This slide show on preparing online teachers and online course developers was presented at the Texas Education Agency conference, "21st Century Skills for the Digital Learner" held in Austin, Texas February 8, 2010

1. Training In-Service Teachers to be Online
Instructors and Online Course Developers
Texas Education Agency
21st Century Skills for the Digital Learner
February 8, 2010
Richard A. Smith
Clinical Associate Professor
&
Caroline M. Crawford
Associate Professor
Instructional Technology Program
School of Education

2. Typical
University Distance Ed Courses
– Offered online – Few external
• Occasionally face-to- applications taught
face – Not linked directly to a
– Concentration upon particular course
discussion activities management system
for transmission of – Little, if any, hands-on
course information experience in building
and teaching a real
course

3. University of Houston-Clear Lake
Instructional Technology Program
• Offers a 36 hour Master’s of Science
degree in Instructional Design and
Technology, and the
– Online Distance Educator Professional
Development Certificate (9 hours)
• Can be a component of the instructional
technology master’s degree course of study
• All UHCL DE certificate courses approved for
professional development by the Texas Virtual
School Network

4. UHCL New Model
• Courses
1. Required Core: Interactive Distance
Learning
2. Elective Course Options (two required):
a) Technology and eLearning
b) Multimedia Design Applications
c) Advanced Technology Applications

5. Underlying Philosophy
 Enable students to
 Create high quality distance education courses upon program
completion
 Hit the ground running
 Provide students with
 A comprehensive background in instructional design
 History of distance education
 Use of web based applications
 Professional outlook
 Produce students who are
 In control of web page design
 Can understand and apply html to the design of web-based
teaching

6. Typical Course Structure

7. Professional Standards Addressed
– iNACOL – International
Association for K-12 Online
Learning
http://www.inacol.org/
• Interesting
requirements
– International Society for
Technology in Education
http://www.iste.org/
• De rigueur

8. Distance Education Training at the
School of Education - UHCL
A Course-by-Course Overview
All courses adhere to iNACOL Standards
And are approved for professional development training for the
Texas Virtual School Network (TxVSN)

9. Interactive Distance Learning
The ―Core‖ Course
 Emphasis upon
 Instructional systems view
 Course design and development
 Author-Editor Model
 Course evaluation
 Interactive designer feedback
 Roles of the Instructor
 Modeling of good practice by the prof
 Research studies focused upon distance learning
effectiveness

10. Interactive Distance Learning Apps
– Tools for course design • Course Management
• Graphic organizers System
– a) Mindomo b)
Exploratree c) IHMC – UHCL Moodle
Cmap Tools
– Tools for instruction
• Video
– a) Jing, b) DimDim
• Google Docs
– Google Sites
– Resources
• Merlot
• MIT Open High School
Software

11. Students Extend Teaching
• As students develop resources they are
integrated into Interactive Distance Learning
– Students serve as distance education
• peer tutors
• role models

12. Course Methods
• Explain how to design a Moodle-based
course
– Integrate design principles
• Use of the Author-Editor model
– Roles are switched
• Heavy emphasis on evaluation of the
course design
• Evaluations are assessed and graded
• Weekly discussions
– Including a help discussion

13. Moodle Features Studied
• Lessons • Glossaries
• Assignments • Blogs
• Quizzes • Databases
• Managing the class • Grades
• Forums, Chats, and • Surveys and Choices
Messaging

14. Technology and eLearning
• Links current understanding of human cognition
with advances in computer technologies
• Addresses how technology-rich learning
environments are based upon a firm grounding
in educational psychology and cognitive science
• Focuses upon distance learning instructional
enhancements within the Moodle environment

15. Technology and eLearning: Course
of Study
• Belief systems • Multimedia
– learning styles representations of
– Instructional (teaching) information
styles
– Graphic
• Developing communities – Audio
of learners
– Video
– Synchronous Events and
Web Conferencing
– Assistive and Adaptive
Accessibility Support
• Formative and
Summative
Evaluations

16. Technology and eLearning
• Framing the course knowledge:
Beyond text-based information and towards
– Graphic representations of information
– Audio support enhancement
– Video support enhancement
– Synchronous events & web-conferencing
– Assessment & evaluation

17. Technology and eLearning:
Areas of Production Emphasis
• Software  Internet-Accessible
– Open source  Software
– Freeware  Web Conferencing Systems
– Shareware  Video
 Audio
 ePublications
 eBooks
 eJournals
 eArticles
 Blogs
 eTutorials
 eConferences

18. Multimedia Design Applications
• Goals
– Use information technology to
• produce web pages
• disseminate web pages
– Increase global perspectives by publishing web
pages within the world wide community, and
– Increase self-directed learning through the
opportunity to
• extend the basic information presented through links
• web sites with additional information.

19. Multimedia Design Applications
Examples of Unit – Exploring graphics
Topics software
– Understanding design – Basic animation on the
strategy web
– Applying multimedia to – Understanding 3-D
online courses animation, special
effects, and VR
– Utilizing HTML and
XHTML – Using audio on the
web
– Sources of digital
images – Video on the web

20. Advanced Technology Applications
• Goals – Identify current issues
– Understand key pertaining to the use of
educational advanced
psychology and technologies in f2f
cognitive science classrooms and online
terminology – Align classroom and
• Identify teaching strategies
• Define with advanced forms
• Explain of online instruction
– Identify and apply
various technologies
contained within the
course

21. Advanced Technology Applications
• Examples of Topics
– Using Audacity to create an advanced audio podcast
– Developing and using avatars
– Implementing virtual reality tools
– Using online educational gaming tools
– Evaluating online tools and programs
– Using advanced accessibility tools
– Identifying current trends and issues

22. Questions, Comments,
and Discussion
Hmmm, I wonder what the students
think of these courses?
Funny you should ask.

23. • end

24. Instructional Web Design and
Development
s
• Course Assignments:
• Final portfolio. The culmination of this class will be the creation of a final portfolio. The final portfolio will be an
instructional web site that you have designed, developed, and disseminated. In addition, you will also complete a
series of projects. You can skillfully build your responses to the projects to fit into, complement, and reinforce your
final portfolio's web site. The final portfolio Web page contains links to 10 sample portfolios as well as additional
information about the assignment.
• Projects. To develop the HTML skill needed to build your final portfolio's web site, you will complete five projects
that demonstrate your mastery of page development skills. Requirements, specifications, grading template, and a
sample of these projects are available in the lessons which assign them.
• Project 1 — Prepare a proposal for your final portfolio's web site.
• Project 2 — Create a basic text-only Web page which demonstrates your ability to handle text attributes and lists.
• Project 3— Design and develop a web page illustrating your ability to use links, images and formatted text.
• Project 4— Create a Web page illustrating your ability to use tables in a Web Site.
• Project 5 — Create a Web page illustrating your ability to create and use an image map.
• Project 6— Create a Web page which demonstrates your ability to use Frames in a Web Site.
• Project 7— Create a Web page illustrating your ability to use Forms on a Web page.
• Project 8— Create a Web page that illustrates your ability to use Style Sheets.
• Project 9— Create a Web page that illustrates your ability to use JavaScript.
• Project 10— Create a Web page that illustrates your ability to create Pop-Up Windows, Scrolling Messages, and
Validating Forms.
• Project 11— Create a Web page that illustrates your ability to use DOM to enhance your Web page.
• Project 12— Create a Web page that illustrates your ability to create and use XML.
• Project 13— Create a Web page that illustrates your ability to use Flash to enhance your Web page.
• Final Portfolio - Create a unit of on-line instruction in a subject of your choice.

25. Mindomo

26. Exploratree

27. IHMC Cmap Tools

28. Discussion Topics