Curriculum
The WLE certificate program is a sequence of three courses that are
completely online
(there are no face-to-face meetings and the courses are asynchronous,
so you don't have to be online at a particular time each day). All
three courses are required for the
WLE certificate. The program starts every August
(Please note: the program is run as a cohort experience -- a group of
students start and finish at the same time in order to have a stronger
sense of learning community -- therefore, people cannot join the
program once it is underway).
This is
a very intensive program. Each
course is six graduate-level credit hours completed over 15 weeks.
Learning these skills takes time and commitment. It is important to
consider this when determining if this program is
right for you. Please contact the Program Coordinator if you have any
questions about this aspect of the program.
For the 2005-06 cohort, we will use Macromedia
Studio MX 2004 for IT 5660, and then take advantage of the free upgrade
to Studio 8 for the remainder of the program. The Studio applications
(Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and Flash)
are industry standards, so it is appropriate for you to gain
experience using them. In each course, you will not only be
learning to use these tools,
but learning instructional design strategies and techniques that
are applicable to any Web development tool. Program participants are
required to purchase the Macromedia Studio suite because it is used in
all three courses. Once you join the program, you will be
able to purchase Studio via an educational software
reseller. Depending on the type of instructional materials you wish to
produce, you may also want to purchase additional programs, such as
Adobe Acrobat for creating PDF files and SnagIt for screen captures.
The course instructors will advise you on
options available for what you wish to accomplish.
[Please note: if you intend to use the software for commercial purposes
during or after the
program, you should purchase the commercial version, not the educational
version.]
IT 5660: Developing Educational
Websites
 
|
General information |
Credits: 6
Instructors: Joni Dunlap and Dave Young
2005-06 schedule (15 weeks): 8/22 through 12/11 |
|
Learning objectives and
outcomes |
- Define Internet
terminology
- Develop Web content
and navigation
- Develop HTML authoring
skills
- Develop Dreamweaver
authoring skills
- Upload website files
to a web server
- Develop a basic design
documentation and
storyboard
- Build basic graphics
- Use basic stylesheets
|
Topics and skills covered
|
- Types of educational
websites (instructional,
performance support); completely online, hybrid, synchronous,
asynchronous
- Different instructional approaches to online education
- Basic instructional
design (learner analysis,
basic ADDIE, is instruction appropriate, learning objectives)
- HTML
- File management and
FTP
-
Page and
site design
- Basic and intermediate
Dreamweaver
-
Introduction
to storyboarding
- Basic
design document
- Basic Fireworks
(single state buttons,
graphic text, resize and optimize graphics)
- Basic stylesheets
(color, typography, text
styles, font styles classes)
- Team design skills,
including:
- Peer editing and
review
- Collaborative
content development
|
|
Software/text requirements
|
Macromedia Studio MX 2004
(DW, Flash, Fireworks)
Texts:
- Michael Allen's Guide to e-Learning by Michael W. Allen, ISBN #0471203025
- HTML for the World Wide Web (5th Ed) by Elizabeth Castro, ISBN #0321130073 (be sure to get the 5th edition)
- Dreamweaver MX 2004: The Missing Manual by David Sawyer McFarland, ISBN #0596006314
|
|
Course format |
Individualized with a great
deal of peer review (you can't pass the course unless you do a good job
on peer review so it's not a good fit for someone who wants to work
alone). |
IT 5670:
Strategies for
Online Learning
|
General information |
Credits: 6
Instructors: Joni Dunlap and Dave Young
2005-06 schedule (14 weeks): 1/9 through 4/16 |
|
Learning objectives and
outcomes |
As a result of
course activities, you will:
- Define the purpose, role, and value of online
learning environments in general and for your settings
- Uncover your own values for online learning
environments
- Establish instructional strategies to support
values
- Evaluate a variety of course-level and
instructional strategies and tools to enhance the instructional value
of educational websites
- Apply values, instructional strategies, and
tools to your own educational websites
- Experience firsthand various course-level and
instructional strategies and tools
- Plan for and implement facilitation
strategies in your own educational websites
- Design and facilitate an online
discussion (in this course)
|
Topics and skills covered
|
Course
planning and course-level strategies:
- Administrative:
reducing workload, grading,
managing class size, course management tools
- Student
success with online learning:
preparation/orientation, retention, isolation, time management, help
desk, advising, self-direction, etc.
- Copyright and
intellectual property
Instructional
strategies for:
- Authentic activities and assessments
(simulation, scenarios, case studies)
- Collaboration and discussion (peer evaluation, team projects, guest speakers, etc.)
- Active learning (hands-on, experience-based
labs, inquiry/research projects, knowledge building projects,
demonstration, etc.)
- Reflection
- Incorporating pre-existing lecture and
presentation materials
Incorporating
graphics to enhance instructional messages (basic level), specifically:
- Basic screen captures (tools to use, how to
take a decent capture)
- Motion captures
- Basic image editing with Fireworks
Implementation,
including simple tools such as:
- Hot Potatoes quizzes
- Threaded discussion forums
Facilitation
skills and strategies for:
- Managing
noisy, disruptive students
- Involving
all participants
- Designing
instructor facilitated and learner
facilitated discussions, and large and small group discussions
- Involving
students in different types of
discussions: to consensus, debate, point-counterpoint, brainstorming,
teamwork oriented, social
- Assessing student
participation
|
|
Software/texts
requirements |
Macromedia Studio 8 (DW, Flash, Fireworks)
Acrobat
6.0 (optional)
SnagIt (optional)
Captivate (optional)
Hot
Potatoes
Moodle (provided by instructors)
Text: Discussion-Based Online Teaching to Enhance Student Learning: Theory,
Practice and Assessment by Tisha Bender; ISBN: 1579220657
|
|
Course format |
This course depends heavily
on communication and collaboration. This is, essentially, a
think-and-discuss kind of class... and the quality of the course will
largely depend on everyone's input. Therefore, a high comfort level
with learning in this medium is assumed. Students will also be
enhancing their own educational websites, and developing skills for
online facilitation. |
IT
5680: Media for
Web-based Learning Environments
 |
 |
|
General information |
Credits: 6
Instructors:
Bruce Muller and Dan Riter
2005-06
schedule (15 weeks): 4/24 through 8/6 |
|
Learning objectives
and outcomes |
Participants in this course will:
- Develop a sensibility
of the aesthetics of digital media.
- Acquire advanced
skills in web graphics layout.
- Create and use audio
for instruction purposes.
- Use Fireworks to
create advanced web graphics.
- Use Dreamweaver to
create interactive web pages.
- Use Flash to create
interactive movies using sound and animation.
|
|
Topics and skills
covered |
Media
Design Principles and Techniques
-
CRAP
(Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity)
-
Tables
-
CSS
- Use of Color
Instructional
Design Principles and
Techniques
- Aligning learning
objectives with
interactions
-
Usability
- Multimedia
storyboarding
- Formative evaluation
for interactive
instruction
Graphics
and Media
- Interface Design
- Audio Recording and
Embedding
- Banner Graphics
- Multistate Buttons (3
State Buttons)
- Instructional Animated
GIF
- Splash graphic
-
Slices
- Image
Maps
Interactivity
in HTML
- Tabbed Interface (CSS)
- Dreamweaver Show/Hide
layers
Flash
- Static Site logo
- Animated Site Logo
- Animations with sound
and button interaction
for replaying
- Flash Quiz
- Storyboard for final
Flash product
|
|
Software/texts requirements
|
Macromedia Studio 8 (DW, Flash, Fireworks)
Texts: TBA |
|
Course format |
Individualized with a
great
deal of peer review (you can't pass the course unless you do a good job
on peer review so it's not a good fit for someone who wants to work
alone).
|
|
