Strategies to be a successful online facilitator/instructor/professor – Part I

The fast growth of technology has for sure affected the way education is experienced or shall we say delivered. Online education is the growing need for professionals in today’s economy.

Distance Education can be said as  ‘easy accessibility to learning’. Globally, all the universities have incorporated online learning in their curriculum. With many universities adapting online learning, it certainly takes high-quality coursework to keep their students motivated.

Thanks to the technology that’s helping me get my Masters in Instructional Design and Technology through online. During my coursework, I have received rich and proficient learning experiences. The praise goes to the instructor/facilitator of every course who has contributed diverse methodologies to offer competent knowledge and skill with an effective use of instructional technology.

With the experiences, I have gained; I would like to share the strategies that my instructors used, to build a virtual community that eliminates isolation and keeps the students motivated at the same time.

Eliminate Isolation – Judith L. Johnson, the author of the book, ‘Distance education, the complete guide to design, delivery and improvement’, recommends 5 points for facilitator (Pg 21). In her 2^nd recommendation, her thoughts go towards isolated learning. Her suggestion is “to come up with a solid support system to assist students who for the most part are faced with independent and isolated learning.”

Isolation is when a student is left unaccompanied. Faculty has to make an effort to develop communications with the students often throughout the coursework. Technology plays a vital role in this situation. Faculty can connect with students by various methodologies. As I recall, during one of my courses, the instructor made the discussion board very active. She used to connect with every student by giving regular feedback to them. We also had a University messenger where we could chat with our instructor/facilitator, peers, etc.

We were asked to do collaborative assignments and project works. This was a little tough part as I had my peers in different time zones and with various life styles, however, once we figured out a way to communicate it became much fun and a sigh of satisfaction.

Personal connection with students – A one on one interaction is recommended with students. In one of my course works, when we students introduced ourselves with a picture or a small introductory video in the discussion board; the facilitator/professor of the course sent personal mail to us. Possibly, a phone call or a chat conversation with the students at the start of every course will make students comfortable. These approaches would certainly make a course rich in quality and will be highly motivating.

Include Video lectures – A high quality courseware would be where I can see and hear the faculty. For every chapter, I would like to see video of a faculty giving lecture on the lesson. This would be like having a one on one with the faculty for every learner. Duane Champion, Director of Computer Technology, Penn State Public Broadcasting, researched and developed ‘Web Presenter’, multimedia package in which faculty would be able to include live video, audio and many other features in the web-based course. More can be seen here http://qualityspotlight.psu.edu/web_presenter/index.html.

(Distance Education, The complete guide to design, delivery and improvement; pg 120) Author, Judith L. Johnson states about live video services in varying universities such as Coastline Community college in Fountain Valley, California and University of Maine System University College.

I would like to add Stanford University, who offers recorded video lectures. My husband graduated in Stanford’s Project Management Professional certification course. Throughout his course work, he heard saved video lectures. It was an innovative way of reaching students and putting them in ease with difficult chapters. I was highly impressed to see a real faculty in a traditional classroom. Video lectures is a great boon for Distance Education students.

In my next blog, I will continue with synchronous learning, virtual community etc.

Have you acquired any online courses? Could you please share your experiences on the delivery mode and how your instructor/facilitator connected with you?

You might also like :

‘Seven Principles of Good Practice’ to follow in designing Online Education

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© Priya Gopalakrishnan and eLearningbuzz.wordpress.com, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.

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I am back to the blogosphere

May this New Year bring you an abundance of wisdom & success with joy & laughter. Have a Happy New year!!
…

After a year-long  break to attend our second son who is one-year-old  now, it’s nice to be back in the world of blogging.

In the entire 2011, I was occupied with my two sons and their mischievousness. In the academic arena, I completed all my core and elective subjects with a project left before graduating in May 2012. Yay! I can’t wait to get my Masters degree in Instructional Design & Technology.

With two kids and Masters to complete, I have surely learnt how to do multitasking. So, apart from multitasking what else I have been learning lately? Well…I am back to share my learning with you all.

Await, my first blog of 2012 on “Strategies to become a successful online facilitator/instructor”.

Happy learning.

User Experience in Education based Multimedia

Technology plays a prominent role in the delivery of education. An interactive multimedia-based educational module motivates children to embrace reading and writing habits. These modules assist children to gain knowledge of many complicated subjects in a fun and easy manner.

Always, the educational multimedia products facilitate to deliver an outstanding training module. However, a few of the training modules fail to meet their goal.

Let’s ponder 3 major reasons for the failure.

1. Lack Challenge – I have come across many children based multimedia modules, and most of them are developed by teachers with little or no instructional design background. The content is mere reading from a textbook with a simple quiz thrown here and there. This does not encourage kids to proceed further as it does not challenge the kid. By creating the multimedia module more interactive might motivate the children to further explore the module. Children love hands on activity/exercise instead of just listening or reading.
2. Information Overload – The training modules fail to address higher thinking skills, the readings they require to integrate are scattered all over the web, which makes it hard for the audience to keep track from one reading to another. The multiple readings spread all over the web are not only very difficult to gather but also makes learning very distracting for the children.
3. No Feedback – Feedback and more feedback constantly assist to create a better product that would enhance the learning of the children. Feedback from parents or teachers is highly recommended.

While designing high-quality interactive multimedia learning modules, the approach of the designer should be to motivate children and introduce them to a variety of learning styles that make the learning process more intriguing.

4 points for instructional designers to consider while designing education based multimedia module for children.

1. The training module should display a strong base on which the children can build proficiency.
2. It should demonstrate different learning styles.
3. The training material should stimulate many parts of the kid’s brain.
4. Above all make it fun for the children to learn.

Do you have any points to add to the above list?

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© Priya Gopalakrishnan and eLearningbuzz.wordpress.com, 2011. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.

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Hurray.. My Blog is 1 year old

Courtesy – Hubpages.com

“The difficulty of literature is not to write, but to write what you mean” – Robert Louis Stevenson

Wow…A year ago when I initiated this blog, I seldom thought that I would be able to create a space for myself in the world of blogging about elearning and instructional design. In this past one year, I have learned enormously about this field, and I look forward to learning more in the future.

I am grateful to Mr. Satish Narayan of elearningplanet.com who encouraged my blog by selecting two of my posts as ‘Best blog of the Week’.

• Media overload in instructional web pages and its impact on eLearning.
• The impact of Internet and web in ‘K-12 education, Higher Education and Adult Education’

I would like to take this opportunity to convey my gratitude to each of you to make this blog a great success through your visits, feedback’s and encouragement.

I hope to reach many milestones in the future with your help.

Happy Learning!

Popular posts of this year –

• Media overload in instructional web pages and its impact on eLearning.
• The impact of Internet and web in ‘K-12 education, Higher Education and Adult Education’
• Do you believe that Instructional Designers require a Degree?
• How to Engage Learners efficiently with Rich Media

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© Priya Gopalakrishnan and eLearningbuzz.wordpress.com, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.

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Personalization & Voice Principle

Richard E. Mayer is a professor of psychology who has experimented and written the 12 key principles of Multimedia Learning.

In this post, I would like to ponder about his 10^th and 11^th principle which is ‘Personalization Principle’ and ‘Voice Principle’ in Multimedia Learning.

Personalization Principle -

According to Personalization principle; people learn more deeply when words are presented in conversational style than formal style. Nevertheless, in the book “E-learning and the science of instruction: proven guidelines for consumers” Clark and Mayer gives guidance for conversational style, ‘The challenge for instructional professionals is to avoid over-using conversational style to the point that it becomes distracting to the learner.’

It makes sense to write informally as learners would feel that they are having interaction with their instructor or a friend but at the same time keeping in mind that not so informal that the learner gets distracted by too casual tone and script. When I say distracted it means that a casual conversational style might even divert the learners from the main message of the training material.

Voice Principle -

Speaking of casual tone, when we look at the voice principle, Mayer has a say that, ‘In voice principle, people learn more deeply when the words in a multimedia message are spoken by a friendly human voice than by a machine voice.’ According to the research of Reeves and Nass (1996), it shows that, under the right circumstances, people “treat computers like real people.” Part of treating computers like real people is to try harder to understand their communications.”

I certainly agree to it, as I have worked with machine voices in the software Adobe Captivate, the voice does not relate anything near to the script on the screen. The script given by me was meant for a casual tone but the way the machine reads without any personalization seems to be very formal. One more cons for machine voice is, while working with global audience, it may get hard for the machine voice to speak with accent. However, working with a local human voice narration might work better in this scenario. (Mayer) Voice cues may affect the degree to which a learner feels a social response to the instructional message.

Have you worked on delivering voice narrations before for your multimedia presentation? Which one did you choose between human voice, machine voice and talking avatars like Sitepal.com? Why?

Which style did you choose, formal or conversational? Why?

Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed.). New York, New York: Cambridge University Press.

Clark, Ruth. C., Mayer, Richard. E. (2003). E-learning and the Science of instruction proven guidelines for consumers and designers for multimedia learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Photo Courtesy – Sitepal.com

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© Priya Gopalakrishnan and eLearningbuzz.wordpress.com, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and owner is strictly prohibited.

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