Reflect upon what you learned Monday that will help you with the development of your online course. What did you find most helpful today and what questions do you still have? Are there experiences you have had with regard to Quality Matters, Universal Design for Learning, and or web accessibility that would be interesting to share here?
I really enjoy the overview offered by several of the speakers today. I am interested in learning more about QM and UDL.
Hi Barb,
Great! Be sure to check out the QM and UDL information in the Day 1 module of our Carmen Kickstart Week course. There is also a lot of information on both topics on the ODEE website: odee.osu.edu.
Awesome! Thanks.
I learned about the text feature in Adobe, but would like to know why my Adobe link does not show the text feature. Maybe I need a more updated version?
I also enjoyed seeing how other courses were formatted.
Hi Wendy,
You may have an earlier version of Adobe Pro. Tomorrow, if you have your laptop with you, be sure to ask the Digital Union staff about it. They may know why you aren’t seeing it. Also, Jessica Phillips will be in at some point tomorrow for you to ask questions about that feature.
Hi Wendy!
I’ll be around this afternoon and can take a look. Adobe Pro allows you to customize your menu of tools so it may be that the text recognition feature just hasn’t been activated. I can help with that!
With course creation, one unknown is where is the appropriate starting point, and then to re-ask that with regard to authoring course content well-suited to online education. Does it begin with rubrics, QM, accessibility, or will UD and backward design lead us to the point of beginning?
Hi Lee,
If you begin your course design with backward design (in our case using UbD), then begin filling in the learning plan portion of the Blueprint once the UbD template is complete, all of the components begin coming together at that point. When filling in the 14-week learning plan of the Blueprint is where you make notes on the content and activities for each week, the accessibility considerations for those activities and the rubrics needed for each assessment (graded assignment). Much of the elements in the QM rubric are included in the distance education template. It is recommended, though, that instructor walk through the QM rubric while putting together the course syllabus and Blueprint to be sure all of the 3 point elements are included at the very least. At ODEE, we also use the QM rubric to do one final quality check after the course has been built and before it is made live for students.
The single biggest impact information, for me, was pertaining to the accessibility information. I was unaware of the ability to check websites and of some of the other accessibility tools/requirements discussed today. Having this information will assist in developing a course that will address a more diverse population.
Hi Amy,
Great! Jessica Phillips will be back in on Tuesday to answer any more questions about web accessibility and UDL you may have.
I enjoyed the sessions today and look forward to the rest of the week. I am using the kick start week as the launch to a semester long interaction with ODEE. Some of my initial thoughts from the morning session:
1) Are there other exemplars of courses that we could look at outside of OSU? I would like to see a little on how we measure up to some of our competitors in my discipline. In particular, do you have any visibility of the types of courses that are offered at places like MSU, PSU and ASU?
2) I thought the Quality Matters rubric will be very helpful as a checklist against which I can compare my course. Any additional suggestions on how to use QM as a guide for course development?
3) With respect to UDL, I was a bit unsure as to how best to cover all the various potential issues that students might experience. Any suggestions?
I am sure I will have many additional questions as we progress through the week. See you in the morning.
Hi Mike,
Great question about UDL. It can definitely be overwhelming (and impossible) to predict and address all potential issues/needs students may have. That’s essentially why the UDL framework was created. By allowing for flexibility, options, and variety you are naturally addressing a wider variety of student needs from the very foundation of your course. That said, the instructor presence and ability to address student needs in the delivery of the course are also important. Issues (hopefully not many) that can’t be addressed in the design of the course can be addressed during course delivery but if UDL was implemented in the design then you are miles ahead. Great question, Mike!
I was particularly impresses by the Universal Design for Learning. Typically, as an instructor, unless you are notified or see it directly, you assume students have no disabilities. I was astonished by the statistics of only about 20% of students who report disabilities. This means you may have left out many students during prior teaching.
Taking a different approach, particularly for an online course, you should assume that there will be students with disabilities. As such, you should seriously consider to include universal learning aspects in the design of your online course.
Hi Wladimiro,
I’m so glad the UDL presentation was helpful for you! Since I’ve started researching it I’ve found it’s changed my philosophy on teaching and learning. Assuming that students in the course will have disabilities is exceedingly helpful in improving the course for everyone. After all, along with students with disabilities there are students with a variety of differences in communication, attention, learning preference, etc. Be sure to check out the UDL blog (u.osu.edu/universaldesign) to dive into this further!