Thursday, January 11, 2007

Online Learning and Training

My perception of online courses is based on the 3 courses that I have taken. The first 2 courses were Photoshop and Fireworks. I struggled with those courses because they are so hands on and I could not get answers to my questions right away. Some of the students got very frustrated because the instructor didn't always understand the question (combination of the student perhaps not wording the question correctly and the instructor possibly trying to give a quick answer). I finished the courses, but did not feel that I really learned anything. The other course I took was about the Americans with Disabilities Act. I was very pleased with this course. We had scheduled discussion times, so there was interaction between the students and the instructor. When the course was done I felt like I had a better understanding and could put what I had learned to use at work.

Based on those courses I know that there are good online courses as well as bad courses. I will be cautious as to what courses I would take online.

What I hope to learn:
I hope to learn how to create an online course that doesn't leave the students feeling frustrated and confused. I currently teach workshops on: Excel, Blogs, RSS Feeds, and creating webpages. I want to be able to create courses that the students can access 24/7. I want to create learning objects for using our databases, etc. But I want to do a good job, I want students to finish the course and feel like they have accomplished something.