same whether online or on-ground and thus the time necessary to create those components is the same whether online or on-ground.
Once composed initially, these components can be reused for the same class ~ both online and on-ground ~ going forward with the condition that they be frequently reviewed prior to the start of each new session/section and updated appropriately.
I do not agree. They may be the same, but more likely the online class will take longer as one needs to consider that the learner is not present and cannot ask questions as easily as in a classroom setting.
Competencies regarding technology are another aspect.
Albert,
There is definitely a learning curve as you can teach the same class for several terms in a row only to have to do an overhaul!
Shelly Crider
John,
Very good discussion we have going on here. To anticipate in a classroom is so much easier when you can see what is going on. In the virtual classroom, technology leads our way!
Shelly Crider
John,
I agree. I like to talk!! There are some things that just need more explanation than you can give!!
Shelly Crider