Taking this course was a mistake. Well, for me it was. You might need the information. There were a few moments of learning, but for me, who plans and manages “elearning” (whatever that means) as a daily activity, the course was frustrating as it lacked the nuance of the day-to-day, it placed the institution at the centre of the planning when in reality, in my experience this is not planned at the institutional level – it requires a grassroots approach for many years before the institution codifies and standardizes it. The assignments were almost too focused on institutional needs (and I understand why they went this route with the design) – but in all likelihood, only a few of your graduates are going to be at that institutional level to influence change and by the time they get there, Tony Bates’ book will be horribly out of date and the lessons learned will not apply. I also never really got into a rhythm with this course. I’d literally read the readings on Monday, then think for four or five days, I’ve got to do the discussion…. Some weeks I couldn’t even do that. This course, for whatever reason broke my spirit. I’m not egotistical enough to suggest I know it all, I don’t. I think I never was able to connect the readings to the assignments, and the things that we were to do in the class didn’t ever really gel for me. Some of the gaps in the content were glaring for me as well.
In one assignment there’s an elearning readiness check – which assumes that the institution wants to engage in elearning at all! They can’t be ready if they don’t want to do it…. Then the tools that we could use to “assess” readiness were outdated and almost laughable. There was no mention of diversity, equity, accessibility or privacy in any of the assessment tools. Security was an afterthought. Interoperability, standards… those were not addressed as well. Cost was reduced to a line-item. Those are requirements in 2022, as in not optionals or nice to have, but as an institution you must look at technology and learning through those lens’. For a course to just skip over these issues is a bit disheartening.
Even if the assessment tools didn’t have those present – it’s easy to build that into the course by redesigning it to instead have the student design the readiness tool (which then releases the faculty from the dating of the material and the readings can be updated without requiring re-writes of the assessments) and build common factors through discussion and then design a “rubric” for assessment. Make that your first assignment. The second assignment is to look at implementation plans that are available. Analyze them for how your rubric might apply. This rubric could also be used for an RFP like scenario outside of the curriculum. Then re-write the rubric to address any gaps seen in implementation plans. Show some other rubrics. Critique the rubric as your final piece. Or have a reflective piece. Then you have a student-driven, student-centred course.
Admittedly I coasted through and put little effort into this. So I did the required minimum, slowly faded from discussions (which I hate when they’re so structured and stilted and non-organic). This wasn’t a fault of the course, it’s well designed, and was delivered by a facilitator that seemed to care (I would write truly cared, but I don’t know if that’s true or not). I, as a student, did not care. And for that I am sorry somewhat, because I should’ve been able to find a moment or a spot to hold up as worthwhile, but I couldn’t find that spot. So in some ways I failed this course, not marks-wise, but failed to be a good contributor. I was really disheartened by the lack of modern resources. I was really disappointed that this class, that I was honestly looking forward to at the beginning, was really frustrating for me. I can taste how close this is to a useful class for the modern context, but it just falls short. In a little bit of hindsight, it’s probably just a course that’s been in need of a refresh and probably is due up for a change shortly (fingers crossed!).
Oh, and to top it all off, I reused an APA cover sheet from a previous course, and the first time I copied it I didn’t know how to spell the facilitator’s name, so I gave it shot – as a placeholder – with the intention of correcting it later. I never did. To compound my utter stupidity, I submitted it, not once but twice, because the second time I just reused the same cover sheet and didn’t even bother checking. I did pull it together for the last submission, and sent off a mea culpa letter to the prof just to let them know I’m an idiot.