This post features a more specialized e-learning site, one that will guide you in creating and deploying your own e-learning materials for an online course you may be asked to teach some day. And yes, the course is 100% free of charge.
Online Instructor Training is one of many free subjects offered by the OpenCourseWare division of the University of California at Irvine. The course encompasses 10 areas of study in a completely self-access mode of instruction. No registration is required. Simply visit the site and click on “Begin Course.”
A new window will then open and present you with 10 study modules encased in a Moodle interface. Subjects range from “The Online Course Syllabus” to “Facilitating an Online Course,” and may include text (Word/PDF), audio, video, or other media to support the instruction. Two of the modules are dedicated to using Moodle. This is icing on the cake. Not only are you learning how to teach online, but acquiring basic proficiency in Moodle as well.
As you move through the modules, you can’t help but appreciate how much time and effort are required to develop a professional online course. At UC Irvine, for example, online instructors must build the following components into each lesson:
- Lesson introduction
- Learning objectives
- Special readings or terminology
- Topic 1, Topic 2, Topic 3
- Discussion prompts
- Homework assignment
- Lesson Summary
Teachers must also be “visibly” present to the class through regular content postings and updates, forum discussions, and other communications. Download a more detailed overview of UC Irvine’s course development guidelines here.
For anyone seriously considering teaching online, this training program should definitely get you moving in the right direction for planning, building, and eventually facilitating your course.
In this followup post, I want to share some additional free e-learning sites I’ve found on the Web. Some, like MIT, are standalone university sites, while others function more as course directories or repositories.
Stanford Continuing Studies offers a broad range of courses in Liberal Arts & Sciences, Creative Writing, and Professional & Personal Development. Courses are primarily taught by Stanford instructors and are open (free) to everyone. Stanford runs another site called Open Culture that tracks free online educational and cultural media. Lots of good links to education and language resources.
Visit Harvard@home and “experience some of the exciting research, teaching, and public addresses making news at Harvard University today — right from your desktop.” Harvard’s offerings are limited to about 60 topics and somewhat dated, but use lots of multimedia and are interesting from a teaching perspective.
Webcast.berkeley is a treasure chest of current and archived courses at UC Berkeley, offered in podcast and/or video format. Heavy on math and science, but I found some interesting courses in Japanese language and literature.
YouTube users may recognize the screenshot at the top of this post. It is a sliding menu of universities that provide content via the relatively new YouTube EDU channel. Once at the site, click an icon to see what each school offers. Or, choose Education from the site’s left navigation bar and you are presented with this month’s most viewed videos. Refine your search using the ‘Search YouTube EDU’ box.
Another hip e-learning site offering loads of free content (over 100,000 educational audio and video files) is Apple’s iTunes U. You’ll need iTunes installed on your computer to access it, but if you have an iPod or iPhone you can download lessons and take them with you. This is a fantastic resource. The video clip below should get you up and running with iTunes U in no time. Enjoy!
MIT is one of a growing number of top-tier universities worldwide offering free courses via e-learning. That’s right — free. You won’t get college credit. But you will learn from some very knowledgeable teachers who know how to explain complicated subject matter in a way that almost anyone can understand.
Tonight, I viewed a video lecture on linear algebra by MIT Professor Gilbert Strang. Do I like math? Not really, although I did well in it in high school. Was the video worthwhile? Yes, and the reason is that Professor Strang came off as a gifted teacher who could simplify abstract relationships in an interesting, engaging style.
If math isn’t your thing, try another offering from a repository of 1900 courses in subject areas ranging from Anthropology to Writing and Humanistic Studies. Many of these are complete with syllabuses, assignments, exams, and audio or video lectures.
In my next post I will introduce some additional sites that offer free e-learning courses from other respected universities and educational institutions.
After the Deadline is a free, “smart” resource for anyone who wants to improve their writing on the Web. Designed as a plugin for WordPress blogs, the program is also available as a Firefox add-on for Windows or Mac.
According to the website, After the Deadline “uses artificial intelligence and natural language processing technology to find writing errors and offer smart suggestions.” The program was designed to “help you write better blog comments, tweet with correct grammar, and compose professional messages.” The video clip above provides a good overview of its capabilities.
After watching the video and exploring the website, I think that After the Deadline shows tremendous potential in the wired ESL/EFL classroom, especially in composition classes.