Open Course - Open Culuture

Open course websites can offer many types of learning. As reviewing, I seemed to have a love hate relationship with the layout of www.openculture.com.

As an avid user of the internet, I would say that my biggest complaint about this site is the forever scrolling of the page. To me, this is a nuisance, and I would rather have separate pages to find things. Many times the information gets lost as its at the bottom of the page and buried withing the site. This is also a problem when learning. The eye has to continue to jump as its reading the page. “Each medium has its own aesthetic” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek 2012 p 172). This can be detrimental to students with learning needs (Simonson, et al 2012 p 174).

There are positives to this page, as colors and the font are eye pleasing. Although these may seem silly positives, its important to have these qualities, for when I stare at a computer for a large amount of time, my eyes tire, the bright colors speed up the process.

I do feel like the site was overwhelming, and I have a feeling that if a teacher can feel this way, I can only imagine what others feel like. I feel like looking through all the different options lacked organization. There was no clear place for communication which Simonson, Smaldino, Albright and Zvacek suggests is important for students to received feedback. As I navigated the site more and more searching for online courses and other things that might appeal to me I found my eyes wondering toward ads and other distracting things. To me this was part of the disturbance that would occur within the classroom. “Classroom distractions are noise, as is ambiguous or unfamiliar information” (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek 2012 p 91).

All these lacks make it less and less appealing for distance education and from a instructional design point of view. I did click on a few different courses and explore the possibilities only to be more drawn away from each site. I chose to look at a few different literature classes. The page was a picture of the professor, a list of resources and a link to join the study group. I didn't see the actual learning modules.

There are many positives to this site. Many of the courses have websites, as well as audio or audio and video presentations. There is also a RSS feed and other social network links available. “The effective use of a variety of media to facilitate communication, combined with criticial quantities of well-structured face to face instruction and learning, have characterized many distance-delivered programs” (Simonson et al 2012 p 175).

This site could be very useful with a better layout. I think that it lacks organization and a well thought out plan. It took planning to collaborate all these parts, but how the site is presented lacks professionalism.

References:

Open Culture (2012) Literature Free Courses. Retrieved from: www.openculture.com

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2012).Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education(5th ed.) Boston, MA: Pearson