Designing your online/blended unit in Desire2Learn

Site design and development

The next step is to decide the online resources and tools your students will need to complete their activities, and how to present them in a way that supports the approach to teaching and learning that you wish to take.

There is a great deal you can do to make your DSO site a welcoming, attractive and efficient teaching and learning space. Although the 'Content' view might just look like a list, you can direct students through the items and activities in that list in alternative ways. You can create a sense of the unit site being a dynamic, interactive, social space. You can also set things up to make the task of managing large groups of students easier. Here are some key principles:

• Welcome and orientate students
• Use a strong, intuitive design
• Build a sense of a safe, dynamic, transactional space
• Make the site usable
• Make the site accessible
• Use a writing style that is easy to read on the web
• Provide a variety of resources
• Manage the teaching task efficiently
  
• Maintain the site

Key questions

1. Your matrix might be getting a bit unweildy by this stage. If so, make a new one with three columns, starting with your list of activities. For each activity you have listed, write down the resources the students will need in the Resources column.
2. Look at your student profiles one more time. Do you need to adjust any of your resources in light of your students' likely characteristics (eg location, slow dial-up Internet connections, different time zones, disabilities)?
3. Can you provide more variety of resources, ie a choice of media, a range of perspectives?
4. In the final Weekly teaching learning plan column, identify when each activity will take place and enter the appropriate week number(s) in this column. Then make a separate table with week numbers as your first column, and transfer your data across into chronological order.
5. How will you structure the unit site? Weekly modules, activity-based modules or another structure?
6. How will you welcome and orientate students to the site?
7. How will you develop a sense of safety, dynamism, teacher presence and social presence in the site?
8. How will you make managing the site as efficient as possible?
9. How will you provide a variety of resources and activities to appeal to the variety of students in your class?
10. How will you present your own 'content' in a way that is easy to read on the Web?
11. Are you aware of usability principles and accessibility guidelines?
12. Are you aware of copyright requirements for non-original resources you plan to use?

Example

Example: the PDCas unit uses an intuitive modular structure

Desire2Learn instructional design wizard

If you are using the Desire2Learn Instructional Design Wizard, open your unit site and click on Edit site at the top right side of the screen (next to the help link). Click on Instructional Design Wizard in the Design menu. Click Resume at the bottom of the screen.

The step to decide on your activities is Step 2.2: Design content. The wizard asks you to select the type of learning experience or resource you will use for each activity. Wherever online resources or tools are needed, a placeholder is automatically created.

The next step is Step 3: Organize gradebook. The wizard steps you through the process of deciding grading systems for each of your assessments.

Finally, Step 4: Review course design provides a 'blueprint' of your course for you to check. When you click 'Create course blueprint', the Course Builder view will open. Click Start and you will see the placeholders that have been created for each of your assessments, activities and resources. You will now need to construct each of these items.

See the Guide to using the Desire2Learn Instructional Design Wizard for instructions.

References/recommended reading

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