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Online Learning Management
Your 5 Best Tips for No-Fail Production
5/1/2008
Michael Staley, dean of Seminole's Center for Economic Development at Heathrow, says the A/V message board technology enables online students to complete their assignments and interact in short bursts of time-for busy professionals especially, a realistic expectation. "It levels the playing field by giving everyone equal opportunity to access information at his or her convenience," says Staley. "As a student, if you can't keep up, you're going to get bored, and providing that access was the primary key to making the content interesting."
Of note, too, are brand-new alternatives to existing asynchronous efforts: A new vendor to this space, for instance, is Dallas-based Brainband Technology Services, which plans to build a new kind of online lesson content for higher education institutions. It incorporates a variety of recent technologies including Flash, a digital animating technology from Adobe.
FIVE: Keep It Relevant.
Vendors, too, are trying to keep content relevant. The digital media services provider Cdigix, for one, recently repositioned and formed a partnership with class capture provider Tegrity. Via this partnership, institutions can provide seamless access to recorded classes and lectures, as well as other digital media assets licensed by the institution-all integrated into their teaching and learning environments.
TIP 5: Keep It Relevant
The final step in building no-fail online courses? Keep them relevant and even ahead of the times. In some cases, this means refreshing the outmoded parts of the content every semester. At UT-TeleCampus, for example, Anderson says his team reassesses every course at the end of every semester and often requires educators to rework new components to make them just as engaging as the older "proven" stuff.
In many cases, keeping content relevant is part of an educator's job description. DePaul University (IL) administrators, for instance, require all full-time and adjunct instructors to update their online syllabi annually. At Tulane University (LA), which governs online courses through its in-house Academic Center for Learning, Research, and Technology, requirements for educators teaching online courses are the same as they are at DePaul.
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