DESIGNING E-LEARNING

E-learning is the use of electronic technologies to create learning experiences. It comes in many forms such as standalone courses, learning games and simulations, mobile learning, social learning and virtual classroom courses.

Effective e-learning requires both design and development. They are not the same thing. Design is decision- governs what we do; development is construction – governs how we do. Starting with good instructional design is crucial for achieving the goals. So, unless we do not get the instructional design right, technology can only decrease the speed and certainty of failure.

Identifying an underlying goal is the starting point of a design, but doing this requires research and considering wide range of goals. The more you link learning objectives to organizational goals, the more valuable your e-learning will be. Good learning objectives should be clear, precise and worthy. Analyzing the learners’ needs and abilities plays a major role in e-learning as well. Abilities and attitudes matter more than just age, gender, nationality and so on. Learners are individuals and no two are the same. So, finding a common way about what learners must learn and how they best learn is quietly prudent.

E-learning projects have less possibility of failures thanks to clear objectives. Everything stems from objectives. From the objectives, we identify prerequisites, select learning activities and design tests. Three of six objectives – create, decide, do - state your goals and; three secondary ones – know, believe, feel – help accomplish goals. In order to determine whether learners have met the objectives, we need to add criteria to flesh out our objectives.

Prerequisites are the requirements for learning to take place. So, for listing prerequisites quickly and systematically, careful analysis of objectives will help. By teaching essential objectives, identifying high-value objectives, eliminating unnecessary ones and considering designed curricula, identifying proceed can easily get out of hand.

After identifying objectives, the next step is to decide the order in which learners will accomplish these objectives: Bottom-up, top-down, sideways. These three strategies have their own uses for a certain kind of group, subjects and objectives.
When it comes to creating objects to accomplish objectives, each objectives lead us to create a learning object. A learning object requires both learning activities and tests. Creating the tests as soon as you have defined the learning objectives saves time and money.

We have three type of activities which are absorbing the knowledge, learning what to do with the knowledge and connecting it to work and life. At the very last step, controlling what has been done and redesigning the incomplete parts and mistakes in a cycle of analyze, design, build and evaluate are the design process proceeds.