Tom Chatfield: Five things I learned when creating an online course

This post originally appeared on the SAGE Campus blog.

What do the most useful online resources look like and do? This has become a more urgent question than anyone dreamed even a few months ago, and the urgency brings with it a whole new set of unwelcome questions: what does it mean to create good online resources fast, under great pressure, for those experiencing profound disruption and uncertainty?

I can’t hope to address any of this comprehensively. But I can offer a few useful thoughts, drawing on my experience of putting together ’Critical Thinking: An Online Course’ for SAGE Campus based on my textbooks—and, more generally, on my work around what makes for the effective use of technology in the first place.

I’ve split things up into five key points (because who doesn’t like numbered headings at a time of crisis?) connected by a common theme: less is (almost always) more online. Less text, more space, more breaks into sentences and paragraphs and pages and sections; fewer and clearer images, short explanations, brief video and audio clips; concise summaries; more differentiation of styles and formats. And so on.

Why? Because information consumed onscreen is inherently less memorable and more friction-less than that set out on the physical geography of a page, or delivered in a lecture or seminar; because in terms of time and attention, it’s in competition with everything else that potentially exists on that screen; and because it’s largely up to you, its creator, to create form, coherence and impact out of a potentially undifferentiated, overwhelming information dump.

1. WRITE (AND REWRITE) SPECIFICALLY FOR THE SCREEN

Whatever you do, don’t simply copy and paste large volumes of existing material into whatever system you’re using. So far as time and resources permit, try to remake everything you can for the constraints and potentials of the particular form you’re working in. A more immediate and informal tone is often better, online, as is brevity. And the way you break up ideas into sections and segments – and allocate it between differing formats such as text, video, quizzes, audio, images, animations, and external links – will itself carry much of the pedagogic weight. Which brings me handily to my next point…

2. STRUCTURE IS (ALMOST) EVERYTHING

The more time you can spend thinking about the overall structural logic of what you’re trying to deliver, the better it’s likely to be. Online content is inherently “bitty” and browse-able. People are likely to want to move forwards and backwards, to leap between sections – so the more clearly you can show them where they are, how everything fits together structurally and what they’re supposed to be learning, the better.

Ease of navigation is vital, which mean signposting, clear taxonomic levels and – if at all possible – opportunities to view other relevant materials, and recap as needed. Even something as simple as ensuring every single page you create has a heading, subheading and (very brief) synopsis of what it’s about can help keep things clear, especially if users are likely to be moving between the materials you’ve created and other resources. Which brings me to the point that…

3. USE THE REST OF THE INTERNET

…it’s not a great idea to create online resources while pretending the rest of the internet doesn’t exist. Any online course is going to be used on a screen alongside other tabs and windows. And whatever you’re teaching, part of helping people to study that topic effectively will entail helping them to become more critically discerning users of online resources. Don’t ignore this fact: use it. Don’t just regurgitate stuff that’s depicted or explained perfectly well elsewhere: enter into dialogue with it.

Encourage further reading, thinking, browsing and research. And use the opportunity of an online resource to give people open questions to take away and apply elsewhere. The more you can equip people to be more confident, self-directed learners in your field, the better – because everyone is going to be doing a lot of self-directed learning in the near future. Keep the circumstances of your users in mind, and then…

4. TESTING MATTERS

…try always to be considerate of these circumstances. What’s the actual, moment-by-moment experience that people will have of your content? What will they will see and do onscreen, click by click, as they encounter it? Is it clear what they should do next, how to navigate it, where to interact, how to go forward and backward, what’s expected of them? Are they being forced to wait unnecessarily while things load or animate? Are there transcripts of video and audio? Is what you’ve done as accessible as possible? Does it have dead ends, ambiguities, broken links?

Obviously, you can’t and won’t be able even to consider all these questions. But it’s incredibly useful to keep this kind of questioning in mind, because it’s a reminder that onscreen information is never passively consumed: it’s actively *used*, and its usefulness depends upon how fit for purpose it is. Hence my last point…

5. ABOVE ALL, BE USEFUL

This is also a phrase I try to live by in my own work. Be useful. Ultimately, you’re making a tool to be used, and every decision you make needs to be assessed in the light of this. Would a diagram be better than an explanation; or are both required? How effective is your video content? Does it have transcripts, is it searchable and skippable? Are you forcing people to scroll needlessly, or being unclear? Are there some great resources you could link to? Are you doing some things for the sake of it? Above all – what does your audience want from you, or most need that they can’t get elsewhere? And if you don’t know, how can you find out?

Times are tough. Much of the above may not apply to you. I hope, though, that at least some of it is worth your consideration; and that, if nothing else, it might help you rethink what can be done, and does and doesn’t need to be done, amid the present’s vast uncertainty. Good luck!

About

This guest blog is written by Tom Chatfield, an author, tech philosopher and broadcaster. Follow Tom on Twitter. Tom is the author of SAGE Campus’ course Critical Thinking: An online course which can be used by institutions to help equip students with the skills and habits of critical thinking. Find out more and demo the course today here.