Education Technology, Apps, Product Reviews, and Social Media – Edudemic

Topics: education, guest, instructional design, Learning management system, online engagement, online learning, student engagement, technology, user interface design

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The most popular complaints about online learning are lack of engagement, slow response time from the instructor, and a loss of the sense of community.

Imagine that it’s your first day of school. You’re walking down a hallway with no signs or room numbers. You don’t know who your teacher is, who your fellow classmates are, and no one will help you find your class. Are you really concerned about learning algebra at this point?

Anxiety is the enemy of learning. Students need to know their teacher, environment, and peers. In a virtual environment, you can only rely on your user interface to do this for you.

Imagine a second scenario. Once you have found your classroom, your teacher is hiding at the back of the room and all of your peers are turned to face away from you. You sit at your desk, but your materials are in a different location in the room. You know you should look for them, but you don’t know where to begin.

Is this scenario anxiety provoking? Wouldn’t it be easier if your teacher was standing at the front of the room to greet you?

To make online learning engaging, you should make significant changes to your user interface. The first screen shot is the most important. It is common to have a pretty banner at the top of your course, followed by the syllabus, but this only wastes valuable screen real estate.

When students have to scroll and look for things, they become disconnected. To promote engagement, the following six items should appear on screen when a student first clicks into a course.

• Instructor Bio and Contact Information: When you enter a classroom and the individual at the front of the room extends their hand to welcome you with, “Hello, I am Instructor So-and-so,” you feel at ease because you know who is in charge. I’m a fan of student-led, cooperative learning, but in the first few crucial moments, a student should know who the teacher is. Cultivate a bio and put this in a block on the welcome page. You must include a picture and email address, no exceptions.
• A Participants List: The completion of the online profile should be your first assignment. Students need to know who they are learning with, since participation and discussion should be an integral part of the lesson plan. It’s even better if you can have a messaging block included with the participants block.
• A Calendar: Online students must wrap their mind around a time frame, so they can plan to do schoolwork. Set all of your due dates into the calendar function before you allow students into your course.
• Learning Objectives and Expectations: Students should know what is expected of them, in content, quality, and conduct. Add links to this information. You should never have a large rubric full of text on the home screen.
• Media: You should have some element of visual media embedded in the welcome page of your course. Ideally this would be an interesting video to generate excitement for the material to come.
• An Introductory Discussion: Students should immediately begin interacting with their peers to promote a sense of community. The instructor should encourage discussion and community building.

These elements should be a part of the first screen shot a student sees upon entering a course. You may have to add blocks, shift content around, or even delete that pretty banner, but your students will thank you when they are connected.

Jennifer Brooke Campbell, MLIS is the library director at Community Care College, Oklahoma Technical College, and Clary Sage College. She writes curriculum and designs courses in Moodle.