So far, my work on developing a fully-online template design for the EDUC 1300 Learning Framework: 1^st Year Experience (FYE) course is right on target. I have been able to meet the milestones I set in the timeline I created at the beginning of this project. I believe there are a few reasons for this achievement. First, the intentional act of writing out the tasks and assigning a due date helps me tangibly grasp the work needed and keep the progress not only in my head but in a visual representation. Second, I already have experience developing online courses so I am familiar with the types of tasks needed and the amount of time to allocate. Third, I have steadily dedicated time to work on my course design and have not procrastinated. Lastly, I have been fortunate that my course design project overlaps some duties assigned in my full-time job and I have combined the efforts.

There have been a few technical challenges I have faced and written about in previous blogs. For example: 1) the Canvas rubrics tool doesn’t properly align columns, 2) Canvas does not have a way to add bonus points to the gradebook, 3) the free Canvas LMS does not allow LTI links or SCORM uploads, and 4) the Canvas Announcements tool does not have a way to expire or hide an announcement. I have mentioned previously that I addressed the first three challenges by either putting up with the misalignment and finding alternative means (such as using links and HTML5) to insert my multi-media lessons. I have just encountered the announcements difficulty. I assume that instructors using Canvas need to save their announcements to “the Commons” if they wish to use them again because in order to expire them from a current course, the only way I see to do it is to delete them manually. This is not the case in Desire2Learn. I have always heard glowing praise about Canvas and in many ways it is easy and logical to use. But having now used it and comparing it to Desire2Learn, I find the latter is more flexible and comes with more facilitation features than Canvas.

The challenges I have faced with “people” are actually the same challenges I face as well. We are all working full time jobs, have family obligations, health concerns, and are taking more than one graduate level course. We are busy and stressed. I have tried to be encouraging but worry my reviews on my peers’ work is going to stress them out even more. Also, seeing their struggles with progress makes me worry about them on top of my worry about me. Breathing exercises, taking breaks, and cake seem to help. But overall, my challenges with people have been minimal. I have a good group.

Besides getting to deeply delve into another learning management system, what I take from this school process compared to my professional developments is the reminder to take the time for planning and documentation. Many times at work we get caught up in the fast deadlines and forget how much better a design development goes with written design plans and timelines. I think this is an improvement I can bring to my professional life. My strengths as a designer lie in my organizational skills and attention to details. Taking the time to tie my design to a proven learning theory has been helpful. By keeping a constructivist theory mindset, I was able to decide how best to approach my included activities so that students could progressively build their knowledge. This is an area I’d like to develop further.

Tags: LTEC 5510

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2018 at 2:01 pm and is filed under Canvas, Instructional Design, LTEC 5510. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.