{"id":2683,"date":"2020-03-04T22:27:27","date_gmt":"2020-03-04T22:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/?p=2683"},"modified":"2020-03-04T22:27:27","modified_gmt":"2020-03-04T22:27:27","slug":"instructional-design-and-states-of-emergency","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/geoffcain.com\/blog\/instructional-design-and-states-of-emergency\/","title":{"rendered":"Instructional Design and States of Emergency"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here in Washington State, we have schools closing because of the Corona virus. We have the added burden of students who do not have access to the internet at home. This is not unlike other obstructions\/opportunities\/challenges I have faced in the past as an instructional designer, for instance, getting curriculum to prisons. Bryan Alexander, who has been doing some excellent writing on education and the virus has a post entitled “COVID-19, academia, and the big push online: an update<\/a>” that sums up a lot of these issues and succinctly points out the following:<\/p>\n

“…the digital divide means unequal access to bandwidth, which can limit use of video and large files. Faculty are not universally schooled, practiced in, and happy about teaching online. Campuses may lack sufficient staff to enable a big, fast online push. This is also happening during the middle of academic terms in many instance, which makes the transition even more difficult.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"Map<\/p>\n

By way of a relevant case, Lindsay McKenzie in a recent article in Inside HigherEd<\/a> discusses the transition that universities in Shanghai have recently made in shutting down their physical college and moving rapidly online: “Preparing to teach a course online for the first time usually takes several months. Faculty at institutions in China have done it in less than three weeks<\/strong> — a remarkable feat.” (Emphasis is mine.) In an emergency situation, all of the things that we know are important in successful online learning might go out the window (hopefully the situation is only temporary). A lot of the best practices in online learning, such as discussion, group work, community building will probably have to take a back seat to just content delivery.<\/p>\n

I am wondering what templates could be built in an LMS or in WordPress that would allow faculty to learn the tools while they build out courses. I think a lot could be done in three weeks. But wouldn’t it be better to have courses all ready prepared for anything?\u00a0 Some tools to consider could include the following for fully offline situations:<\/p>\n