Week 7 - Design Structure of LMS and check up on design model effectiveness

 Prompt: Have you had to make revisions to your design based on the structure of the LMS? How well is the design model working for you?

The design model is working well for me so far, but I know I have some challenging things ahead of me with some things I want to design.  I am trying to keep that in mind when it comes to the effort and how specific things I want to do will be able to play out on Canvas in an asynchronous model.  

The LMS itself is becoming more and more familiar.  I’ve learned to structure files uploads and assignments based on the modules they are going to go with, which I’m hoping will make grading, assessments and catch up work/late work easier to deal with in the future for the students.  I do wish Canvas didn’t just put all the assignments in one drop down when you are trying to link to them on the pages, but I am glad they have the ability to do that at all.  

I do find myself making small changes to my design based on the LMS however.  I will find something that works well and then retrofit what I wanted to do with that same activity.  For example, as a form of introduction to the topics, I have found that using the discussion option will hopefully give the students a chance share what they already know, and help put a personal spin on some of these topics.  Then coming back to the discussion later in the week to use those initial thoughts to help wrap up the topic.  By being able to post the discussion board multiple times in the module, I am able to do this in a natural flow within my course.   I haven’t decided if I only want to use this once, or a couple of times, or have each section have this so the students have some familiarity with structure of it.  

The peer reviewing has helped so much as well.  So many good ideas, and shining some light on parts of my course that is unclear or lacking in focus.  It’s great, and Shelby has done a great job at helping me.  

Right now, I’m also not really designing the course in a pure linear fashion, but doing sections at a time away from Canvas, and then uploading and creating the landing pages in Canvas for them.  I have found this to be more time efficient and with all that’s going on right now everywhere, there are some days I just don’t have the mental energy to be creative with words, but I do have the ability to be creative with graphics, or with videos.  Building this course this way has left me feeling for productive, which I’m happy with.  I really hope I can make the pages easier to read in the future, with more multi-media embedded in.