Principles of Online Design - M. Tessmer

My background includes many years of providing computer application instruction in a classroom or computer lab environment. During the course in delivery, I always included opportunities for hands-on practice of the concepts being taught. During these hands-on exercises, I would roam the room to assist any student who needed assistance and give them immediate feedback. This proved to be effective and was well received, especially with an adult audience who were generally responsible for putting the concepts into practice on documents that could not lend themselves to errors.

In the multitude of online courses I've attended thus far, I've not seen a similar approach duplicated in a web conferencing environment. So I chose the two principles to be explored in hopes of finding guidance for this gap. However, in the Interaction/Feedback principle practices, the focus was primarily on verbal interaction rather than hands-on interaction. There was significant emphasis on providing ample opportunities for discussion forums, chat rooms, and group work. But there was no suggestion on allowing the student to interact with the application or concept being taught while having an instructor available for immediate and constructive feedback. So the reading on this topic proved to be a disappointment as there was no further direction provided than what I already had on the topic - which was nothing at all.

The principle of Instructional Media which included information presentation, interface design, and multimedia elements, left me just as disappointed at the Interaction/Feedback principle. The focus centered on extremely important concepts such as the format and layout of an effective web page layout; however, I felt it fell short of emphasizing the need to give students a chance to interact with the online course enviroment application. If online courses would incorporate hands-on practice within their curriculum, then students would be given the opportunity to not only try out what was just learned but it would also be necessary for them to become proficient in utlizing the tools the web conference application offers. This incorporation of a dual learning environment would be a valuable contribution to the education of the online students. The ability to navigate within the online delivery application is sorely overlooked which is reflective in the lack of participation of online students during scheduled class discussions. If instruction included hands-on opportunities to work within the online delivery application, then the ripple effect of interaction found in all aspects of the online course would be a valuable contribution to all in attendance.