1. Digital Access
An important concept for you to think about when planning your course is digital access. By this, I mean ensuring that each aspect of the course is accessible to everyone who’s enrolled in the course. This is often a problem that’s critically important but often overlooked. When planning for accessibility, there are a few things to think about. The primary is whether or not or not the tools and resources that you’re sharing are accessible by all learners given the technology that they need access to. Remember that it is vital to speak expectations at the start of your course. One of the expectations that I like to recommend including is the minimum technology requirements. During this course, as an example, you would like to possess a tool to access the web, you would like to possess an online connection, and you furthermore may need access to LinkedIn Learning. These minimum technology requirements should be clearly outlined in your course description so that students understand the wants before enrolling. confirms that you simply share common file types that learners are going to be ready to access. As an example, you share a Microsoft Word document with your students, but determine that some students are unable to open it because they do not have access to Microsoft Office. Another example would be sharing an audio file that you simply recorded using your phone only to find out that it’s during a format that students are unable to access because they do not have the program to play that sort of file. Let’s take a glance at a number of the more common file types. When sharing documents, share them in a PDF format. This is often a format that the majority of devices are going to be ready to open without drag, and it is easy to try to do. If, for instance, you’re creating the document in Microsoft Word or an identical program, you’ll reserve it as a PDF.
Next, for audio files, it’s likely best to share them as an MP3. This is often a standard sort of file that the majority of devices are going to be ready to open, and also, it is a compressed file, making it smaller in size and more efficient to share. Sharing video files features a similar solution. Sharing MP4 files is perhaps your best bet. Again, most devices are going to be ready to open the file, and it is a smaller compressed file. What if, however, you’ve got an audio or video file, but it isn’t within the correct format? What are you able to do? If you run into this issue and wish for a resource in a different file format, you’ll utilize a tool like Online-Convert, which allows you to upload and enter one format and convert it and reserve it during a different format. You’ll even use this to convert video files into audio files and more. Sharing common file types will prevent frustration down the road as your learners are going to be ready to access your course materials more easily.
2. Learners with disabilities
Another important consideration regarding accessibility within your online course is whether or not the various features, functions, and resources are accessible by learners with a disability. You’ll have learners with disabilities associated with vision, hearing, motor, or cognitive impairments. An example of something to think about is whether or not there are closed captions on videos for any students with hearing impairments. For instance, here’s a video on LinkedIn Learning that I would like to share with my course. I’m confident that I can use it because it’s closed captions. Down here at rock bottom I can turn them on. Then as you’ll see, the closed captions will appear when I’m playing the video. “A lot more to booking flight than simply deciding “the best departure and arrival times.” Another potential example is that you simply have a student with a vision impairment. During this situation, it is vital to possess alt tags and a site that’s found with acceptable headers, image descriptions, and links so that they will be read by a screen reader. For instance, on a Mac computer, there is a built-in program called VoiceOver that you simply can access by hitting command + F5. – [VoiceOver] Welcome to VoiceOver. VoiceOver speaks descriptions of items– – [Instructor] From here as I navigate through the location, Voice Reader will help tell me which links that I’m on. – [Voice Reader] Link. Week one check-in chat. List two items. Link. Introduction to the course. Introduction to the course region. You’re currently on a tab inside a gaggle. To pick this feature. Link. Guidelines and expectations. Quiz feedback. List six items. Voiceover off.
– [Instructor] So as you’ll see, this may help a student with vision impairment to be ready to navigate the website. But so as for a screen reader to figure, the website must be found out correctly. Also, consider other situations like color blindness denotes that you simply don’t use unique colored fonts when creating course resources. Use easy-to-read fonts with tons of contrast. And avoid items by color, like the red folder versus a blue folder. These are a number of the items that you simply have to consider. So when designing your course, confirm that the resources and content are accessible to everyone. To find out more about this subject, check on the course Teaching Techniques: Making Accessible Learning, which is in our library.
Next Steps
Thank you for joining me during this course. Hopefully, it gave you a far better understanding of teaching online and also gave you the arrogance and insight for you to get started. I like to recommend a couple of next steps before you start teaching online. First, still, learn more. This course provided a summary, but I like to recommend diving deeper and finding out courses that are in our library, on topics like digital literacy, that need analysis to assist you in determining learning outcomes, instructional design and storyboarding, specific to e-learning, inclusive instructional design and making learning accessible, the way to create effective assessments, and more.
Once you recognize which platform you will be using, take the time to find out more about it. This may likely be a learning management system equipped with plenty of features. Also, spend a while determining if there are other technologies or platforms that you simply can integrate. These could be external forums, social media, Google Drive, YouTube, and more. Eventually, connect with other online instructors on LinkedIn or Twitter to stay up-to-date on a number of the newest trends. Thanks for joining me.
Effective communication for Online Learning
a. Effective Communication Involves Common Understanding: We use words all the time that have loaded meanings and sometimes don’t mean equivalent things to people. For instance, even a word like e-learning is often a touch confusing. First, we don’t even have an agreement on the way to spell it. Is it e-learning, e-Learning, or e-learning? In my world, e-learning involves the authoring of online courses with a rapid e-learning product like Articulate 360. For others, it’s any learning content in a digital format. Thus, a PDF is e-learning even very much like a course authored in Storyline. There’s even more confusion as we glance at different industries. The company version of e-learning may be a lot different than what you’d find in education or at the K-12 level. It’s important to acknowledge this and make sure you have appropriate context when using words and phrases that will have a different meaning. the simplest thing is to create context and clarity within the communication process.
b. Experience and Skill Level Impact Effective Communication: People don’t come to the e-learning course at an equivalent level. We’ve different personal experiences impacted by things like our worldview, culture, and ethnicity. We even have different professional experiences (and some may even conflict with the course content). On top of that, we’ve different skill levels. For one the course could also be too easy, and for the opposite, too difficult. You can’t control those things about the learner. However, there are belongings you can neutralize your course design which will help resolve some issues. For instance, a pre-assessment helps determine what proportion someone already knows and what they have to find out. From there you’ll cop-out the experienced person, or create an adaptive process to accommodate different needs.
c. Personal Motivation Impacts Effective Communication: tons of e-learning is pointless to the learner and most of these sorts of courses also tend to be boring and mind-numbing information dumps. On top of that, people are at various levels of motivation when it involves engaging with the e-learning content. Many things motivate people. And tons of it’s outside the realms of the course and not something you as a course creator can control. However, there are tons of things that you simply can do to assist motivate the learner. If the course has relevance and meaning, then it’s received better than one disconnected from the person’s world. Nobody complains once they learn something. Many courses are overly focused on content and not on the application. specialize in what the person must do, then build the course backward from there.
Interactive engagement is additionally important. I attempt to do two things: get the person doing stuff on the screen to tug them into the course. And most significantly, get them interacting with the content. This is often built around decision-making activities almost like what they’d neutralize the important world. People are complex and they come to the e-learning content with different experiences, skill levels, and attitudes. Effective communication within the e-learning process is made on understanding this and applying the proper strategies.