Great e-learning content is a necessity when you are deliver education online. You can always purchase content, or create your own using various e-learning tools and software programs. Either way, these are a few key factors to consider when building your online course.
1. Content is most important. It can be easy to get distracted by your authoring tools or LMS platform with so many design and multimedia options available. Just take a moment to gather your thoughts and create a clear outline of your course. You can use this course outline to help you build your entire course, as well as act as a guide for all of your students. Your students will be very appreciative that you are supplying them with such a detailed outline. You may want to consider the following for your outline:
- Course objectives
- Prerequisites
- Evaluation criteria
- Course schedule
- Support/help
- Resources
2. Quality design and presentation matters too. Try to leverage your design templates from previous courses or through your authoring tool. If a custom template is necessary, you may need to enlist the help of a design professional. Make sure than any audio or video work done is with professional quality. Remember, you don’t want your students to become distracted by your poor course design.
3. Test and practice. When your course content is complete and assembled, upload it to your LMS platform and share your course with friends, coworkers, or previous students. Having others preview the course and provide feedback can be extremely helpful to you and help prevent some mistakes. Be sure to pay attention to quiz/test results that may indicate where students are struggling as well.
4. Provide additional resources. It is important to provide a relevant list of resources to your students. These resources may or may not be required for the student to use throughout the course. Be sure to review and update this list of resources periodically to keep it as up-to-date as possible.
With these tips for designing for your online course content, you should be able to get started in no time!