Estimating Costs and Time in Instructional Design

Note that budgeting is not included in most ISD models, but as more and more Learning/Training Departments are being called upon to justify their expenses, I'm including it here. Budgeting Learning activities are budgeted in a wide variety of ways, so the degree of estimating the costs will depend upon the organization you are working for. Generally speaking, the closer you are to your customers or clients, the less you have to estimate. Budgeting training is often a difficult chore as plans are often based on training an “average person.” Although the budget may not be correct the first time, especially if the training is new or complicated, it still should be performed at this time to give the training staff a goal to aim for. After performing the initial budget, it might seem that the training program will be quite expensive, but as Gary Wilber, CEO of Drug Emporium, Inc. said, “The expense isn't what it costs to train employees. Training Cost Guidelines Estimating Development Hours

How to Create Your Own Online Course: 100 Tools, Guides, and Resources How to Create Your Own Online Course: 100 Tools, Guides, and Resources Perhaps you have a special skill, talent, or knowledge-base that you want to share with others, and maybe you’ve heard that teaching online courses can make you a little extra money. The resources below will help you discover how to combine both what you have to offer and what you wish to gain by guiding you through creating and establishing an online course. No matter what age of student, subject you want to teach, or size of the class, you will find resources and information to bring your class online. Learning Management Systems Learning Management Systems host your online class and provide a place for students to receive and turn in assignments, class communication, and more. Moodle. Resources for Getting Your Class Online Read these articles to find out everything from using a free blog to host your class to selecting and implementing a Learning Management System. How to Teach an Online Course using WordPress.

Sloan Consortium Group News Did you know that in education, quality matters is more than a saying, but an actual not-for-profit organization? In 2003, MarylandOnline began a three-year grant program to develop standards to certify online courses and materials. This greatly impacted teaching and learning, and Quality Matters gained state and national recognition. When the grant expired in 2006, Quality Matters continued on and now has more than 550 subscribers comprised of universities, colleges, technical schools, and other academic organizations, including University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Texas A & M University, Penn State, and Regent University. Today, Quality Matters has trained over 10,000 faculty and staff and is the gold standard for online course design. To learn more about Quality Matters, visit www.qmprogram.org. Another important standard Quality Matters addresses is "accessibility." Before you can use CaptionTube, you need to be able to access videos on YouTube.

The Underbelly of Online Teaching July 29, 2011 By: Errol Craig Sull in Online Education No matter how much we embrace and enjoy online teaching, the human frailties of mistakes, disappointment, anger, frustration, and oversights will come calling each time we teach a class. And when any of these happen we can respond with an emotional and unchecked action—never good—or we can accept that these negatives will always be part of our online teaching efforts and learn how to deal with them in a sensible, appropriate manner. Some students will really tick you off. You will never have enough time. Not all support staff or supervisors will have your back. You will get blamed for problems that are not your fault. Evaluations can be unfair. You will feel burned out and drained at times. Errol Craig Sull has been teaching online courses for more than 15 years and has a national reputation in the subject, both writing and conducting workshops on it. Excerpted from Sull, Errol C.

Developing and Reviewing Online Courses: Items for Consideration Clayton R. Wright, crwr77 @ gmail.com (This document is a revision of “The Criteria for Evaluating the Quality of Online Courses” that the author released in 2003. This revised 2011 document is based on the author’s experience since the original publication date and the suggestions of various e-learning professionals. Quality is an elusive concept, as all who measure it can define it differently. From an instructional design viewpoint, a quality online course is one that enables students to achieve learning outcomes in a flexible and effective manner. Quality is usually achieved through the efforts of a team that may comprise a number of professionals, including the academic program head, project coordinator, subject matter expert, instructional assistant, course writer or developer, course reviewer, instructional designer, graphics or multimedia designer, copyright officer, editor, and computer and information systems specialist. 1.0 General Information 2.0 Accessibility 3.0 Organization