October 2000 — Features
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Creating a Pre-Service Teachers' Virtual Space
It is important to note that the three instructors involved
in this project were colleagues in the past. It is recommended that you begin
virtual collaboration projects with those you know. This familiarity and
collegial relationship will help give the group patience, leading to a more
productive end product. After collaborating via e-mail, the group began the
analysis and development of project details via e-mail, phone conferencing, and
Web-based conferencing.
For the remainder of this section, the ADDIE model is used
as an organizing element for the discussion. The ADDIE model is a general
instructional design model that includes the following elements: Analysis,
Design, Development, Implementation and Evaluation. While the model appears to
be linear, it is in fact an iterative process. During the design of the
project, we moved back and forth between many of the general categories
outlined in the model.
1. The Analysis
As we commenced the project, we reflected first on the needs
and abilities of our students and the context of the project within our courses,
as well as important design issues. During this process, we sought answers to
the following questions related to our course and to the nature of our
students.
· Students — Who are the learners? What do
they already know about the topic? What are their communication abilities? Will
the students have access to the Web outside of class? How comfortable are they
with technology?
· Course
content — What content could be covered with the project? What content is
currently being covered in each of the courses? Where is the relevant overlap?
What proportion of each of the class’ overall grade would this project be
worth? What are the scheduling issues that need to be addressed?
As we learned and had anticipated, this portion of the
design process was and is the most critical. Since the project was going to
involve three different courses at different universities, it was important
that all three instructors had extensive awareness and knowledge of all
students in the three sections, as well as an understanding of what the goals
for each of the courses were. We achieved this through comparisons of course
syllabi and online student information forms that asked about past experience
in the subject area and interest in certain topics. Through this process we
quickly learned that even though we were teaching the same courses, each
instructor was placing a different amount of emphasis on the various elements
in the course. Somehow we needed to find a common area and design a project
that would benefit everyone, while being cognizant of university requirements
at each institution.
