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Sunday 6 August 2017

Journal 2: Using Quality Guidelines in eLearning

Objective:
With constant growth and fast-paced changing technologies information about almost anything is available to anyone with just a quick “google search.” As a result it important that online courses maintain a standard in which educational institutions, faculty, and students can adhere to.   The importance of developing and following quality guidelines when creating an online course can help ensure success not only for the learners but also make the course enjoyable to teach for the instructor.  If quality guidelines are not used effectively within an online course, the potential of misuse and misunderstandings can occur.  This could potentially result in failed learning experiences and comprehension of critical information.  By developing and following my own checklist or ones recommended by an educational institute I will be better able to meet the needs of my learners.  I feel that this is very important especially in healthcare professions as we are held accountable to provide the most beneficence to our patients in terms of following the best evidenced based practices and research.  The same can be said for when developing quality guidelines in terms of educating learners. 

Reflective:
When reflecting back to my own education, I never really thought about the quality guidelines that institutions or instructors had developed for their courses but understood there was some form of quality control.  My most recent education from Athabasca University was completed all through online courses. I would say my overall experience was successful.  After conducting my own research I found it difficult to find a set checklist of quality guidelines.  However I was able to find that Athabasca University is a full member of many associations that do have recommendations of quality guidelines such as the International Council for Open and Distance Education, Canadian Network for Innovation in Education and the Association of Commonwealth Universities.

Interpretive:
After seeing how Athabasca University chooses to follow quality guidelines I have come to realize that it is not a simple task of just checking off items on a checklist.  Many organizations can be involved if a school decides to incorporate more based on the size and depth of learning taking place. This has been eye-opening for me as I did not realize the amount of work required to not only develop but also continuously reevaluate the guidelines to ensure they are meeting the most current educational needs and requirements of the learners.

Decisional:
This new learning will be applied to my online course by taking the time to appropriately researching and developing a specific set of guidelines.  I would want to know more so if there are specific guidelines for healthcare courses and how they could be incorporated into a potential course that I would develop or teach.  More so, by having a basic understanding of the importance of quality guidelines I can also be better prepared if I start to teach an existing or developed online course.  I would want to ensure that not only the educational institutes’ guidelines were being followed but also be able to implement any changes I would deem beneficial for the overall course.  The examples given by the Canadian Recommended E-learning Guidelines provides a great outline in which I would definitely like to try and incorporate into my own checklists (Barker, 2002). 

References:

Athabasca University (2017). Accreditation. Retrieved from:

Barker, K. (2002). Canadian Recommended E-learning Guidelines (CanREGs). Retrieved


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