Introduction to week 2: Designing engaging online activities
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Designing engaging online activities
The title of this week is 'designing engaging online activities', but actually we need to start a step back from that, and look at how we can represent our learning designs to each other, so we start off with learning design models, and then we move onto the actual designing part.
- Learning design frameworks and tools: Resources
Start here! Find out about some learning design models and tools. There's a short video overview and links to the design tools shown there, as well as links to other design frameworks.
Activities
- Group signup sheets
Sign up here for small (three person) groups for the main activity in week 3. If you'd like to arrange to work in a triad with specific people, feel free to agree that and sign up for the same group. In week 3 you will have a dedicated private discussion board to work on this activity. We will add more groups as necessary when these groups fill up. - Task 1: Tweet your ideas about learning design models and what makes a good online activity. While you're looking at models and frameworks, and reading about what makes a good activity, post to Twitter about the ideas which leap out at you, whether you agree or disagree. Use the course hashtag #tooc14.
- Task 2: Contribute to inventory of online activities (badge activity) (no more than 2 hours)
Think about an activity you have used, or one you've encountered as a learner. Pick a framework to describe it, and share that in the 'sharing learning activities' discussion board. Think about what your activity is trying to achieve - you might want to include a short narrative about the design decisions you've made, or things you've changed from an existing activity, and why. We encourage you to attach a powerpoint file, or link to a Google presentation or a Prezi, or to one of the learning design tools demonstrated in the video, to represent your design. At the very least, if you're short of time, just describe your activity in text.
Blank AUTC framework. A useful template for the resources/tasks/supports model of sharing learning designs. - Task 3: Learning design discussion (no more than 1 hour)
This is a space to talk about learning designs. What makes online activities different from face-to-face ones? How can you best represent your learning designs? How useful are the different models you've looked at? Are different ones suitable for different groups of people, eg experienced lecturers, new lecturers, programme level admin/management? What do people actually do in practice? How would you structure your own ideal learning design model/checklist? - Task 4 (optional extra): Visit other courses and look at their activities
Visit some other open online courses (or any closed ones you have access to) and look at some of their activities. Think about what makes them work, and how you would represent them in a learning design model.- Task 4a: course visits discussion
Readings
This week's key reading is the JISC Effective Practice in a Digital Age guide (up to page 17) (if you only read one thing this week, read this)
Readings: Articles and links to read for week 2.
Example AUTC framework activity design (pdf). An example of how one might use the AUTC framework to represent the TOOC Week 1 Icebreakers activity.
About the course: Teaching Online Open Course (TOOC)
