Bergeron, Corrie (cbergeron@capella.edu)
Tue, 15 Jun 1999 13:50:39 -0500
From: "Bergeron, Corrie" <cbergeron@capella.edu> Subject: Design guidelines for online courses Date: Tue, 15 Jun 1999 13:50:39 -0500
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Reading the last few days' posts, two items come immediately to mind:
1. The most conservative yet effective medium should be used to convey
information. Text may be decried, but most people learn better and faster
by reading than by listening. However, a lengthy textual description can
often be replaced by a well-designed graphic.
In particular, streaming video should never be used for "talking heads."
Video is a bandwidth hog, and should only be used to depict content where
the visual action is a critical property of the instruction. Examples
include machinery in motion, behavior, gestures, and body language. Even
these can often be rendered as animated gifs with greater resolution and
smaller filesizes. For an example, see
http://www.itasca.net/~corrie/tour/alttab1.htm
<http://www.itasca.net/~corrie/tour/alttab1.htm>
Just because the technology exists to do a thing, does not make it a good
idea. Hillary climbed Everest "because it was there." Too many Web
designers take the same approach to frames and streaming media.
2. If a course presents ill-structured problems for learners to solve, the
learners must also have access to the underlying declarative knowledge of
the problem domain. For example, if learners are given the task of
designing a marketing campaign for a fictional product, they must also have
foundation information about the industry and about different ways marketing
campaigns can be designed.
Corrie J. Bergeron Jr.
Senior Instructional Designer, Capella Education
"An educated mind is useless without a focused will,
and dangerous without a loving heart." - W.M. Deijmann
<mailto:corrie@itasca.net> corrie@itasca.net
<mailto:cbergeron@capella.edu> http://www.capella.edu
<http://www.capella.edu>
330 2nd Ave South, Ste. 550
Minneapolis, MN 55401
612-339-7665 x 283
888-879-6745 x 283
FAX 612-339-8022
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