- Type of Program: Bichronous learning
- Client: University of Toronto Continuing Education
- Target Audience: Adult learners interested in spoken language interpretation
- Tools used: Moodle, VoiceThread, H5P
- Responsibilities: Instructional designer, eLearning Developer
Overview
In the ETEC 681 Distance Education course, I created a proposal for a bichoronous distance education course on spoken language interpretation and designed and developed a short asynchronous module on the topic.
This project was inspired by my experience taking an in-person language interpreter program. In this project, I tried to re-imagine how a course that relies heavily on peer collaboration, interpersonal interaction and dialogue could be delivered in a distance education format.
Select this link to consult the course proposal
Instructional Design
The instructional design of this course was guided by the theory of constructivism and features discussions and collaborative asynchronous activities where learners get to interact with the instructor and peers, explore multiple perspectives, and integrate new information into their existing knowledge and experiences.
Furthermore, the course applies experiential learning strategies to offer more authentic, hands-on and reflective learning experience. It also considers the Community of Inquiry (CoI) framework to establish social presence (i.e., discussions and collaboration), teaching presence (i.e., written communication and guidance), and cognitive presence (i.e., hands-on learning activities, goal-setting and self/peer assessment).
The course also applies the principles of backward design to ensure the alignment of course activities to the learning objectives.
Experience the module
Video tour of the Moodle module
H5P Lesson
I selected H5P as a tool to develop the lesson content as it’s an open-source tool that offers opportunities to include a variety of multimedia content, interactivity and knowledge checks. As the content is developed in HTML5, most activities on the platform meet WCAG 2.1 AA standards. It also integrates seamlessly into a Moodle course.
VoiceThread Learning Activity
VoiceThread is an online collaborative communication platform where students will engage in interpretation practice, collaborate with peers asynchronously and receive feedback. Overall, it’s a great eLearning tool that integrates into Moodle, has accessibility features, and supports learning through the establishment of social, teaching and cognitive presence.
Select this link to consult my review of this eLearning tool
