Last week I submitted my final assessments for my Master eLearning course through B Online Learning. It was somewhat bittersweet in that it meant that the course was coming to an end but at the same time I felt a sense of accomplishment now that I was finished.
The third and final part of the course focused on facilitating in an online environment which is something that I haven’t done before. Part of what we did was to put together a 15 minute webinar and facilitate it with other students. I found this wasn’t as easy as it looks but a good learning experience nonetheless.
I don’t have much online facilitation experience, I have however, been a student in a few online courses in the past and in my experience this is where they tend to fall down. There’s usually a lot of good resources to be found but not much in the way of involvement from the facilitator. This wasn’t the case in the MEC. In fact, one of the strengths of the course was our Learning Coach Ruth and it wasn’t so much what she taught in terms of content (which was good) but how she facilitated throughout the course. She set the example by being supportive, encouraging and providing regular updates and feedback. Even though there are quite a few people completing the course, there’s certainly a good level of personalisation and this is one of the things that sets the MEC apart from other online courses that I’ve completed.
I’ve written a couple of posts how if we can satisfy people’s needs for autonomy, competence and relatedness we can improve their motivation towards the course they are completing. The MEC is does this and is probably the reason the course didn’t feel like work as I was completing it. For me, some key takeaways include:
- always keep the learner at the centre of eLearning design
- the importance of supporting learners during their online course
- the need to keep developing your skills, there’s always something new to learn.
I’d definitely recommend the MEC to anyone starting out in eLearning as it provides a solid foundation as to how much goes into creating an eLearning module or course. It would also be beneficial to anyone wanting to brush up on their skills. You do need to put in a fair bit of work into the course and manage your time but it’s definitely achievable even if you are working as well, you just need to pace yourself. My advice to anyone thinking of doing the MEC would be to commit some time each week to complete the work rather than leaving it until the end. You should also check out ‘Connect’ which is where you can share resources and make contact with other students.
So while the journey of the MEC has come to an end, my own journey in the world of eLearning has a long way to go…. Oh, and by the way, I passed the course! Yay!
This is the final in a series of posts describing and reflecting on my experiences of the Master eLearning Course by B Online Learning.