SUMMARY:
This is week one of ED 308 Blog. We are focusing on the analysis phase of the ADDIE model. The ADDIE model is analysis, design, development, implementation, and evaluation. There are many steps and considerations that are involved in designing effective instruction at a distance. The process of planning and creating a distance education course must occur well in advance of the scheduled instruction. Visualizing information is a very important part of planning and creating just as instructional goals, instructional analysis, learner analysis, and learning objectives are.
ITEMS OF INTEREST:
When designing effective instruction at a distance one very important thing to consider is visualizing information. Visualizing information is not something that most people even think of. The choice of text size, color, font, and even the amount of words is critical to engaging your students.
PROBLEM OR CONCERN:
Can you easily read this line? Do you even want to try to continue reading this tiny print?
This size font is much easier to read.
How about this color font? This font is really hard to read, focus, and become engaged. Just imagine if this was a whole unit!
These are just a few examples of visualizing information so that you can see first hand the importance of visualizing information during the analysis phase. After reading visualizing information in the text, page 160, I can see how critial this is to instruction at a distance. Do you have any suggestions on how I can make sure that when I am creating my distance education course that I use visualizing information correctly? Any websites, links, animations, etc.
Hello, Kerry. I agree that the visuals of an online course can have a large impact on its' success. You illustrated this wonderfully in your "Problems or Concern" section of the above post. If the font is too small or too light, the student may not be able to read it. In the past, I did a few freelance web design projects for local churches and businesses. Although curriculum design and web design are drastically different fields, they do have an overlap where visual design is concerned.
ReplyDeleteI plan to implement what I learned as a web designer as I create my online environment. I think that some of the things that I have learned may be helpful to you, also. As you have already mentioned, the font should be clear and legible (no too small, not too light and on a background that provides good contrast). Outside of that, there are a few other things that I would add:
- Consider who you are designing for. If you are creating a class for elementary age kids, the look should be different than that of a class created for working adults.
- Use appropriate spacing and balance. It is a good idea to set your design up on a grid. This assures that columns are aligned and the text looks more organized and clean.
- Consider the equipment that will be available to your students. If you choose to use a fancy font, remember that font may not be available on every computer. This means that what loads on a computer that doesn't have your font in its' library will look different that what you intended. It is a best practice to stick with widespread, readily available fonts like Helvetica, Arial or New Times Roman.
Outside of the visual aspect, our textbook also mentions using visual aids. There are a lot of tools out there that you can use for free to create graphics, infographics, charts, etc. By creating your own, you are ensuring that you are not violating any copyrights that exist by using someone else's work. Another plus, is that you can tailor the information that you put into your visual aids (based on what your class already knows or what areas they have shown to need additional information in). One online infographics generator I like to use is Piktochart (http://www.piktochart.com). Outside of that, here are couple of design articles that I think would translate well into presenting visual information in an online classroom:
https://designschool.canva.com/blog/design-rules/
https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/01/10-principles-of-effective-web-design/