After completing the third and final module of this online
learning course I have gained a foundational knowledge of how to construct
and instruct an online course. One of
the most apparent things I learned is that how you design and set up a course is extremely impactful on what it accomplishes. Knowing how to create various
tools and elements is one thing, but it is a completely differ thing to implement them
into a learning management system.
There are several things you have to manage when
instructing an online class and I am appreciative that this course has given me a
glimpse into how to do that. There were subjects covered this week including using a grade book, creating a checklist,
using a quiz, and how to overall structure a course. It was helpful to see how all of these different elements fit
together. Moodle is a very capable
instrument to teach an online course with, but you need to know how to use the
instrument. I hope to be able to reflect
and use this course as a resource when I teach my first online course.
On a side note a challenge that arose was time
commitment. Teaching an online course is
time consuming and sometimes just figuring out how to change, implement or facilitate
can overwhelm a professor. Therefore to
reiterate what was talked about during our online discussion the need for
boundaries and deadlines are needed even for the professor. If a professor gets behind or swamped than
the quality of the course could quickly decrease. We need to stay on top of a course just as if
it was a face to face course because our efforts show even in an online environment.
I agree that Moodle is very capable, but I'm still a advocate of also using other online tools, as long as the course developer can make everything organized and easy to find for students. I just don't want faculty to be limited by what one tool can do, even if it can do a lot.
ReplyDeleteI really agree with you that this past week has reminded me of the time commitment online courses have. I really felt that this course has given a good example of managing time and having to plan ahead. I hope that having these basics down will help to make future classes easier to create. I believe that because we had a chance to struggle with time now, we will be able to handle it better next time around.
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