With the advent of eLearning and multimedia resources for learning, there has been quite a bit of hype around quality.
Some of the questions which might be asked when examining the quality of an educational experience are the following:
- Do students learn well enough online?
- How can we design courses and materials which provide meaningful interactions between students and their lecturers and with each other?
- What sort of design will provide the best learning?
A good starting point if you are thinking about ways in which eLearning can be evaluated for quality, is to explore the eLearning Guidelines which have been developed for New Zealand. These were used by 21 tertiary organisations as part of a Ministry of Education funded and sector wide project on implementing e-learning guidelines. This national project provided a mechanism for developing, introducing, trialling, evaluating, and sharing examples of e-Learning Guidelines.
As part of your course assessment you will need to do formative evaluation for the quality assurance of am e-learning resource. Please read this article Formative Evaluation strategies for an example.
Things to do:
- Identify two issues related to quality in eLearning - these will provide part of the rationale for your evaluation project.
- Select two eLearning evaluation models with an explanation of your reasons for choosing them. Include a description of how the models might address the issues you have identified.
We will discuss these articles and your selected models in class next week.
