Rethinking and redesigning an online course

Now that you have seen what other people did in creating their units, is there anything that you might do differently if you were to redesign your own unit?


After reviewing the the units from other students in the class, I see the variables and endless choices in creating an online course.  As with other established online courses, they were all very rich in text and not visually attractive.  I am a visual learner and tend to look at a glance and like to get an overview of what is expected and the goals.  I like to call it a visual outline.  Many of the courses were so rich in text that it was hard to determine what the goals, mission and course objectives were for the course.  But, at the same time, I discovered some valuable activity tools that I did not think of to enrich our unit if it were to put into practice.  Since, I am doing our unit in person with students in a few weeks for another course, I am eager to see how it works.  I like that our course was set up as a synchronous course. I don't remember other units set up purposefully for complete video synchronous interaction.  I would like to have the place where the information resides be more interactive than powerpoint, but sometimes the simplest form is the easiest to navigate.  It is what the students say in discussion that will interest me, not what they do online.  So, the integration of Museumbox, like Heather Saksa and Melinda Sloan incorporated in their unit, would be a good exercise for the students to integrate using tools online with the assignments and the platform is a virtual museum!!! A win/win/win!!

Scary business...designing an online course

What are you most concerned about as you embark on creating a curriculum unit?


Creating a curriculum unit is daunting!  I am concerned about accessibility of web 2.0 tools for user, their skills at using them, time management, quality of content and discussions in this environment for new users and overall the ability to express and discuss art, a very visual experience, over a digital connection.

A new viewpoint on virtual schooling...

Did you change anything in the Google spreadsheet? If so, what? Has your view of the schools you chose to research changed from the first week you looked at them? If so, how?


My viewpoint on virtual school has actually become more conservative.  After looking at the schools and courses, and discovering that not much is really substantial in the way they market and sell themselves has left me a skeptic.  Also, I have definitely come to realize that I fall on the side of wanting to promote synchronous environments or some percentage of both asychrounous/sychronous for virtual schooling to be effective at all levels especially K-12.