3.2 Content creation tools
With online learning comes the potential to use a variety of media and to use content creation tools to package them all together to form a coherent learning experience. As well as providing interesting ways to use audio and video in teaching, leading and/or supporting learning, there are online tools available that support the production of graphs and infographics, animations, storyboards and more.
Whatever your role, it is useful to browse and trial a range of software (with a variety of media and presentation formats) to discover which kinds would help bring online education at your institution alive. Week 4 of the course provides some guidance on this process. When you have an idea of what you want to create, or want others to create, you will need to identify how the outputs that can be created with these tools can be integrated with the learning management system to create a dynamic and engaging online learning experience.
In addition, you may enable students to use these tools in their online work. Beetham (2007) points out that:
‘Applications can even be shared to enable collaborative representations to be built, as happens face to face with electronic whiteboards, and with wikis online. Learners’ representations can of course be used for assessment but they can also be re-integrated into the learning situation for reflection and peer review, or even as learning materials for future cohorts.’