I teach a number of courses that focus on different aspects of instructional design for online learning. One thing that I always like to emphasize is the importance of "humanizing" the online learning experience. Too often, students (and instructors) complain about the loneliness and isolation of being in an online course. If it feels that way, then the principles of creating a Community of Inquiry have not been considered during the instructional design process! 

The Community of Inquiry framework (Athabasca University, 2016; Garrison, Anderson & Archer, 2001) tells us that we need to facilitate three key "presences" in order to set up an effective online learning experience:

1. Social Presence -- Connections between learners.
2. Teacher Presence -- Connections with the instructor (and the instructor's presence, guiding and facilitating the learning process).
3. Cognitive Presence -- Connections with the learning content and activities.

​Even before we enroll students into our online courses, we need to put careful thought into how we are going to foster these presences (and how they will interact with each other). This is part of the "Teacher Presence" aspect. Another important part of the Teacher Presence aspect is just actually letting your students know that you are there, and helping them get to know you as a person. As Pacansky-Brock (2015) explains, this is the "Secret Sauce" to help your students feel welcomed!

​One activity that I have engaged some of my instructional design students in aims to maximize Teacher Presence from the very first moments that students enter into an online course. 

​First impressions are as important when teaching online as they are in a face-to-face classroom. Unfortunately, online teachers don’t usually have the opportunity to physically greet their students at the door. But that doesn’t mean you can’t introduce yourself, and personally welcome your students to your course. Creating an online Instructor Introduction or Course Welcome video is a great way to establish teacher presence, and inspire and motivate your students from the moment they first login to your online course. Dwayne Reed’s Welcome to the 4th Grade (2016) is an excellent example of an Instructor Introduction video that has become an online sensation.

​Now -- we can't all create something as elaborate (and catchy!) as Reed's musical intro. But that doesn't mean we can't add the same sort of personal touch. For a more practical (and easy-to-create) example, check out the Instructor Welcome Video that I created to add into my online courses.

​One of the most important tips that I can give is to avoid talking about the course itself. You wouldn't start talking about the details of your course if you were physically greeting students at the door on the first day of a face-to-face class. Neither should you when greeting them at the start of an online course! Save that for a second, course specific video.

Avoiding course specifics in your Instructor Welcome Video has an added practical benefit for you -- it increases your Return on Investment for the time spent on creating your video. If the video is a personal greeting, and not about a specific course, then you can use it in more than one online course! And, that brings me to my second big tip -- try to avoid saying things in your video that will immediately or quickly date it. Avoid saying things like "I'm currently pursuing...." Instead, say something like "In 201x I began...." That way, you don't need to redo your video as soon as things change (which means you also don't need to hunt down every place you've shared the video, and update the link to the new version).

I used the free version of PowToon to create my Instructor Welcome video. But, there are plenty of other free video creation applications that you could use (and some awesome paid ones, as well). 

​Here are just a handful of additional resources that you might find helpful:

• Using YouTube to Share Video in an Online Course (my blog post with tips on how to work with YouTube as an online instructor).
• How to Make Your YouTube Videos Interactive (Byrne, 2017) 
• 6 Steps For Making An Engaging eLearning Promo Video For Your Course (Michael, 2017)

Athabasca University (2016). The Community of Inquiry [Web page]. Available from https://coi.athabascau.ca/ 

Byrne, R. (2017, February 6). How to Make Your YouTube Videos Interactive [Web log Post]. Free Technology for Teachers. Available from http://www.freetech4teachers.com/2017/02/how-to-make-your-youtube-videos.html#.WJodp2IrKUk

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (2000). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education model. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Available from http://cde.athabascau.ca/coi_site/documents/Garrison_Anderson_Archer_Critical_Inquiry_model.pdf 

Michael, A. (2017, February 5). 6 Steps For Making An Engaging eLearning Promo Video For Your Course [Web log Post]. eLearning Industry. Available from https://elearningindustry.com/6-steps-making-engaging-elearning-promo-video-course

Pacansky-Brock, M. (2015, June 2). Instructor Presence: The Secret Sauce. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/P8S1aOA8HkE

Power, R. (2018, September 12). Hi There! Meet Rob Power. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/nC5AmaFws34

PowToon (2017). Available from https://www.powtoon.com/

Reed, D. (2016, August 20). Welcome to the 4th Grade. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/XBLcuGunRxU

​Slade, Tim (2017, January 17). 100+ Free Hero Images for eLearning. [Web log post]. Available from https://timslade.com/blog/hero-images-for-elearning/

​I recently had a question which reminded me... I should never assume that everyone already knows how to use YouTube! I like YouTube as a EdTech tool, because it is a powerful way to share video content with your students (why bother worrying about how to process and stream video content, when YouTube already has powerful servers that will do it for you!). And that doesn't mean that you have to direct them to YouTube to view it. You can embed your YouTube videos directly into a website, or an LMS content page.

To that end, here are a few resources that might be helpful. This first video shows the basics of how to upload and share videos in YouTube. As noted in the video... you do need to login. All you need for that is a GMail / Google account!

​This next video goes over some of the basics of choosing a privacy setting for your video. It's important to choose the right setting. If you want your video to be available publicly, then choose "Public." If you want to share your video with your students, and embed it into a webpage or LMS page, choose "Unlisted." "Unlisted" means the video can't be found using a search engine, but anyone with the link can still view it without a password. If you don't want anyone to view it without you directly allowing "just that person" to see it, choose "Private." Even with a direct URL, no one will be able to watch the video unless you authorize their email address!

​Finally... here are some quick tutorial videos showing the basics of how to embed a YouTube video (whether it's one you uploaded, or another video that you found on YouTube) into pages in some of the LMS platforms that I have worked with most frequently:

​One of the great things about embedding a YouTube video into a webpage or course page in an LMS is that you won't be violating the video owner's copyright (assuming the person who posted the video isn't violating a copyright within the video itself!). That's because you're not actually making a copy of the video. You're essentially just sharing a link to it, and if the owner decides they don't want anyone to use it anymore, they can remove the video, or change the privacy setting. When they do that, your embedded player simply won't show it any more!

​YouTube has a few different "licencing" options when you post your own videos. The default is "Standard YouTube Licence," which is essentially a copyright licence. I prefer to change that setting to a Creative Commons Attribution. Using a CC Attribution means that you are letting others reuse your video as an Open Access resource, so long as they properly attribute you. It also means that you are allowing others to make a copy, edit, remix, or combine parts of your video with other Creative Commons videos from YouTube!

Eves, D. (2014, January 2). How to Properly Upload Videos to YouTube. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/Hlxqk0iHp5w

Gniffke, D. (2016, May 11). Canvas - Embedding Video. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/l2ebbdJPy0o

Interesting Videos (2017, February 2). Creative Commons License YouTube cc Not Standard Youtube License. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/e-46x3mpS8M

Power, R. (2015, January 25). Embedding Videos in D2L. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/QZ4558qvzhw

Scott Gardiner Technical Services (2016, May 2). How to Embed a YouTube Video on Your Weebly Website. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/4PfKoV9XyN0

Straub, S. (2018, February 17). How To Embed Media Such As Youtube Videos Into Blackboard. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/BWIF_d2Vcc4

Tattershall, E. (2017, June 6). Embedding Video in Your Moodle Course. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/K4zAZuHGNrM

thebasicgist (2013, June 6). Youtube Settings: Unlisted v Private v Public. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/fViYcDDZyhk

University of Leicester Learning and Teaching (2016, February 29). Embed a YouTube video in Blackboard. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/ES-CZtBdHOI

I frequently share this advice to my students at the start of a new course (in some form or another, and often in separate communications). Since we're at the start of another term, I figured that this would be a good time to share some useful time management strategies for anyone participating in an online course.

​There are often a lot of readings included in your course units. But, that doesn’t mean you need to spend all of your time reading, reading, reading…. Your instructor may share a lot of resources in your course to give you a broad perspective on the types of resources out there, and issues to consider. You don’t need to read and digest EVERY. SINGLE. WORD. Take a look at each of the resources, and try to pull the main points out of them – particularly as they apply to you and your own context!

This short video by Thomas Frank contains some great nuggets on how to speed up your overall reading, and get the most out of reading for learning. In particular:

• Pre-Read for Title, Abstract, Headings, Key Terms – this will give you a good sense of the key points, and what you should be looking out for when you read deeper.
• Attack the Reading with a Purpose – consider why YOU need to read the piece, and what YOU want to get out of it. Connect it to your own context, and look for the points that relate to that.
• Skimming – Skim through the reading to find those sections that are most important to you. Many “academic” resources contain A LOT of information that you don’t necessarily need RIGHT NOW!
• Read those key sections a little more deeply, and make some notes about how they relate to you and your needs. Skip the sections that provide extra details you don’t need right now (you can always re-read them later, if you are really interested, or the need arises).

​I recently responded to a student who shared the following comment in the Questions and Help forum in one of my courses:

​Here are some of the strategies that I suggested:

First strategy... you don't need to read each and every post! 

• Post your own responses for the weekly questions.
• Read and respond to a handful of posts from some of your classmates (look for ones that haven't had a lot of responses yet).
• While it is valuable to hear everyone's voice on the topics and questions we are exploring... it can also drive you mad trying to read them all (especially in a class with many active students!).

Second strategy... set up a "Daily Forum Digest."

• You can configure your Daily Digest preferences in most Learning Management Systems. (For instance, in Moodle, click on the dropdown arrow next to your name in the top right corner of the screen. Then select Preferences > Forum Preferences.)
• If your LMS allows it, (Moodle, for instance, does) tell the LMS to mark all new messages as "Read" once your Daily Digest is sent out to you by email (which will avoid the shock of seeing so many unread messages when you login to the LMS, and the time-consuming task of navigating to, and viewing them all to get them all marked as "read").
• I find that the Daily Digest option is useful for time management, because you know what time it will arrive in your inbox. Everything is grouped together by forum in one place, and you can quickly peruse from your inbox to see if there is anything important. If not, and you have your preferences configured to mark them as read when the Digest is sent, then you don't have to worry about those messages when you login to the LMS. If so, there will be a link in your Daily Digest to go directly to that message (so you can find it, even if they have now all been marked as "read").

Third Strategy... set aside a specific time when you will review messages. 

• Allocate yourself enough time to post your required original posts and responses, and a bit of time for perusing other posts, course announcements, etc.
• Stick to that amount of time, even if it means you can't get to reading all of the insightful posts made by your classmates!

Fourth Strategy... if your instructor has a dedicated Questions and Help forum, use it! 

• If you have coursework related questions, or general questions about the course site, administrative issues, etc, post them in that dedicated space. Your instructor will likely check there first when they are logging in to the course site.
• Avoid burying questions for which you expect / need an instructor response in regular module discussion forums. Your instructor may be following some of the strategies outlined above, may not have time to read each and every post in the regular forums, and may miss your query amidst that sea of new posts!

I hope this advice helps!

Frank, T. (2015, October 2). 5 Ways to Read Faster That ACTUALLY Work - College Info Geek. [YouTube video]. Available from https://youtu.be/kmDMrxUSXKY

Slade, Tim (2017, January 17). 100+ Free Hero Images for eLearning. [Web log post]. Available from https://timslade.com/blog/hero-images-for-elearning/

On the surface, this question sounds like it should have a straightforward answer. But, often the definition of instructional design can be murky, because there is a lot that it encompasses. Right now, I am facilitating a couple of introductory-level instructional design courses at different Canadian universities. I thought that it might be helpful to draw upon some of their course resources to summarize what instructional design is, from my perspective.

In one of my courses, participants are asked to review a blog post by Tom Kulhmann (2008). Kulhmann's post What Everbody Ought to Know About Instructional Design provides a video example, and discusses it's instructional design elements. Along the way, he injects five key bullet points about what instructional design is:
​

• Instructional design is more than just putting information in front of learners.
• Instructional design has clear goals, and gets your learners focused on the right things.
• Instructional design provides context and perspective.
• Instructional design compresses the learning process and saves time.
• Instructional design engages learners with clear and meaningful content.

For the most part, I agree with Kulhmann's observations -- although I would argue that "compresses the learning process and saves time" is not always a desired objective of the ID process. That would all depend on the context -- and in some contexts, you may want to deliberately extend the learning process! However, I think that there are enough "gems" in Kulhmann's points to craft a basic working definition of instructional design for the purposes of those "new to the game."

​The precise roles and tasks of an instructional designer may vary, depending on their school or organization. I've created the following infographic to illustrate the breadth of the roles that I've played as an instructional designer and instructional developer. These roles include:
​

• Consultant / Advisor
• Creator
• Champion
• Project Manager
• Quality Assurance

And, of course, there is a lot of overlap between all of these roles!

References:

Kulhmann, J. (2008, July 22). What Everybody Ought to Know About Instructional Design. [Web log post]. Rapid eLearning. Available from https://blogs.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/what-everybody-ought-to-know-about-instructional-design/