In the late 90’s and the online early days of online course development, most online courses were created by a cadre of educators who believed information technology could transform learning. These people were willing and able to master the skills, including programing, HTML and Java and the intricacies of vectors. Often they recreated an existing course and each course offering had an individualistic structure and those creating it might not have uses good instructional design.
Those individuals figured out things on their own and their results were put together with whatever resources the creator had. In the late 90s, a number of groups of course developers began to share their thoughts, methods and skills.
The ADDIE (Analyze, Design, Develop, Implement and Evaluate) Model of instructional design, developed at the University of Florida, became a common method for workplace and computer based training. However, developing and delivering an effective online course contained elements that required pedagogy and technology expertise only a few instructional developers considered. For example - pedagogy. This implies that the instructor can develop targeted learning objectives. Online instruction is more than converting a PowerPoint to a video. Planned instructional design demands linking learning objectives to learning activities and measurable outcomes.
Few trainers or online training developers have had formal education or training in instructional design or learning theory. Expecting them to master the instructional design and technological skills needed to put a well-designed course online could be improbable. . The best case scenario is to pair an instructional/training designer with someone with the computer and graphic skills. This way, each of them can bring skills to the course-creation process.
Next...What is a course and why put it online.
