Hear from Prof. Tamara Phillips Fudge
The pandemic taught us many things. While we learned to adapt to mask mandates, 6-foot distances from strangers, and watching the news for vaccine updates, we also learned that the internet is indispensable. Zoom and FaceTime meant we could visit with family living far away. Being allowed to work from home saved a lot of jobs as well as transportation time and gasoline. Buying groceries and other necessities online and picking them up in a parking lot became normal – and sometimes the only time we left our homes.
We also realized that we were "in for the long haul." No one could know how long this would take or if we could get or would even want to get back to how things were pre-pandemic. K-12 schools and traditional college education had to convert quickly to online delivery so learning time would not be lost. There were already online schools, but the expertise gathered over several decades there was not easy to find and emulate, and many institutions only gave a week or two to faculty to figure it out.
The Scopus indexed IGI Global book,
Curriculum Development and Online Instruction for the 21st Century (ISBN:9781799876533, provides guidance moving forward. Subjects include student engagement, curriculum development, rubrics and grading issues, diversity, student challenges, best practices for live webinars, uses for Virtual Reality, and other objectives and ideas that course content developers should know. Faculty from a dozen institutions and four continents contributed for a strong representation of ideas that work.
Why Online Learning
The concept of learning from a distance is not new. Mail correspondence courses dating as far back as the early 1700s were early innovations; then radio and closed-circuit television content delivery in the 20th century gave us the impetus to use modern technology (Fudge, 2018-19). The advent of the computer is another step along this journey.
Just prior to the pandemic, some educators dismissed online learning as a fad or a non-equivalent to the traditional classroom. Now, the value is better understood. If a student has internet and a device, school is at their fingertips. The child who for whatever reason cannot be in a classroom with peers can keep up online. The busy adult who wants to come back to college no longer must quit their job and move away from family to obtain a degree. It is not just a replacement, either; the World Economic Forum states that because online students have more control over their learning significantly the ability to read, review, and even skip concepts they already know, they will retain a significant higher portion of important course content than those in face-to-face classes (Li & Lalani, 2020).
Planning and Tools are Crucial
The rapid online coursework created by panicked faculty in March-April 2020 was only a stop-gap measure, as the traditional class cannot be simply copied-and-pasted into a webpage. The capabilities of the Learning Management System chosen by school administrations needed time for careful exploration.
Now that panic has subsided, content developers need to fully understand what their LMS can do. Discussions, live webinars, assignment instructions, links and images, accessibility, embedded rubrics, unit or module organizations, testing options, and outcome connections need attention, even if a course only employs some of these features. Miya and Govender (2022) explain that the very design of the LMS interface and focus on usability are important to student learning and satisfaction, and the feedback mechanisms need to be clear.
As Friedrichs (2021) articulates so well, transforming education into an online learning community is a "challenge, responsibility, and opportunity" (p. 189); it is structured and complex, and it is globalized yet welcoming of diversity in its many forms.
In the book, many of these ideas are explored to help the new developer as well as to provide ideas for the those with substantial experience. My co-editor Susan Shepherd Ferebee and I hope you will be able to glean useful insight to strengthen your online programs.
Related Curriculum Innovation Books
About the Editors
Tamara Phillips Fudge, DMus., is a full-time professor in the graduate technology programs at Purdue University Global. She has won fellowships and awards for innovation and teaching, and has taught a wide variety of topics, including web development, human-computer interaction, systems analysis and design, and those featuring documentation, diagramming, problem-solving, and presentation. Her career started with music degrees from Indiana University and Florida State University. She sang opera, oratorio, and in recital; her compositions have been heard on Public Radio, at various universities, and a state choral convention. She taught vocal and choral music, piano, pedagogy, foreign language diction, opera production, music theory, composition, and related courses in the traditional college classroom for 20-odd years. For 7 years, she was a weekend correspondent for the Quad-City Times (Davenport, IA). Following a brief stint as an agent/registered representative selling life and health insurance and variable products, she returned to school with a keen interest in technology and has since distinguished herself in online teaching, coordination of large projects, and curriculum development.
Susan Shepherd Ferebee, earned her Ph.D. in Information Systems at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. She also has an Executive Juris Doctorate from Concord Law School, and has a Masters in Educational Psychology from Purdue University Global.. She is a faculty member in the School for Business and Information Technology at Purdue University Global and has also served as a consultant with more than 25 years of experience working directly with organizations and higher education institutions. Susan has published many peer-reviewed articles. Her current research in progress includes studies on smart technology use in home schooling, personal cybersecurity behaviors, and the influence of interpretive communities on persuasion, Susan also served as a guest editor for a special issue of International Journal of Conceptual Structures and Smart Applications. Susan serves as an Editorial Review Board member for International Journal of Cognitive Informatics and Natural Intelligence. She is an active presenter at international and national conferences. Susan has received numerous teaching and outstanding contributor awards and has been awarded several research grants.
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not reflect the views of IGI Global.
References
Friedrichs, L. (2021). Global curriculum development: How to redesign U.S. higher education for the 21st century. Verlag. https://search-ebscohost-com.libauth.purdueglobal.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=nlebk&AN=3098384
Fudge, T. (2018-2019, Fall/Winter). Online learning today: An extension of your grandmother's correspondence course. Colleague 2 Colleague (C2C) Digital Magazine, 1(10), 11. http://scalar.usc.edu/works/c2c-digital-magazine-fall-2018--winter-2019/online-learning-today-extension-grandmothers-correspondence-course
Li, C., & Lalani, F. (2020, April 29). The COVID-19 pandemic has changed education forever. This is how. The World Economic Forum. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/04/coronavirus-education-global-covid19-online-digital-learning
Miya, T. K., & Govender, I. (2022, December 31). UX/UI design of online learning platforms and their impact on learning: A review. International Journal of Research in Business and Social Science, 11(10), 316-327. https://doi.org/10.20525/ijrbs.v11i10.2236
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