Planning & Designing Your Course > Design and Development
|
The Design and Development phases of the instructional design process typically occur very close together. The two phases include the following steps:
|
| 1. Plan strategies |
|
As you plan your strategy for integrating Blackboard into your instruction, consider:
| 1) What conventional or technological tools you already use in your course and how they might be converted or improved upon as part of a technologically integrated course. |
2) Your own background and comfort level with technology:
- though you need not be an expert, you should be comfortable enough with the tools you choose to use that you can illustrate procedures and provide answers to basic questions
- if your comfort level is low - starting out slowly would be wise. Once the students have a bad experience, it will be difficult to recover.
- the OTE is available to help.
- consider attending a Blackboard workshop.
- make a reservation with an OTE consultant for more personalized assistance.
|
|
3) Technology can be included to these varying degrees according to your needs:
- improving access to course materials.
- enhancing student communication.
- managing a completely paperless classroom.
|
4) Integrating technology into a course will create some special expectations among students, and may also cause some friction:
- when students do complain or technology fails, be prepared to offer alternatives and compromises if necessary.
- as an instructor, it is important to maintain student morale while being both firm and encouraging.
|
| 5) Compared to a traditional lecture course, a course which uses technology usually requires a greater degree of participation and interactivity from students. |
How do the things you have learned about your students impact your planning strategies and design?
|
| 2. Design the structure and organizational scheme |
|
Before you begin uploading your course content into Blackboard, it is very important to first design an organization and plan for your course site.
This is an important first step because once you have created your organization on Blackboard and have uploaded files, there is no way to move folders or documents. The only way to do this is by creating new folders and uploading each document again, one at a time.
This involves:
|
Decide where you're going to put your files in Blackboard
The best way to arrange online content for your course depends upon what components you wish to incorporate.
Blackboard has three sections in which to place course content: Course Information, Course Documents, or Assignments. Check out this chart for their suggestions: Where in Blackboard should I post my material?
(this link will open a new browser window) |
 |
You can create folders in any of these Blackboard areas to organize your materials. You can also place text to describe the folders and documents you provide for student use. You can also use this text to set expectations for the student - both what they will find in the folders and what you expect them to do with these materials.
Once you've decided where in Blackboard you're going to post your files, you need to further define the organizational structure of your course.
|
Decide on an organizational structure for your materials
If you've been teaching your course for a while, you probably already have a solid course organization that is easily transferable to the Blackboard online environment - no need to change your structure unless you plan to improve it.
If this is a new course, or if you'd like to revise your existing course organization, follow these steps:
Step 1: Begin designing the structure of your course by building on the instructional goals and objectives that you have defined:
- What topics do your instructional goals and objectives encompass?
Step 2: Then answer these questions:
- How many sessions, weeks are there in a semester or term?
- What are the components or subtopics of your course?
|
-- overview
-- lesson objectives
-- lecture notes
-- activities |
-- readings
-- handouts
-- labs
-- case studies |
Step 3: As you begin to work through these issues, you will see possibilities for logical organization of your course. Suggested organization schemes include:
- by week
- by topic
- by type of material
- by textbook chapter, unit
Step 4: Once you've decided on an organizational scheme for your course site, make an outline or hierarchical flow chart or your course.
Step 5: Next, create a a file structure on your computer to mirror that hierarchy. This also ensures a "back-up" of your course materials and course site structure.
Step 6: Then create that same file organization on your Blackboard course site.
Step 7: Develop a timeline for making course components available to students. If too much information is available, the students might not focus on the current unit.
|
| 3. Plan strategies for your course materials |
With Blackboard, you can:
- create new documents (not recommended)
- upload existing documents to the the Blackboard server in their native file formats (e.g., .doc, .ppt)
- link to an existing web site
Maintain documents in their native formats:
It is advisable to maintain your existing course materials in their native file formats because Blackboard-created documents are not usable outside of Blackboard (i.e., cannot be imported into another application).
That is why it is especially important to start with your course structure on your local machine - if you decide not to use Blackboard in the future, your course structure and materials can be reused in any platform.
Linking to an existing course web site:
Some instructors already have comprehensive course web sites on Andrew or a departmental server. There is no need to upload your existing web site to Blackboard.
The recommended strategy is to simply link to your site from within Blackboard.
In fact, we recommend against using Blackboard's "upload package file" feature for these reasons:
- When you make a change to your web site, you have to remove it from Blackboard, re-archive the files, then re-upload the archive of your web site. But, if you're simply linking to it from within Blackboard, there is no need to update anything in Blackboard.
- During semester migration, package files in Blackboard have a tendency to "break". That is, when the Blackboard course site content is copied from a course at the end of the semester to a course site for a new semester, links in package files break.
If you currently do not have server space on Andrew for a course web site and would like to, see Computing Services' documentation on web publishing.
|
| 4. Prepare materials for electronic delivery |
If you have course materials that are paper-based and you would like to post them on Blackboard, you need to prepare the materials in various multimedia formats for electronic delivery. This may include:
- scanning graphics
- converting handwritten lecture notes to PowerPoint presentations
- creating homework assignments in Word
- converting existing documents to PDF format (e.g., for documents where formatting must be consistent across all platforms, for documents which contain lots of graphics, mathematical symbols, etc.)
- filming video clips of presentations (e.g., guest lectures) that you would like to capture
Large files (e.g., video clips) should not be uploaded to Blackboard, because you will most likely exceed your course site quota and there is potential to impact the reliability and performance of the Blackboard server. Instead, these files should reside on a departmental web server and you can simply link to them from within your Blackboard course site.
The OTE is able to provide faculty assistance with preparing course materials for electronic delivery through:
- multimedia workshops
- consultation with an OTE consultant
- the use of OTE Lab facilities and equipment
|
|
Course Request
