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Summer Cleanup of Online Courses







Like a lot of you, I will be spending a good chunk of time updating and cleaning up my online courses this summer. This is an ongoing process, and it seems like this job is never done. For me, the more time I spend on prep now, the less time I will need to spend during the semester, when I hope to spend my time grading and engaging students. Media and content development is a continuous process as well, and there always seems to be something to improve upon.

My goals for this summer are to update some lab content, double check my videos for captioning issues, and exploring the use of speech recognition for producing student feedback in assessments. I'll let you know how it works out.

I teach several Anatomy and Physiology courses with online lab components. These are some of the more complex courses in my college, and I developed them from scratch. We were among the first few colleges to develop online A&P courses, and I must say at times it has been a real challenge.

The earliest versions (10 years ago) contained podcasts synched to Powerpoints. These were tortuous hour-long presentations mimicking my in-class lectures. Believe it or not, I actually thought this was a good idea back then. The second version included producing videos of my Powerpoints, again these were extremely long and boring. I feel sorry for the students I tortured back then!

Version 3 included shortening the videos to between 5-6 minutes (a step in the right direction), but they still contained lots of "uhs," "ahs," "okays," and uneven vocal inflections. I remember getting work-study students to produce the captions and one of them included my speech errors word for word.

In version 4, I used GoAnimate to make short animated videos. I also took a voice over class in a studio and learned about how to use a microphone. I also use a script which eliminates the vocal errors and makes captioning easy. These videos were great except for one thing. My mistake was to use background music. Again, I thought this would be a good idea, to move the student along. Hey, I used to listed to classical music when I studied.

After many complaints about the music, I reproduced the videos for version 5 without the music, success at last! Version 6 now contains a much cleaner look and I think I'm finally getting the hang of it. I've also produced lots of explainer videos for my courses and other colleges along the way (using Camtasia) and I'm feeling much better about my video production skills.

So, this is just a small portion of how content and media is updated for online courses. There are also documents, assignments, and online interactive labs that require continual updating.

Here are my recommendations for updating content and media:

1. Spread large tasks over long periods of time. Sometimes people ask how do I produce hundreds of videos, develop labs, write books, and teach a large load of classes. My answer is to do a little bit each day or week over long periods of time.

2. Target content to get the biggest bang for your time buck. Take the most difficult concept in your course and develop media to help students learn it. Spend your development time wisely.

3. Keep abreast of technology. My movement from podcasts to videos to animated videos is an example of using more complex technology over time.

4. Listen to student feedback. I constantly poll my students to see what is working and what is not. Sometimes I hand out surveys and sometimes I just ask. It is important to carefully listen to what they are saying.

5. Keep the design simple. I learned this in my version 6 videos. Distracting animations, music, wild colors, and other items tend to distract the learner. Simple is always better.

Good luck with your Summer (and Fall/Winter/Spring) updating. I sincerely wish you the best.

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