Posted 8:05 AM by George Siemens
We had a very informative RROC meeting yesterday afternoon. Gene and Craig presented their experiences with designing and developing an online math course...I found the session very interesting...

Some of the "best practices" (from the Department of Who Cares: I hate that phrase) that were incorporated into the course were:
- Use of varied media - text, video, interactive exercises
- Piloting and evaluation while in development (though Gene stated that time and funding did limit their ability to pilot)
- Involving the instructor during the development of the course
- Project based approach...involving a variety of people...(there is no such thing as a person who can "do it all" in online learning...collaboration is the word of the day here...
- Adapting the resources to the online environment...often resources are put online without attempting to adapt them to this unique medium...while the math project did start with simply "moving info online", attempts were made to adjust to the online medium in subsequent revisions.
- Usability focus - we did not have enough time to go into the course in great detail...but from what I saw, the course was designed in an easy to read onscreen format...lots of "white space"...short sentences...lots of breaks, visuals etc.

Other "best practices" were incorporated, but the ones listed above were the most notable for me...

One area of the math course that time did not allow to address relates to the instructor and to the students...

Two Questions:
How was the instructor trained/prepared to teach online?
How were the students prepared to learn online?

Gene, Craig, (and everyone else involved in the development of the math course: Great Job!! (not that you need my congratulations to validate your work...:-)...but I'm offering it anyway!!)