Methods For Online Teaching And Learning Takeaways...

EDU 654 has been a rewarding yet challenging experience. This course has fallen right in the middle of the COVID -19 Pandemic which added an immense amount changes, stress and pressure to our normal day to day lives. With a new normal being implemented, there are several items that I learned regarding building a training, working with a virtual partner, managing every day household tasks including: homeschooling 2 older children, keeping a very wild toddler alive and how important and useful virtual learning is for all.

Three Learnings From The Course

1. The most helpful items that I learned about during this training creation was how to create buttons, tabs and navigation links in Canvas. These skills proved to be incredibly useful and something I will be able to use again and again in my future instructional design opportunities. The buttons were so easy using a website call DaButton Factory. I loved how you could customize color, size etc. to match whatever color scheme or design element you were looking to add to your training. 

Creating tabs was also a very huge part of designing our training. My partner and I wanted to make sure everything looked very clean, streamlined, accessible and easy to navigate. Creating tabs in Canvas was the best way to do this to avoid unnecessary scrolling. I used the information below to help me create my tabs and add additional ones where needed. 

Creating Tabs in Canvas

Learning to add navigation links that met the needs of my training was something else I researched. Since this was a training a normal course syllabus was not needed but I did want to provide a training agenda/overview so participants knew what to expect going into the training regarding time commitment, prerequisites, etc. 

Add A Tab To Your Canvas Navigation Bar

2. The most frustrating learning experience in the course was seeing just how tedious it can be when working with HTML code within the tabs. I am used to working with HTML and embedding HTML code as needed but I usually do most of my editing in the "Rich Content Editor" mode. During this training I primarily worked in the "HTML Editor Mode" and this was time consuming and tedious because if I messed up an / of > it would change the entire layout of my tabs. If I used "return/enter" my information would be placed under my tabs and not in them. I did this once and completely changed the lay out of one of our tools and I had to go back through all the HTML and carefully find where I messed up a code. This was new to me and while it was frustrating and tedious I learned a lot and am now much more comfortable with my designing abilities and being able to perform more tasks with more tools. 

One area that really helped me was the Canvas Instructional Designer group. Within this group there were lots of questions and other designers helping each other out as they design in Canvas. I think it is a great resource for any one that is doing design work. 

Canvas Instructional Designer Group

3. Being in a virtual setting, it can be more challenging to work with a partner. During this course I worked with a wonderful partner that was able to contribute a lot to our training design as well as learn a ton about designing on the fly. My partner has a business/Nonprofit (BNP) background. Because I do not, and am only used to designing for educational settings, I learned a lot about how trainings can be used in the BNP setting. We worked well together and met weekly through Zoom to discuss our progress and divvy up topics. She would pick up on tasks that she knew she could handle independently and let me handle tasks that I was familiar with. She was able to teach me areas of the BNP world I was unfamiliar with and I was able to teach her a lot about digital tools and designing an online training. Our partnership worked so well that we are planning on working on some future consultant projects together on a professional level. 

Example of a fun digital tool I introduced to my partner! Bitmoji!

My Plans To Integrate Three New Ideas Into A Training Or course I Facilitate

1. Accessibility is a passion of mine regarding online learning. My culminating graduation exercise will be to create a training to show how to make online learning accessible for all types of learners. This will mostly be geared towards businesses that want to get more involved in online learning but may not know how to design a training that does not unintentionally discriminate against any of its employees. I have found that when working with adult learners, many may have never been officially diagnosed with certain learning disabilities. This could cause them extreme anxiety when having to be involved in an online learning environment. To help prevent this I want to demonstrate easy and effective ways to make trainings more accessible. 

I did a lot of work with closed captioning and transcripts when working in this EDU 654 course as practice for my practicum and will continue to work on my skills with transcripts and closed captioning on future courses/training I create and/or facilitate. 

Example of video I created with closed captioning is below. For a larger view please visit: Canva Overview

Video created by C Daugherty using Canva, Quicktime and Youtube. 

2. Another plan I will integrate more in the future is the use of Thinglink. I have worked in online education for 10 years and have trained new online educators for the past 5 years on the best practices in online learning. One tool I always highlight is Thinglink because of its versatility but I notice I rarely use it in my own courses. As educators we can get into a rut of using things over and over until they are no longer relevant and I learned I need to work more with my variety of digital tools. Thinglink was one digital tool that my partner and I highlighted for EDU 654 and I saw so many ways  to incorporate this for my K-12 students, adult learners and in professional trainings for BNP. An example of one I created for higher ed is below. 

For a larger view please visit: Higher Ed Thinglink Example

Created by C Daugherty using Thinglink. 

3. Finally, I plan to pay more attention to social, cognitive and teaching "presence" to make sure all three are balanced and included in all of my future design and facilitation opportunities. I was already using these three methods in my online courses, I just didn't know the official terms and how they related to each other.  From a previous blog, I discuss these items and HOW and WHY they are important in the online learning environment.  There are some great resources located within the blog as well on these three types of "presence". 

Social, Cognitive and Teaching Presence In Online Learning

My Personal Professional Development Plan. How I Plan To Keep Current On Technology And The Best Methods For Online Facilitation And Instructional Design

As an educator, to stay current our learning must never stop. I have several professional development plans I will continue to work on to hone my skills in online learning and instructional design after I graduate from this program this summer. 

1. I plan to work with a Higher Ed Disability Coordinator on accessibility in the online learning environment. I already have contacts and names of professionals that can help guide me in additional ways to make sure the courses/trainings I design will be accessible for all learners. This will include K-12, higher ed and nontraditional adult learners.  I want to be a well versed designer that can bring many skills to the table when working on a professional design project. 

2. I will be working more this summer to learn about SCORM and Articulate Rise. These are two tools that are utilized a lot in the design world and are often a required skill when interviewing for instructional design positions. I want to at least have a small working knowledge of each when designing. I already have a lot of experience utilizing them in my online courses but I want to be able to design them myself. 

3. At this time I am also signed up for an online PD for english learners through ENACTED. This training will be self paced but will introduce to some great ways to help me with my ELL learners and the technologies available to help them succeed in my online courses. I believe I will gain some great skills that will help other learners and this training should go hand in hand with my accessibility research as well. 

4. Finally, I have a webinar I have saved to view on helping create accessible trainings for adult faculty. I think this webinar will give me some additional design tools to add to my tool belt and make me a more marketable designer for many instructional design projects. I will continue to keep an eye on MOOC trainings through the Friday Institute  and other organizations as well. These types of trainings allow me to continue to earn CEUs to keep my teaching license current.

Accuracy Matters: Accessibility in Faculty Created Video

These are just my short terms plans for continuing my professional development because I already have access to all of the above but I will continue to research additional trainings that I can be a part of to help grow my instructional design and online learning capabilities.

References

Each resource is linked within the above information for further exploration. Please feel free to explore all BLUE and GRAY links for more information on the topics discussed. Enjoy!