Earlier in the year, some of my colleagues and I began taking an online course on statistical analysis and epidemiology from edX. edX is an online learning platform that provides a plethora of courses from universities throughout the world on various topics, ranging from public health to computer science. I started the course, eager to practice the epidemiology I learned at graduate school and curious to see how other distance learning courses were structured and implemented to apply to my own work at the Infectious Diseases Institute (IDI). After the 5th week of trying to download videos and working on assignments with choppy internet, I gave up.
I looked back at the course, trying to figure out what the problem was. Was it me? Of course it was me, at least part of it. But I believe that the other part that prevented me from completing the course was the design of the course itself, with YouTube lectures, Flash-based activities and strict assignment deadlines. While the use of new technology makes an online or distance course more dynamic and appealing, when you live in an area with low internet access and low computer literacy all that flash (no pun intended) prevents you from actually learning.
As a distance learning officer at IDI, here are some things that I think about when I design distance learning or training courses:
- The audience: This is the single-most important element when designing our distance learning courses at IDI. My audiences are health care workers in Uganda and throughout Africa whose work revolves around prevention, treatment, and care of HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. Some questions I ask in order to develop curriculum for a training course include: what skills do I want them to learn, what skills do they what is their level of computer literacy is, and what would be the best way for them to learn and retain information would be.
- The resources: Along with thinking about the audience, I must consider the resources that both trainees have and what IDI can provide in order to create a distance training course. Do the health care workers we are trying to train have computer and internet access at their work? Maybe we can design a course that would integrate their current jobs to the learning objectives. Will trainees be able to stream videos in their setting? It wouldn’t matter if I knew how to make and upload training videos online – it would be a wasted effort if the trainee cannot access the videos. However, if video lectures are the best way to present information perhaps presenting it in a flash drive for trainees to use in with their personal or work computers would be more effective.
- The team: Who will be the champions for these training course? It’s important to have subject matter experts who are both knowledgeable and excited about distance learning in all its forms. While I do know a thing or two about infectious diseases and educational design, having subject matter experts allows you to design courses that are factually correct and specifically geared towards what the trainee needs.
- The tracking: It goes without saying that monitoring and evaluating a distance training course is important – we need to know what works and what doesn’t in order to evolve and create the most useful type of training for the audience. Currently, IDI is running an online course on comprehensive HIV prevention focused on policy leaders and managers for the first time – we are collecting information about the trainees, teachers, and activities to help with future iterations of the course.
Designing a distance learning course is not as simple as I’ve made it to be – education technology and curriculum design is a long and methodical process. However, understanding where the learner is coming from and what the learner needs is paramount to designing an effective distance learning and training course. Distance learning is becoming an important part of the educational revolution worldwide and it’s exciting to be working at the forefront of education, technology, and capacity building. Although designing distance learning and training courses in resource-limited settings can be challenging, it is equally as rewarding.