The Salsa project completes Phase 1

Having successfully provided web-accessible online syllabi to more than 5,000 students during the Fall 2014 pilot program, the Salsa project completed Phase 1 on January 31, 2015.

Phase 1 was made possible through funding provided by the Utah Science and Technology Research (USTAR) initiative, and a partnership between Commercial Enterprises and the Center for Innovative Design & Instruction (CIDI).

Salsa is an open-source, web-based application for creating accessible higher-education syllabi. The full application is available for download at GitHub.

Incorporating Bloom's Revised Taxonomy into a Syllabus

Many higher education institutions recommend that instructors use Bloom's Revised Taxonomy when creating a syllabus. Here are a few examples: Chicago State University, Duquense University, University of Illinois - Champaign-Urbana, University of Minnesota, University of North Carolina - Greensboro and University of West Florida.

Incorporating Bloom's Revised into a syllabus is very easy with the open source syllabus authoring tool Salsa. Action verbs grouped by Bloom's Revised are built into the product:

Instructors can select a level of Bloom's:

And when they click on the verb, it is added to the text editor:

What are your thoughts on Bloom's Revised in the syllabus?

Salsa is up and running!

We'll be launching version 1.0 of Salsa shortly, but in the meantime, the open-source application is up and running.

Follow Salsa on Twitter: Follow @Salsa4HE

Merrill's First Principles of Instruction

If you're not familiar with David Merrill's First Principles of Instruction, I suggest that you check out this classic post from Dr. Joel Gardner. In this post you will find links to two great research articles on applying the First Principles of Instruction.

Joel has been involved with teaching and learning for over a decade, and is currently Program Chair of the Instructional Design and Performance Technology Program at Franklin University. I had the pleasure of working with Dr. Gardner at the Faculty Assistance Center for Teaching (FACT) for a few years, and he co-authored the original article on the OAR model with Tae Jeon and myself.

The Next Version of 8MP

Based on a few conversations with Subject Matter Experts, here is my update visual model for the eight  mathematical practices from the Common Core State Standards:

Mathematical Practices for Common Core State Standards

This is 8MP. It's my first version of a visual model to represent the 8 Mathematical Practices for Common Core State Standards.

Effective Instructional Explanations

Thanks to Dyeseka at Open Colleges for sending me Customized Instruction: Four Charateristics of Effective Instructional Explanations by Saga Briggs.  Good stuff!

100+ Video Sites Every Educator Should Bookmark

Thanks to Emma Taylor for sending me the link to this great list on accreditedonlinecolleges.com.

One of the gems that stuck out to me right off the bat was YouTube EDU. I will definitely be finding some time to spend there :)

New Article on First Principles of Instruction

My friend--Dr. Joel Gardner--recently started a Wikipedia article on M. David Merrill's First Principles of Instruction. Joel has conducted an extensive amount of research into First Principles, and published the result in his dissertation and this journal article.

oarmodel.com

In September I was dismayed to learn that a Wikipedia Administrator decided to delete the OAR Model article. This article had been up for two years, is still (as of this post) linked to from the Instructional Design article on Wikipedia, and about six months after its creation was the top result on Google. I haven't decided if/when I will appeal the decision.

So, I bought the domain www.oarmodel.com today. Right now it just has a picture of the OAR model, but more to come....

FACT Instructor Guidebook 3

The FACT Instructor Guidebook uses the OAR model as a framework for online course development. It guides them through the process of identifying their basic pedagogy, creating a Course Statement, and exploring some acquisition and application activities.

Here's a "how to" video.

The latest version of the FACT Instructor Guidebook is available at the Faculty Resources page.

 

Online Course Syllabus Template

In the current issue of the Journal of Interactive Online Learning, authors Lewis, Baker and Britigan recommend the use of a template for designing an online course and syllabus:

"Use a sample course and materials as a template or foundation on which instructors can build a new course, customizing it as necessary. The template provides the basic course structure and navigation, introductory information modules, and suggestions for content to enhance the course site. Using the template also speeds up development time and may also facilitate the course development process for new online instructors - for example, a course syllabus template that shows all the key components and content areas in detail."

Here's a link to the full text.

Online Syllabus Template Tool (OSTT) Licensed from Utah State University

I have entered into a licensing agreement with USU to develop the Online Syllabus Template Tool.

I have also developed a version 3, which can be downloaded from Google Docs.

Interview with Blackboard's Dr. C

On March 17 I sat down with Kevin Reeve to give a brief overview of the OAR model.

Here's the link.

Course Activity Map (CAM) Presentation at SWBUG 2010

Last week I participated in the Southwest Blackboard Users Group conference and presented on Course Activity Maps (CAMS). The conference was delivered via Wimba, and the archive does start a few minutes into the presentation. Here is a link:

Course Activity Map

A Course Activity Map (CAM) is an Instructional Design tool that facilitates communication between Instructional Designers, Course Facililtators and other members of an online course design team. CAMs use symbols based on the OAR model to plot the connections between goals, content and activities in Blackboard. CAMs represent the ratio between Acquisition Activities (opportunities for students to gain knowledge and skills) and Application Activities (opportunities for students to demonstrate knowledge and skills).

Online Course Syllabus Template Tool

At FACT we have developed the Online Syllabus Template Tool (OSTT) to provide instructors developing online courses for higher education with:

- a context-specific syllabus structure consistent with the OAR model
- a sample syllabus that models best practices
- an easy-to-modify Microsoft Word template

The OSTT is an Adobe .pdf file that can be opened in the free Adobe Reader program. Users can navigate in the tool just as they would in a web page by mousing over buttons and clicking. Users can use "show info"/"hide info" buttons to toogle between a pageview that shows the sample language and or a pageview that shows descriptive information.

A download of the OSTT is available here.

OAR model page on Wikipedia

I have created a page on Wikipedia describing the OAR model: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OAR_model

I would appreciate feedback from interested parties!

Hello World

If you are interested in context-specific instructional design for online courses in higher education, check out my presentation from TTIX 09:

Context-specific Instructional Design in Higher Education - Part 1

Context-specific Instructional Design in Higher Education - Part 2