A Few Considerations for Setting Up an Online Learning Experience

Setting up an engaging and interactive online learning experience requires planning and careful attention to detail. One of the first things to attend to is creating presence. In fact, Boettcher and Conrad argue that “One of the best ways to get an online course off on the right foot is to ensure the social presence of the instructor and all the learners” (2010, p. 54). Social presence gives online learners the sense that they are interacting with “real, live, breathing” people. It is the "ability of learners to project their personal characteristics into the community of inquiry, thereby presenting themselves as real people" (2010, p.76). Further, social presence is an essential component of the online community trust-building process (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010).

The second thing to attend to concerns technology. Find out what technology tools are available to you, the facilitator, and other learners. It would be an excellent and worthwhile venture for instructors and facilitators to take an inventory of the tools available to them. For example, can the course be built using a course management system (CMS)? This is important since using a CMS could prove very beneficial to instructors and students because CMS are generally feature-rich and powerful in terms of course delivery. Another question to ask is, “Can multi-media vignettes be built into the course?” Multimedia is generally highly compelling, and has the potential to quickly engage students in the learning experience. Other technology tools, especially those made available by Web 2.0 technology such as wikis, blogs, discussion groups, streaming video, and social media should be explored, and assessments should be conducted to determine how and when these tools can best be incorporated into the online course.

Of course simply taking an inventory of the technology tools currently available is not enough, although it is a good first step. After you’ve determined what is available, you must select the tools that are optimal for your learners – tools which support your learning objectives. For instance, if you’ve assigned students the task of exploring a topic through research and interviews, and have asked them to write up their findings, as well as comment on the work of their peers, a good technology tool to use would be a wiki. The optimal tool might be a blog, although both tools may support the learning objectives.

Another equally important consideration here, though, is learners’ access and comfort with the tools being used. Instructors and facilitators must determine:

1. whether students know how to access technology tools (typically accessible through the internet)

2. whether students can use the tools

As an example, we might believe that YouTube is now ubiquitous, and that everyone knows how to access videos on that site. The reality is that not everyone knows how to access videos on YouTube or through other applications even. Or it could be possible that a learner knows how to access a video, but does not have a set of speakers built into or attached to her computer. Or perhaps speakers are attached, but the learner does not know how to change the settings to get them to work properly. All of these are likely scenarios and must be taken into account when using technology tools.

Although this discussion is not a comprehensive one by any stretch of the imagination, for purposes served here the final thing to attend to when arranging an online experience involves setting up clear expectations of learners. “Clear and unambiguous guidelines about what is expected of learners and what they should expect from an instructor make a significant contribution to ensuring understanding and satisfaction in an online course” (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010, p. 55).


Reference

Boettcher, J. V. Conrad, R. (2010). The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.