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My Roadmap for Converting a Classroom Course to eLearning

Admittedly, my decision to undertake a project in creating an online learning course has been overshadowed with doubts about my own technical capacity to do the 'techie' stuff to make it work.  I have therefore been doing a lot of reading in preparation for this exercise, and I am presently doing the Online Course Creation Diploma Course with the UK based Centre of Excellence.

In my preparatory reading I was heartened by the proclamation from Ko and Rossen (Teaching Online: A Practical Guide, 2004) that “Techies don’t necessarily make the best online instructors. An interest in pedagogy should come first, technology second” (p. 16).   With this affirmation, I proceeded to sort through all my resources to see if I can identify definitive steps for starting the conversion process.

I soon realized that developing an online course requires more time and effort than a face-to-face course because even if you have the content in your head, or saved as a text file on your computer, you have to reconstruct all your materials to make it useful for online learning.  As a matter of fact, Elbaum et al. (2002) profess that “Preparing and designing your online course is the most time-consuming component of the online learning experience” (p. 22).  I realize that this claim is not an exaggeration.

There are many variables to consider in developing an online course. In the first place, you have to determine whether the course will be delivered as a self-paced programme or whether learners will be working with time units.  Time units in an online course engage learners with the course material, discussions, and activities in weekly intervals.  Other considerations include the course length, choosing the right technology for effectively delivering your course, converting documents into an electronic format, converting traditional classroom activities into online activities, and creating new materials such as images, videos and audio clips to engage the learners. After working through what I thought to be the most important details, I formulated my roadmap for converting a classroom course to elearning.



Over the course of the next few weeks, this is the guide that I will use to create my online course.

If you missed my previous article on elearning, check it out here:


Stay tuned!


References
Elbaum, Bonnie & McIntyre, Cynthia & Smith, Alese. (2002). Essential Elements: Prepare, Design, and Teach Your Online Course. Atwood Publishing. 

Ko, S., & Rossen, S. (2004). Teaching online: A practical guide. 2nd ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 



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