Marilyn Hamilton's List: Online Learning Development Resources

Like many other programs which offer courses via distance technologies, the State University of West Georgia’s teacher education program has found that one factor that plays a primary role in determining course quality is students’ perceptions of the degree of interaction. The research literature supports this observation (Fulford & Zhang, 1993; Klesius, Homan, & Thompson, 1997; Zhang & Fulford, 1994; Smith, 1996; Zirkin & Sumler, 1995). In fact, in their annotated bibliography on this topic, Zirkin and Sumler found that interaction seemed to have an impact on student achievement, as well as satisfaction: "The weight of evidence from the research reviewed was that increased student involvement by immediate interaction resulted in increased learning as reflected by test performance, grades, and student satisfaction" (p. 101).

The following excerpts are from Evaluation of Evidence-Based Practices in Online Learning: A Meta-Analysis and Review of Online Learning Studies (Washington, D.C., 2009), conducted by the U.S. Department of Education, Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development. It was prepared by Barbara Means, Yukie Toyama, Robert Murphy, Marianne Bakia, and Karla Jones. Click here for the complete report.

E-Learning Glossary - common elearning terms used in online education including accreditation, virtual classroom, community, university, college.

LD OnLine is the leading website on learning disabilities, learning disorders and differences. Parents and teachers of learning disabled children will find authoritative guidance on attention deficit disorder, ADD, ADHD, dyslexia, dysgraphia, dyscalculia, dysnomia, reading difficulties, speech and related disorders. LD OnLine works in association with Learning Disabilities Association of America, International Dyslexia Association, Council for Exceptional Children, Schwab Foundation for Learning, and the Coordinated Campaign for Learning Disabilities.

"Planning an online course

You have designed the learning activities, and now need to incorporate them into an online course. This workshop will explore how to design and develop your Vista course using an activity-based framework. At the end of this workshop, participants will be able to:

* Create a visual plan for an activity-based course design
* Consider how page design and component design will support student learning
* Identify appropriate online tools and resources to support the course
* Identify any additional skills you need for developing and implementing your course"

During the Quality Matters review process, each course is reviewed using a rubric with eight general review standards. The rubric is a dynamic document created using national standards and extensive research into online design principles. For the purposes of this website, the eight standards will serve as best practices to strive for in an online course. Below is a list of the eight standards. By clicking a title, you will find a detail of the best practices for each categories, as well as practical examples of how the standards have been met.

"An Instrument to Assess Online Facilitation

The "Assessing Online Facilitation" instrument (AOF) is for online course facilitators to objectively evaluate their facilitation for strengths and areas for improvement. Facilitators may choose to offer the AOF to others to guide a peer evaluation of their performance in the online classroom."

Good for examining online facilitation strategies.

"The OER Center for California provides support for community college educators to find, create, remix, use, and share openly licensed learning content. Together, as knowledge workers, we can learn to share...and share to learn."

"tudents are constantly confronted with new information, particularly once they progress to the upper elementary grades and transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn” (Chall, 1983). To read to learn effectively students need to integrate new material into their existing knowledge base, construct new understanding, and adapt existing conceptions and beliefs as needed. Proficiency at these tasks is essential to literacy (Davis & Winek, 1989; Squire, 1983; Weisberg, 1988). However, students who lack sufficient background knowledge or are unable to activate this knowledge may struggle to access, participate, and progress throughout the general curriculum, where reading to learn is a prerequisite for success."

"The purpose this site is to provide a starting place to begin the thought processes necessary to place a course on-line. It is not meant as the definative guide on on-line courses but merely to start the creative juices flowing. "