“The Top Ten eLearning Mistakes Teachers Make and How to Avoid Them”, presented at the Maryland Society for Educational Technology (MSET)

1. Top Ten eLearning Mistakes Teachers Make & How to Avoid Them Greg Williams, Ed.D. www.umbc.edu/isd

2. Greg Williams, Ed.D. Director & Assistant Professor UMBC www.gregwilliams.net

3. 3

4. Unclear Objectives 1. Unclear Objectives

6. Can be hard to measure

7. No-no words

9. Poor Instructional Objective At the end of this course, students will know how to be better typists

11. 2. Poor Assessment

13. Knowledge, skills

14. Learning preferences

16. Assessing the wrong things

17. Periodic & variety of assessment

20. Simple is good

21. Start slow

22. Course Tour

24. Help for “lost” students

25. Three before me

27. Greg’s Online Communication Assumption I can take a few days off and not check in online

28. Communications Issues 4. Communication Issues

30. Easy to mis-communicate online

31. Think, and then think again

33. Clarify and confirm

35. Don’t Leave Communication to Chance

36. 5. Inadequate Feedback

38. Establish guidelines

39. Establish timeframes

41. Link feedback to rubrics

43. No “Page Turners”

45. Appropriate for online delivery

46. Provide supporting materials

48. Use familiar technology (YouTube)

50. END 7. No Learner Interaction

51. Learner Motivation?

52. No progresswithout mistakes

54. Activities to link w/ objectives

55. Foster connections between students

57. Variety & Choice No Learner Interaction

58. 8. Improper Use of Technology

59. Infatuated with Technology

60. END Hate the Technology

61. Variety of Choices END

62. Use Familiar Technology

63. What’s Next?

64. Learning Tools Jane Hart’s Centre for Learning & Performance Technologies http://c4lpt.co.uk/recommended/

65. 9. No Learner Support

67. Troubleshooting help

68. Online Resources (library, tutorials)

69. Tools supported by IT

71. FAQs

72. Link to school’s support

76. Participation

77. Students “missing in action”

78. Course Expectations

79. Technical

81. Course tour

82. Three before me

83. Start slow

84. Back-up Plan (PC Access)

86. Not for everyone

87. Be open to possibilities

88. Experiment

89. Nut and bolts are easy

92. Greg Williams, Ed.D. Director & Associate Professor UMBC www.gregwilliams.net gregw@umbc.edu