Getting ready for design

Below we provide a worked example of the design blueprint for this course. The design blueprint is not intended to prescribe, but rather serve as an example for your own blueprints which you can tweak and refine. Since it is openly licensed, you are free to reuse and emulate the structure.

Design blueprint for Digital skills for collaborative OER development

Metadata

• Level: 3rd year Bachelor Degree Level
• Discipline(s): Learning design, open education, and digital skills
• Notional learning hours 40 hours
• Credits 4 credits of a 15-credit course towards a 120-credit credential
• Credential(s): Graduate Diploma in Tertiary Education at Otago Polytechnic
• Hashtag: ds4oer

Intended target audience

This course is designed for existing or future educational practitioners. The intended target audience for this course includes:

• Teachers working in the school sector,
• Lecturers working in community colleges, polytechnics, and universities,
• Trainers working in the vocational education and corporate training sectors,
• Pre-service teachers, lecturers, and trainers,
• OERu course developers and volunteers.

Prerequisite knowledge

• Knowledge of open educational resources and Creative Commons licenses is recommended. However, learners without detailed knowledge of OER or Creative Commons licenses will be able to successfully complete the course with self-study of these concepts.
• The course is recommended for learners who have completed the OERu Open Content Licensing for Educators course.
• Working knowledge of office software, file management, and web browsing skills.

Course aims

1. To acquire and demonstrate digital skills including social media skills for open and cooperative design, development, and publication of an OER course site on the open web.
2. To establish and build professional networks.

Outcomes

1. Develop basic wiki skills for cooperative development of OER.
2. Develop a course description suitable for publishing information about a prospective course on the web.
3. Design and publish an open design course blueprint.
4. Design and publish a storyboard using online digital tools for OER learning pathways.
5. Develop a course description suitable for publishing information about a prospective course on the web.
6. Search, find, adapt, remix, and legally share openly licensed images.
7. Search, find, adapt, remix, and legally share openly licensed rich media (for example, audio and video).
8. Sequence and chunk information for publishing an OER learning pathway.
9. Integrate pedagogical features into OER course materials.
10. Use social media tools for peer learning and support.
11. Publish two learning pathways as part of a course website on the open web.

Development and delivery approach

This is the third of four micro courses for the Open Education Practice elective of the Graduate Diploma in Tertiary Education at Otago Polytechnic. The four micro courses are:

1. Open content licensing for educators: focuses on copyright, OER, and Creative Commons licenses.
2. Dimensions of openness in education: covers the concepts of open education, open learning, open educational practices, open policy, open source software, and open scholarship.
3. Digital skills for collaborative OER development: focuses on the digital and social media skills used for open design and development of OER learning materials.
4. OER development project: builds on the resources developed in the digital skills for collaborative OER development with greater emphasis on pedagogical design elements and community service learning.

The course will be assembled from existing OERs and implement a “pedagogy of discovery” where learners are encouraged to find their own resources to support their learning.

The course promotes a learn-by-doing approach. It will comprise a series of learning pathways designed to achieve the stated learning outcomes, incorporating learning challenges for each pathway where learners practice and refine their skills. Integrated activities for peer-learning interaction (microblogs, blog posts, and discussion forum posts) are embedded in the course design. Where appropriate, interactive case studies will be used to facilitate learner-content interactions and simulated dialogue with course developers. The course will also include digital skills challenges for searching, adapting, and publishing OER images and rich media for inclusion in the materials. Learners will also publish their own course websites.

The course presumes average computer literacy using standard office applications, web-navigation, and the ability to register accounts for open web services. Digital and social media literacy skills relevant to finding and remixing OERs and peer-sharing of the learning journey through collaborative design will be embedded in the course with corresponding self-study support tutorials to promote capability development in these areas.

Assessment strategy

There is one assignment for this course comprising two elements:

• Publishing two learning pathways developed during the course (Weight 70%. Learners will be assessed on the application of their digital skills for collaborative development by evaluating the published materials online).
• Learning reflection including evidence of cooperation (Weight 30%. Learners will be required to link to evidence of their collaboration and interaction during the course.)

The learning challenges will be designed as building blocks for the final assessment. Using an open model, learners will be able to refine and improve their contributions before final assignment submission.

Interaction strategies

Student-content interactions

• Each learning pathway will incorporate short video signposts to provide students with an orientation or stimulus for each of the major topics.
• Learners will work through a series of learning pathways designed for independent study.
• Each learning pathway will incorporate one or more learning challenges. These substantive e-Learning activities require learners to execute a sub-component of the design sequence and share outputs and reflections with fellow participants.
• These learning challenges function as building blocks for the final course assessment.
• Learners will engage in authentic development of OERs and corresponding use of digital technologies.

Student-student interactions

• Students will be able to interact via a number of MOOC-like technologies which will be harvested using an aggregated timeline for the interactions:
  • Microblog activities and posts
  • Discussion forum posts
  • Personal blog posts and comments
  • Ask OERu, a community-based question-and-answer forum

Student-support interactions

• Students will be encouraged to use a peer-support question-and-answer forum for addressing support questions.
• Self-study help tutorials will be provided for the main technologies used in the course.