John Darryll S.

Mercado
III B BSITE
Online Learning

Summary of Part III

The Theory and Practice of Online Learning:

INFRASTRUCTURE AND SUPPORT
FOR CONTENT DEVELOPMENT

DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE COURSES

The Development of Online Courses

Instructional media developers will actually create the planned instructional materials with which the student
will interact are included in the course development process from the beginning to consult with and advise course
team members on development-related topics as they arise.

Two categories of Internet-based courses:

1. Text-based with computer mediated enhancements (1990s – 2000s)

2. Courses that are designed specifically for the distributed Internet setting

In learning, learner-centered or student-centered design is more than just adapting for different learning
styles or allowing users to change the font size and background color; it is the placing of the control of learning itself
into the hands of the learner (Marzano, 1992).

Seven Principles for Good Practice in Undergraduate Education

1. Encourages contacts between students and faculty

2. Develops reciprocity and cooperation among students
3. Uses active learning techniques
4. Gives prompt feedback
5. Emphasize time on task
6. Communicates high expectations
7. Respects diverse talents and ways of learning

New Teaching Paradigm

Fox and Helford list suggestions to effective teaching online:

1. Develop tolerance for ambiguity

2. Use scaffolding principles
3. Use problems that require students to understand and manipulate course content.
4. Create opportunities for high levels of interaction, both student-student an d instructor-
student.
5. Integrate formative assessment throughout the course.

Teacher Education is Critical

Many of the skills that faculty had honed in face to face settings no longer apply online; indeed,
some teachers must unlearn certain teaching methods as much as they need to learn new ones.

Pedagogical Proficiencies
 1. Think of the online environment as just as different kind of classroom for interacting with
students.
2. Look at other online courses, take some yourself, and ask colleagues if you can access
theirs.
3. Be prepared to invest the time and effort necessary to deliver a course online.
4. Always remember to weigh how important something is against how much time it will
take to transmit and receive it.
5. Be creative in planning how to use technology to teach more effectively.

Administrative skills

1. More anticipatory effort than the teaching effort which is typical of a face to face
classroom setting. Lay out your ground rules right away.
2. Find out where your help is and know when to use it.

Technical skills

1. Determine whether you possess basic PC skills.

2. Determine whether you need to learn new software applications for teaching online.
3. Determine whether your institution supplies regular training in new software applications.
4. Make certain that you are very comfortable with using email.
5. Make certain that you understand basic Internet functionality, bandwidth, and
connections speed issues.
6. Make certain that you have a basic understanding of how web browsers on different
types of machines affect the appearance and functionality of your material.

Time and Resource Management

To deal with the influx of email messages, instructors can

1. Solicit help from a technical assistant to respond to course emails.

2. Create a FAQ page, where students can find the information typically needed throughout
the course
3. Create a protocol in which students must ask questions over the course forum (bulletin
board), prior to emailing the instructor
4. Refer students to a help-desk contact to handle the inevitable technological obstacles
that are inherent in accessing a web based course.

Rewarding Faculty

A strategic building block in the success of online course offerings is the institutional development of
a process that encourages and inspires faculty to be creative in a web-based environment.

Online Course Development

1. Centralizing the Online Development Unit

2. Reusable Learning Objects
3. Web 2.0
4. The Course Development Team
5. Subject Matter Expert
6. Instructional Designer
7. Web Developer
8. Graphic (Visual) Designer
9. Programmer and Multimedia Author
VALUE ADDED – THE EDITOR IN DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT OF ONLINE COURSES

As the Web and the technology and processes for delivering instructional materials on it have evolved, so
too has the editor’s role in course design and delivery.

The Multimedia Instructional Design Editor is a key member of the School’s online course design,
development, and production team which tasks are integrating multimedia instructional components into online
course materials, applying instructional design principles, and editing course materials.

Distance Education and the Online Instructional Environment

In online delivery, the learning environment becomes a particular and important consideration.
Kuboni (1999) notes that the term learning environment has emerged “as one of the key metaphors
associated with teaching and learning through the new telecommunications and computer-networked
technologies”.

The online environment has the potential for fast and easy interaction among diverse and distributed
users, a fact that raises a number of issues about how this interaction is accomplished, when it is
appropriate, and how it is managed.

Course Development in an Online Environment – The Role of the MIDE

The MIDE guides the production process and plays an integral role in each stage of course
development.

Multimedia Development

MIDEs are one of the final links in the content chain, reviewing all online course components
when they are ready to be integrated into the web-based delivery template.

Instructional Design

The MIDE performs cursory instructional design assessment of the proposed course; he also
reviews the proposal and offers ideas to the course author for improving the course’s instructional
efficacy.

Editing

The MIDE ensures that the tone of the course materials is appropriate for the audience, and
helps learning to happen; the MIDE also checks that coauthored materials communicate either a
consistent voice or a clearly defined set of individual voices, as desired by the authors and as is
suitable for the content.

Adding Value – The MIDE in the Design and Development Process

The MIDE works in the design and development component of the online learning value chain,
between upstream logistics (described in earlier chapters as infrastructure for online learning, technology
choice, and attributes of various media) and downstream logistics (to be discussed in subsequent chapters,
and including learner supports such as tutoring, call centers, and electronic library and other digital
resources).

Rowntree (1990) refers to this role in course development as the transformer, “a skilled
communicator who can liaise with any subject specialists whose writing is obscure, winkling out their key
ideas and re-expressing them in ways learners will be able to understand”
MAKING RELEVANT FINANCIAL DECISIONS ABOUT TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION

This chapter shows how relevant costs can be used by managers in educational institutions like universities,
or related sub-units like computer services, to make more informed financial decisions about the use of technology.

Direct and Indirect Costs

Cost subjects are items for which a separate measurement of costs is desired, which are usually
measured in a currency.

Direct costs can be associated with a cost object in a cost-effective manner. They are
generally material in amount, linked to a specific area or responsibility, or related to a particular cost object
by contractual requirements.

Indirect costs do not bear a discernable relationship to a particular cost object, or cannot be
determined in a cost-effective manner.

Fixed and Variable Costs

Variable costs change as the activity level of a cost object changes.

Fixed costs remain unchanged over a given period of time.

Segment Margin Analysis

The process of expanding the contribution margin analysis by analyzing the fixed cost components
as direct or indirect is called segment margin analysis.

Relevant Costs

Relevant costs fall into three categories. First, they must be costs that differ between alternatives.
Second, relevant costs are future costs. Third, relevant costs are only those that involve cash outlays.

Time Value of Money

The time of value money considers that a dollar received today is worth more than a dollar received
in the future, because interest can be earned on the money in the meantime.

Time driven, activity based costing (TDABC) is a means to accomplish this; it estimates the cost of
all resources needed to produce a product or service.

THE QUALITY DILEMMA IN ONLINE EDUCATION REVISITED

Trying to define quality in any product or service is that quality remains a relative experience, realized in
large part through an individual’s level of expectation.

In Transforming Higher Education, Dolence and Norris (1995) purport to offer ways for colleges and
universities to survive the transition from the Industrial Age to the Age of Information. The most pervasive of these
changes is the shift from a provider focus to a learner focus, with its suggestions for mass customization through
individualized learning systems.

Critics such as David Noble (2001) present almost apocalyptic vies on the incursion of educational
technologies into the classroom. The Web’s “dark side” is depicted as the “rapidly growing trend of university
corporatism” and the exploitation of knowledge workers (Kompf, 2001).
Process Versus Outcomes

One of the first principles in all of the quality assurance schemes considered here is guaranteeing
consistency in the product’s results. In the view of Total Quality Management advocates, “many quality
management initiatives, especially in service industries, die because we fail in measurement of the
outcomes” (Widrick et al., 2002, p. 130)