Good online courses – related teams and design examples

When we support staff to deliver effective online activities using technology, we inevitably help them to review their online course design. We want to know what’s the purpose of the online activity, what are the objectives of the course, and what are their expectations for learning outcomes. I read the article “Teaching the Principles of Effective Online Course Design: What Works?”. A diagram of Members of the Course Development Team in the article has attracted my attention. I asked myself questions “Where is the role of learning technologist in the this diagram?” “Is learning technologist a general term that covers the four areas in the diagram?” Thinking of my work, it seems the Instructional Designer work area closer to the Learning technologist.

Then I spent a bit time to read the article “What’s the Best Job Title for Those Who Build E-Learning Courses?” and the discussions underneath, and Multiple Skills that are required in developing e-learning courses. I prefer to focus on what skills we need to have and develop in order to support/deliver successful e-learning courses.

Back to the point of effective online course design, there are many excellent course examples to inspire us to create something original. Have a look at the available course tour, to see which design ideas will be the most helpful for your own course design.

“The Blackboard Exemplary Course Program (ECP) began in 2000 with the goal of identifying and disseminating best practices for designing high quality courses.”

Blackboard Inc.

• Blackboard Exemplary Course Tour
• Blackboard Exemplary Course Program Winners (2013) tour
• Blackboard Exemplary Course Program Past Winners (2011-2017)

“AU Exemplary Course Award (ECA) is to support staff in enhancing their modules on AberLearn Blackboard and to share good practice across the university.”

Aberystwyth University

• AU Exemplary Course (2013-2017) tour

The learning technology awards and winners in 2015

A list of the awards of Learning Technology in 2015:

• ALT – 2015 Learning Technologist of the Year Awards: The team winner and the individual winner were Digital Learning Team, University of Leeds  and Joel Mills, Technology Enhanced Learning Advisor, University of Hull
• The Herald Higher Education Awards 2015: University of Dundee – Medical School Technology and Innovation in Learning won the Innovation Technology Excellence Award
• The winners of the 2015 THE Awards: Bournemouth University won the award for the ‘Outstanding Digital Innovation in Teaching or Research’ category and Cardiff University won the award for the ‘Outstanding Contribution to Innovation and Technology’ category
• e-learning awards 2015 winners: Diploma-MSc courses run by the University of South Wales (USW) and Cardiff-based Learna Ltd won Best Distance Learning Programme
• Bett Awards 2016 finalists: The Finalists were selected based on criteria including design, cost-effectiveness, effective learning and teaching styles. Winners will be announced at the Bett Awards ceremony on the first evening of the Bett Show on 20 January 2016
• 33rd Annual Awards of Excellence Winners announced by TECH & LEARNING Magazine: It was from 124 education technology products including software, hardware, network, Apps and Web products. Any of these we are using?
• The Wharton-QS Stars Awards winners: Reimagine Education 2015: It is the global awards for innovative higher education pedagogies enhancing learning and employability. Great examples of how we use learning technologies in practice.

The e-learning awards and winners 2014/2015

There is a collection of 2014 awards of e-learning projects.

• DevLearn 2014 eLearning DemoFest Winners by eLearning Industry.
• ITC Awards for Excellence in eLearning (1991-2014) hosted by the Instructional Technology Council
• The 2014 Learning Impact Award Winners hosted by IMS Global Learning Consortium. Good to see the “McGraw-Hill Education Blackboard Building Block v2.2 at Southern New Hampshire University“.
• The Winners of the International E-Learning Awards 2014 hosted by The International E-Learning Association (IELA).
• The Winners of the E-Learning Awards 2014 hosted by e.learning age. I am interested in looking at the “RCGP Online Learning Environment” (e-learning project), the “e-LfH” (e-learning project), and the “BMJ Quality” (Online distance learning).
• The winners of the annual Learning Awards 2015 hosted by Learning & Performance Institute (LPI) to recognise outstanding examples of high standards, best practice, innovation and excellence within the Learning & Development industry.

ALTC2014 day2~ evidences & case studies

It’s the second enjoyable day at ALTC 2014.

The first session I attended was the Augmented Reality from Allen Crawford-Thomas and Judy Bloxham (JISC RSC). It’s fun to try the apps and discuss about the potential uses. It brought new experience immediately. Blippar and Layar worked well on my mobile, but Zapper didn’t, similar to other people next to me. Heard the SAMR Model again in the session. Also to know an interesting term “calm technology” means interaction between digital technology and reality is designed for users without realising the technology. Their paper ‘Immersive Learning Experiences through Augmented Reality‘ is worthwhile of reading. I like the idea that makes the interaction between human and online resources more real, more like learning in the reality.

From Catherine Cronin’s talk, I got some useful resources: the book Networked, ds106 open courses posted by Jim Groom and his view “openness is ethos not a license.”, #iCollab – the international community of practice of students and lecturers, and Gardner Campbell‘s work on learning technology and education.

I had interesting conversations with people from different institutions and realised many universites/collages do have a bigger VLE support team, like 7-9 people plus people from pedagogical side of supporting.

The UCISA TEL Survey of technology enhanced learning 2014 is another timely resource. The findings will be very useful for us to review the services we provide to some extent.

Learn from the Learning Technologist of the Year Awards winners, Congratulations!

In addition, some new ideas for me:

• Students may feel confused with online learning, and they need to have the sense of ‘belonging’ to the institution. (from Helen Anne Beetham‘s talk)
• We need to bring in the minimum standards for the online learning (from Martin Lynch and Catherine Naamani‘s talk)
• Electronic Management of Assessment (EMA) is importantly increasing（from Simon Kear‘s talk）

The 2011 Edublog Awards

The 2011 Edublog Awards calls nominations till 2nd December. The purpose of the Edublog awards is to promote and demonstrate the educational values of these social media.

2012 Adult Learners’ Week nominations open

The 2012 Adult Learners’ Week (12 – 18 May 2012) Awards recognise outstanding adult learners and inspiring learning projects. People can nominate someone they teach, a colleague, a relative or a friend and give them the recognition they deserve for their outstanding learning achievements.

 

All awards categories are open to learners living in England only.

The closing date for nominations is 5pm, Friday 27 January 2012.

Packt Open Source Awards 2011

Packt announced Finalists for 2011 Open Source Awards, voting closes on 31 October and winners will be announced in early November.

The awards is to encourage, support and reward open source projects.

 

directory of elearning awards

Thinkingcap provided a directory of eLearning Awards, which includes many awards mentioned in this blog. It’s easy for you to find an award if you have best practices of eLearning.

On the Thinkingcap website, they also listed instructional design resources which help you to design online courses.

The Learning Awards 2012

The Learning Awards 2012 – the IITT hosts the annual Learning Awards to recognise outstanding examples of high standards, best practice, innovation and excellence in Learning and Development.

Venue: The Dorchester, Park Lane, London

Date: 2  February, 2012

The 2011 Tech & Learning’s Awards of Excellence

Tech & Learning’s Awards of Excellence 2011 is sponsored by Tech & Learning, NewBay Media LLC and the prizewinners will be notified on October 20, 2011.

It’s good to see the previous winners’ showcases.