Providing Technology Resources
With any online course the learning management system used needs to be understood and navigated easily. Some schools offer brief face to face orientations, others online tutorials etc..
Not only do we need to make sure that our students have the correct software and hardware they also need to correct resources to help them navigate the course and trouble shoot any issues or problems they may have.
I like using a Start Here tab which walks them through all the pertinent information needed and also walks them through the tabs and gives them a list of resources either links, phone numbers for staff at the college associated with the LMS or those tutorials or resources located within the classroom which are built-in. Students will not always be able to contact you or get a response back from you ASAP so it is helpful for them to have another source to try and even more importantly one they do not have to try and find. Ease of getting help is essential.
Obviously instructor presence is important from the start and I do have different ways of establishing this however in order to make the students comfortable and feel that they have somewhere to turn if they are having technology issues helps reduce frustration especially at the start of a course. Technology frustration especially for the older students is huge and can be eased very simply.
Dawn ,
When the students understand the expectations and can navigate through the system, learning is improved. Thank you.
Dawn, you have certainly shown that you think about students' needs! Your offering an appropriate list of resources proves that you predict problems that students will encounter while learning online. Dawn, you mentioned that older students' number of frustrations can be lowered by referring to and using your list. Dawn, an explanation of what each resource is and how each can help the students would also improve the "online" life of the older adult learner.:-)
April,
Thanks for continuing the conversation from Dawsn's post. We do continue to learn from each other. Thanks again.
