Custom Content vs. Existing Content
Content is KeyNow that we've established goals, the focus of our efforts shifts to structuring our course so that students will reach those goals. In short, what are the students going to do? And central to this question is the concept of content. Content cannot teach an online course, but it drives an online course much more so than in a traditional course. In a traditional class, a good teacher can improvise and compensate for bad content and still end up with a highly effective learning experience for students. This is much harder to do in an online class. If you content stinks in an online class, your students will struggle and vanish. Boring, poorly organized content is the death knell of an online course. But how can one teacher come up with a semester's worth of engaging content in an efficient manner?

First off, it's important to remember that content can be broken down into all sorts of sub-categories. Students could do something as traditional as watch or video segment or read in a textbook to learn a concept. At the other end of the spectrum lie interactive activities and collaborative learning projects. In between lie all sorts of other possibilities. But more so than the type of content lies the questions of Custom Content vs. Existing Content. The decisions you make in this regard at the beginning of your journey can have huge ramifications for how much work you'll encounter creating your course and how good the course is at the end of the process.

To explore this concept in more depth, please work through the following two steps.

Step 1: A Word on Content (about 5 minutes)

Please watch this short video segment on the issue of content in an online course.
Step 2: Building Efficiently (about 5-10 minutes)

Please read this article, called Developing an Online Course in Moodle as Quickly as Possible.
That's it for this segment! There is no required activity, but if you'd like to comment or ask a question, please feel free to do so in the Content Questions Forum. Once you feel comfortable with the concepts here, move on to one of the other sections in the course. Good luck!
Last modified: Friday, March 26, 2010, 12:02 PM