Group Project Week 3

This week we continued work on our redesign of the class. We are narrowing our focus and I think we may do a power point presentation to the instructor on the ways we recommend for her to redesign her course. It is still just John and I. Our third partner must have dropped the class. Not really a lot to blog about this week. We will be wrapping up the project as it is due at the end of April and I will blog more extensively about our final product then.

Case Study Week 2

Good news! My group mate reappeared so I am not flying solo on the case study. I was surprised to see no new info this week. It looks like the instructions are sort of open ended and as an instructional designer I am free to pursue the case study as I see fit. John and I discussed the prelim questions a bit more and we are debating how to handle the final recommendations. We worked on some new work flows and we may offer web site redesign suggestions. Really the case is not too complicated, the web site for the course is horrible and it is no wonder the students are confused.

It is interesting that in the case study the course instructor was very enthusiastic about online leaning and felt that her course would convince other professors that these courses would be viable. Then she proceeded to shoot herself in the foot by not designing the course correctly. In addition to redesigning the course, our recommendations will include suggestions to seek help with the technical side of the course design in the future from somebody with experience.

Case Study Week 1

This week I am supposed to be blogging about my experience working with my group on the case study. I am not sure if either of my group members are still around. Looking at their twitters and blogs they are definitely not up to date. I went ahead and answered the questions myself so I will discuss my observations in this blog.

The problem with the course in the case study is the poor quality of the web site for the course. The site does not have crucial information and the students are confused as to when assignments are due and how to access certain points on the site. The problem is compounded because the professor seems to think the web site is fine and is frustrated because she does not understand why the students are having problems.

The weekly progress report was a bit difficult to fill out. Without knowing what the next two weeks assignments are it is hard to say what needs to be done or to make plans to do it. As always in this class, directions are pretty vague. I posted in my group forum a few times and I guess I will see if either of my group members are still around. If not I will just go solo on this one.