Online Course Design

Online Course Design

and Creating Videos for Online Courses

So you want to make

sure that each unit has:

So you want to make sure that each unit has:

Multiple formative assessments:

• Smaller

• Periodic

• Lower-stakes/worth less points

• Help build the skills that students need for assignments that are worth more points

It’s own objectives that are aligned with the course SLOs

Here’s an example of the beginning of a sample Roadmap that I made for a spring 2017 online English 101 course:

http://lasc.edu/students/classes-areas-of-study/online_classes/Sample_OnlineClass_Roadmap.pdf

Activities and resources to help students gain the skills they need for the formative and summative assessments:

• Instructor-created videos (we’ll talk more about this in a

second!)

• Instructor-created Prezis or PowerPoints

• Instructor-created handouts and guides

• Curated content (created by someone else): articles, videos, websites, publisher materials

Well designed online courses, just like F2F courses, contain

a mixture of curated and created content activities to help

prepare students for formative and summative assessments

Summative assessment or assessments:

• Usually, there would be one major, summative assessment per unit, at the end of the unit

• Summative assessments should evaluate whether a student is meeting at least one of the course SLOs

• Summative assessments are worth more points

It’s helpful to create a kind of Roadmap where you start to map out how many weeks you have (including any holidays), the course SLOs, and how many units or “chunks” you need to break course content into.

Examples: Shorter reading quizzes, class discussion forums, journals about readings or course content

Examples: major projects, essays, research papers, major tests

Now, let's talk about using and making videos for online classes!

Start with a Calendar

Then, design each unit!

Based on the number and scope of the course SLOs, you can start to divide the course content into “chunks;” these will later become Canvas modules.

For each unit:

• What are the objectives of this unit (these should tie

to the course SLOs)?

• What formative (smaller, periodic, lower-stakes)

assessments will you use to determine whether

students are meeting the objectives?

• What summative (higher-stakes, at the end of the

unit) assessments will you use?

• What activities will be included in the unit?

• What resources do students need to succeed in this

unit and to learn the material required for the

formative and summative assessments?

• How long is the term?

• What are the holidays this term?

This will help you determine how long each unit should be and how much content should be in

each unit

Next, think about how you will organize course content into units/modules:

• What is the best way to organize your course content, given the number of weeks and course SLOs? Determine the number of units and the length of each unit.

• These units can become your Modules in Canvas, and you can add content such as content pages, assignments, discussions, and quizzes to each module

Since we get less of a chance to clarify course content for students than in in-person courses, it’s all the more important that online courses are designed with a purpose.

Then, you can add content to your Canvas modules:

Option 2: Split up the units into weeks if you’d like to have a module for each week:

Once you have a clear Roadmap, you have a few options for how to translate this to Canvas:

• Content Pages for instructional content

• Links to curated instructional content

• Quizzes

• Discussions

• Assignments

Option 1: Make each unit it’s own module:

• Orientation Unit (sometimes called Unit 0)
• Unit 1
• Unit 2
• Unit 3
• Unit 4
• Unit 5

and so on

• Week 1: Orientation Unit
• Week 2: Unit 1 (Part 1)
• Week 3: Unit 1 (Part 2)
• Week 4: Unit 1 (Part 3)
• Week 5: Unit 2 (Part 1)
• Week 6: Unit 2 (Part 2)
• Week 7: Unit 2 (Part 3)

And so on…

Online course design best practices:

• Backwards design content from the course SLOs

• Divide course content into manageable "chunks"—

you can think of these as units or modules

• Create unit objectives aligned to course outcomes

• Evaluate and modify traditional assessments for

delivery in an online environment

• Develop formative and summative assessments

appropriate for an online environment.

More specifically, screenshot videos are helpful for:

Screencast-o-matic.com is an example of a website that allows you to make webcam and screenshot videos (or a combination of both) for free!

Backwards design content

from the course SLOs

The course SLOs should be the guiding force for instructional materials and assessments, not a course textbook

The course SLOs can be found by looking up the course in the LACCD Electronic Curriculum Development (ECD) system: https://ecd.laccd.edu/

Most departments also have the SLOs listed in sample syllabi for the course

• Making a welcome video that shows how to navigate in Canvas
• Making a lecture video in which you go over a PowerPoint or Prezi
• Demonstrating how to do something; for example, you can make a video that shows how to set up MLA format in Word or how to program something in Excel

Tips for Creating Videos:

When Should I Use Each Type of Video?

You can make screenshot videos for when you want to explain something with visuals from your computer screen.

There are multiple options for captioning videos in YouTube

Their website has a really helpful demo video that gives an overview of how to use the service.

Don't forget to transcribe or caption your videos in order to be Section 508/Americans with Disabilities Act compliant!

You can also start with YouTube's automatically-generated captions and edit them:

• Go through your course content and identify the times when video would be most useful
• Create a script or outline for your videos before you start to record
• Use pause to take breaks and stop to collect your thoughts when recording
• Try to keep recordings fairly short by breaking up a large topic into subtopics and making shorter, separate videos for each subtopic
• Get feedback from students about which videos are most useful and how to improve

At the start of your course

• A short introductory video will allow your students to see and hear you, and that allows you to convey enthusiasm and engagement with the course, topic, and students;
• A short navigation video that explains how your course is designed, and how students should "use" the site;
• A short introduction to the learning units, including a discussion of learning unit goals.

If you're going to do this, make sure to SAVE your video as a file because you can't submit YouTube videos to 3CMedia Solutions!

Additionally, instructors can create an account at 3cmediasolutions.org, upload a video, and request to have it captioned.

You can make videos that feature you

through your web cam. These are helpful for welcome videos so students get to know you.

You can actually make webcam videos

within Canvas by clicking on "Record/Upload Media" in the Rich Content Editor.

For more on how to do that, please see:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/2734705?hl=en

and

When Should I Use Each Type of Video?

https://oit.colorado.edu/tutorial/captioning-using-and-improving-youtube%E2%80%99s-auto-generated-captions

When I did this, my video was captioned in less than a week.

Once your video is recorded, you can save it to your computer or upload it to YouTube through Screencast-O-Matic

In assessment feedback

• In short audio or video feedback files, in which the instructor can use vocal variety to contextualize and soften constructive criticism;
• In announcements that provide summary for class activities.

In content modules

• Short lectures that allow you to convey areas of expertise, enhancing teacher presence;
• Video announcements that connect specifically to activity in this particular course, illustrating the unique learning environment created by this Community of Inquiry;
• At the end of modules to wrap-up, summarize, and transition to a new learning unit.

Then, you can add your video to a Canvas Page by uploading

the file or linking to the

YouTube video

Thanks for watching!

Another option for creating instructional or welcome videos is Adobe Spark Video!

Or you can create a welcome video like this sociology instructor did:

With Adobe Spark Video, you can create instructional videos like this video created by a community college History instructor:

Using videos makes your course so much more interesting for students than a course that only uses endless amounts of text!

You can also assess what students have learned by having students create their own Adobe Spark videos like this

student-created video:

https://spark.adobe.com/about/video

Adobe Spark Video is a free tool that allows you to create videos with images, other video clips, voice over/narration, music, and more!

For more information, check out:

https://ilearn.laccd.edu/courses/57272

Using multiple methods of delivering content also helps address diverse learning styles!

Some Adobe Spark Video best practices:

Don't forget to caption your Adobe Spark videos to make them accessible!

• Collect the media and images you want to use and save them in a folder on your computer (or an album if using an iPhone or iPad)

Let's look at how

Adobe Spark Video works!

• Make a rough outline or storyboard for your video (I have a storyboard template I'll share!)

Another important aspect of course design are the Course Navigation links on the left side of your Canvas shell

• Shorter videos are more impactful--try to break up big topics into several videos that are under 5 minutes (1-3 minutes is best!)

Additionally, an important decision in terms of your Canvas course design is what to choose as your Home Page

And check out the handout I'll provide for lots of Adobe Spark Video resources!

In order to make sure your course is easy to follow, it’s a good idea to hide the links you won’t actually use:

How to change/hide links in left navigation:

You can select a Content Page as your Home Page in order to have a page with text or a video as the first thing students see

You can select Modules if you want the first thing students see to be the list of modules/units and all of their contents

You can select Syllabus if you want the list of assignments and due dates to be the first thing students see

• Pages (good idea to hide this if you only want students to see Pages that you add to modules)

• Outcomes (if you’re not using this)

• Conferences (if you’re not using this)

• Files (highly recommended to hide this so students can’t see every file that you’ve uploaded to the shell)

• Click on “Settings” on the bottom left of the course

• Click on the “Navigation” Tab

• Drag items you want to hide to the bottom section;

you can also drag to re-order visible links so that

frequently used links are on top

You can have a message that changes every week or have a new welcome video every week