Instructional Design- GETTING STARTED
Technology-enhancement
adds new elements to instructional planning; Instructional Technology
Consultants can help you anticipate and incorporate these elements
effectively.
Project Definition
What are you hoping to gain from using technology? Is it your goal
to establish a basic "web presence" for a course, or is
it your goal to develop a course that could be taught fully online?
What qualifies as a "fully online" course anyway? Have you
planned the structure of the course? These are among the questions
ITCs can help you answer.
Technical Learning
How will you account for the training time needed for students, and
yourself, to learn the technical skills needed to complete coursework
online? Will you allow classtime to learn technical skills (in which
case you may want to reserve a campus computer lab)? Will you give
assignments and/or have students work in pairs in order to make sure
they have the skills they need? Will you assess your students' skill
levels prior to class or during the first week of class? How will
you resolve student problems with technology? ITCs can help you plan
to address these sorts of questions proactively.
Teamwork
What technical support and production services are available to you?
Who do you contact about these services? Although UNCG is committed
to faculty self-sufficiency in the use of the online environment and
its associated tools, there are nonetheless a range of technical support
and production services that are available to you. ITCs can help you
locate and evaluate these services.
Student Services
What technical support services are available to your students? If
you have students who are not on campus, how will they get registered?
How will they receive their course materials? What technical skills
does the University expect students to have, and how does the University
assist students in acquiring these skills if they do not already have
them? What degree of access to technology does the University provide
for students who may not have computers of their own? What services
does the University provide for students with disabilities? ITCs can
help you gather this information and make workable decisions.
Role Re-Definitions
What are the likely adjustments you will need to make in order to
feel comfortable teaching online? What are some problems or issues
that are likely to arise? What is the ideal profile of an online instructor?
What is the ideal profile of an online student? How are these profiles
different from face-to-face profiles? What opportunities and challenges
does teaching and learning online provide? ITCs can help you anticipate
and adjust to the online environment.
Realistic Timelines
How can you make reasonable estimates of the amount of time that teaching
online may require? ITCs can help you assess your project(s), and
make reasonable timelines for accomplishing what you set out to do.
Multi-Modal
Strategies
How will you create multi-modal strategies online (i.e., the equivalent
of talking and writing that often occurs in face-to-face instruction)?
Have you accounted for your own learning preferences in designing
instruction? ITCs can help you make informed, workable choices among
multi-modal options that are currently available for online instruction.
