Get Your Students Hired
Loriann,
We are not any different than the kindergarten teacher who is molding a child for the first time!
Shelly Crider
I have been teaching online courses for over 10 years and student are used to the feel of a face to face classroom and expect that online will be similar. The stress of adapting to an online course can be mitigated by providing as close a feel to ground classes as can be accomplished. Having discussions of the topics and contact with other students and the instructor is important to them as a security blanket.
I think that he look and feel of an online course is just as important as the knowledge and skill it impacts. As online instructors, we have a responsibility to get students motivated and to keep them engaged in the learning process. I think this is a good start in that it will students to get involved and learn the material presented.
Dianne,
We do need to take the objectives into consideration at all times!
Shelly Crider
James,
This also helps students to find resources when they are out on their own.
Shelly Crider
James,
My mother is a prime example. She can certainly balance a check book, but has trouble with Excel. Same thing with some of our students.
Shelly Crider
James,
There are enough discouraging tasks for all of us to go through each day in the work place.....let's give our students a good education to be able to handle what comes their way.
Shelly Crider
Absolutely, the look and feel of an online course is as important as the knowledge and skills it is designed to impart mostly because if the structure of the course is easy to navigate, easy to read and access information, it is going to be a better learning experience.
If the course has complicated instructions, no graphics, simulations, demos, etc. then it will make it harder for the student to stay engaged as well as understand and maintain the overall objectives of the course.
Thanks,
Dianne
My answer to this is a resounding YES. I adjunct at three different universities and each has a different look and vibe to its virtual campus (VC). In fact, one of my universities is in the process of developing its own VC and this has really hurt the students perception of the university. Any VC needs to be easy to navigate both for students and instructors. If an instructor is discouraged in using the VC (uploading assignments, posting grades and such) students will see that frustration in slow responses.
they are important because if the student cannot utulize them because the look and the feel is wrong then the outcome may not be maxiumized.
That is true. Students can figure out who knows what. I try to stick with what I know and to avoid becoming deeply engaged in tech problems where I am not an expert. I want to learn about these things but I don't want my students to be the "trial run" for what I am trying to learn. So I try to stick with my content and leave tech problems to the tech support people.
True, I think. It IS a balancing act. On the other hand, I have sometimes found that students know a "lot" about technology but not a lot about how to really use it in the learning environment. I've had students who can do almost anything with programming a movie, for example, but can't figure out how to use an Excel spreadsheet for the simplest operations. This can be a problem.
Hello and I am glad to be a part of this course and to have this conversation. I agree that the look of a course and the way it appears on the screen is important to the learner and to the success of the student. This is because, if anything turns out to make a page appear to be confusing or difficult to manage, this will be something that discourages the student and makes it unnecessarily difficult for the student. There is no doubt at all that the course content has to be of the highest quality...but even the best quality will be unsuccessful if the student can't figure out what to do on the screen. The "look and feel" matters.
Elizabeth,
This teaches organizational skills as well, when many of our students need!
Shelly Crider
Bruce,
Excellent post! You have touched on many items that we do need to consider when creating our courses.
Shelly Crider
I would agree. If the course is well presented and everything is in the right folder, students will feel more at ease to manage.
I absolutely agree.
There is an inherent risk when developing online courses to focus solely on the creation of relevant and well designed content. But in an online environment, without the constant guidance of an instructor or interactions with other students, content on its own is not enough to keep learners engaged. And without that engagement, they will quickly lose interest and shift their focus somewhere else.
There is no doubting the importance of good content. But it needs to be balanced out with numerous levels of engagement. Part of that may come from activities, video or audio, but another part will come from the look and feel. At a bare minimum, a graphically well designed course will add a level of professionalism. On its own, that will give learners a sense value in what they're learning. And since most, if not all, training is designed to illicit some form of behavioural change, the buy-in achieved through marketing and branding becomes paramount. But the inclusion of marketing into training is an entirely different post...