The learning materials we produce are, for the learner, just the beginning. Online delivery changes the way learners perceive and value our content. For the learner, the materials are not the fixed, end product they are for us, but a starting point.
So relax – what might seem like a big deal for us may not affect the learner’s experience.
As well as learning materials for students, the learning design process should produce records for teachers and designers to learn from, now and in the future.
Learning design is a complex, multi-party process that takes place in many different contexts, synchronously and asynchronously, over a long period.
It may be impossible to document the process fully, but it’s important that some records are made and kept, not just for project management now, but for the benefit of others in the future.
Managers and developers need to consider this when scoping and planning projects.
Good documentation and initial scoping may help to set and retain a guiding vision, and so prevent development projects losing touch with their original aims or intents.
Q: How can the same technologies be used to help us keep records?
A: Audio/video recordings of face-to-face meetings, Elluminate recordings/transcriptions, personal reflective blogs, team wikis…
Given all the challenges involved in preparing them, the learning materials come to us invested with hours of many people’s hard work, deep consideration, and much love. This must be respected.
The authors have taken on a great challenge. They have wrestled with questions (and doubts) about their roles as teachers, they have come to grips with perhaps unfamiliar tools, and they’ve agonised long and hard.
They have invested much of themselves in the learning materials, and developed deep attachments to their work – deeper, perhaps, than with past work.
How would you feel letting go and handing over something you’d worked on night and day for months on end?
This brings a great responsibility on the media team.
The online delivery of learning material raises questions about how we work and how learners study. Everyone’s learning.
We used to know our roles, what we were supposed to be doing. Now it’s like we’re learning with the student, like we have become the student …
Most students will be new to learning online and may need skills support.
The same skills may not be available in the faculty team or even among the members of the media team. So the question must be:
Can we all do what we are asking the student to do?
This may mean that media staff are required to teach the teachers so they can teach the learners. This can be at all levels and in all contexts, from helping CTAs to tag documents in Structured Content to showing course chairs how to use a wiki, or explaining online activities to tutors to enable them to assess collaborative work.
If the student needs to learn new skills, chances are the same goes for faculty team members and others such as tutors. Chances are perhaps you do, too!
When existing tools (VLE and other) don’t provide a perfect fit, avoid reinventing them.
Look for alternatives, look for free, reusable resources. And consider changing the activities to fit – or make a virtue of the lack of fit, i.e. what can be learned from it?
There is a world of OERs (open educational resources) out there, many of them OU-produced materials, all waiting to be reused for free or very cheaply. OpenLearn is just the beginning.
Many OERs can be versioned to suit your needs. Remember them and point your faculty teams towards them.
The learning is the thing, not the technology; the technology helps you get there.
Ideally, the technology will be woven into the curriculum without jar or snag, such that the learner doesn’t notice where the one ends and the other begins.
Avoid proposing or promising to deliver technology-enhanced solutions unless you are certain they can be achieved.
Sadly, it is not always possible to do in the VLE all the things we are used to doing in the Web 2.0 world. You may be thinking ‘It must be possible to do this or that’, but beware – it may not be as cheap or straightforward as it seems.
Be honest and realistic about the possibilities. If in doubt, try it out. If still in doubt, forget the technology and keep it simple – pencil and paper are seldom the wrong technological choice.
Good learning design adds value in ways independent of technology. It should result in smooth handovers, improve the structure and presentation of the content, and enhance the skills and confidence of the faculty, while enriching the learner’s experience.
Good management of expectations is important to building confidence in media-faculty relations and overcoming nervousness about new ways of working.
Courses may be changing, but they are still health and social care courses, not IT courses with a HSC flavour.
Therefore:
How long will it take the learner to learn to do this? Is this is a worthwhile investment of time – or is it a one-off exercise? Will the learner really do it – what’s the incentive?
This is what happens when learning activities or tasks are forced to fit with existing tools, with little thought for the student experience, the learning process, or the outcomes.
There is more to learning design than this.
You don’t have to use all the tools simply because they are available – learning design isn’t about throwing technology at the curriculum.
Instead, make regular use of a select group of tools, the ones that best meet your and the
Ever since the first OU lecture was filmed and long before, there have been tensions between academics and the producers of open and distance learning materials. The tensions are brought to the surface by changing delivery patterns in the following ways:
Course teams are changing roles, too. This may be a difficult and trying experience. Sensitivity is required in handling the emotional aspect of the change.
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