Activity 1: What's Out There?

One of the best ways to learn about instructional design is to look at a few examples. The good, the bad and the ugly all have something to teach us, if we know what to look for.

So we've prepared 20 Questions about web-based distance learning resources. They will help focus your attention as you explore models for your own design, providing a framework for your own analysis of online distance education resources. They are also a handy way to keep track of sites that featured something you liked.

Don't worry if you can't answer all the questions immediately. We'll return to the 20 Questions several times, each time taking up a handful of questions that reflect the themes of the current session.

Make a copy of the 20 Questions sheet for each online resource you examine. Save the pages and build yourself a case-book of models you can use as a reference when you develop your own project.
For now:

• Print out three copies of the 20 Questions sheet.

• Using your browser, visit three sites from our list of examples.

• Using a separate copy of the 20 Questions sheet for each site you visit, write in your answers to Questions 1 through 5.
  1. What is the name of this resource?

  2. What kind of a resource is it? For example, is it a research resource, a set of interactivities to be used in a classroom, an online expedition, a mentoring opportunity, a course, or...something else?)

  3. What is the URL of the resource?

  4. Does the instructional designer seem to expect that learners will work independently? In a local group? In an online group? How can you tell?

  5. Does the resource depend on instructional leadership provided by a local teacher? An online teacher? Or does the resource expect that no instructional leadership will be provided?

Back to "varied resources"

 
 
Activity 2: How Do Sites Bridge the Gap?

• Pull out the 20 Questions sheets you began to fill out last time.
  -- or --
  Print some new blank copies of the 20 Questions sheet, and use a search engine to locate new sites that are more closely related to your own interests.

• Examine your chosen sites, this time paying particular attention to the strategies that the resources' desginer used to solve the communication dilemmas that result from separation between learners and the learning resource.

• For each site you examine, write an answer to Question 6:
  6. What strategies are used to compensate for the feedback loop that is lost when learners are seperated from the learning resource by distance or time?

• Save your sheets!