Two Important Principles by Ken Leek

1. Principle 1.3.1 Specific instructional activities should be directed toward providing learners with the necessary skills, knowledge, and experience required to meet the goals and objectives of the course.
A. Design and utilize learning activities that engage students in active learning.
D. Remember that active participation facilitates learning better than passive.

Although B and C Practices are important, from experience on the learner end (and I hate to say it but in Ed Tec courses this happened as well), A and D are detrimental. I have sat through many painfully boring classes online (in class too) but the difference is when it's online, I tune out like I'm dead. It makes me feel like I'm just throwing money into a river but at least that isn't boring! I even remember one class in which this very principle was part of the subject matter an hour so deep into the class of the instructor reading us Power Point slides. Luckily, I managed to stay awake for that bit of comedy.
The classes in which I was really engaged had something for us to do about every twenty to thirty minutes or less. Simple quizzes and case study quizzes/debates are so easy to include in a lesson that there isn't really an excuse for slacking.

2. Principle 1.3.3 Instructional and learning activities should encourage frequent and meaningful interactions among learners and between learners and instructors.
A. Develop strategies and techniques for establishing and maintaining "learning communities" among distance learners through the use of instructional technologies. This will help to overcome the isolation that students could experience when taking an online course.

This is a great idea but if it's done in a lazy manner, I end up resenting it. For example, sometimes it seems like the instructor is just coming up with things for people to discuss that are so pointless and drab that they actually have to require part of the grade dependent upon how many times you respond to other student's posts. It's like a punishment.
The times I have seen this done well is when the instructor has groups of students use outside message boards, blogs, etc. in order to complete a group project. When this is done, I feel like the technology is being put to use and has a purpose for a community to exist instead of a "punishment community."