16 Conclusion

There are still many other issues that have not yet been covered. You might have noticed that this manual does not go much into overall processes to follow to create courses. While there are many out there (Dick, Carey, & Carey, 2001; Smith & Ragan, 2004), most of them that are some variation of the ADDIE method. ADDIE stands for the five steps that most course design processes typically go through: Analyze the need for a course, Develop the content and activity ideas, Design the actual content and activities, Implement the course (i.e. teach it), and Evaluate how well the course goes. Of course, just by reading through that list you can begin to see that design models can never be fully linear. Reliance on linear processes remains the problem of most design methods: design is messy and not linear. It also doesn’t stop because the course is being taught. However, many other resources have covered the design process very well, so if you need a general guide, those sources can be helpful.

At the end of the day, you will probably be the best person to lay out your own process for creating a course. Take the ideas you have learned here (or maybe refreshed your memory about) and just start somewhere. This manual follows the way that some generally follow when they create a course, but you may want to remix or reorder to fit your needs. Just keep your learners and their needs central to whatever process you decide to follow.

References

Dick, W., Carey, L., & Carey, J. O. (2001). The systematic design of instruction (Vol. 5). New York: Longman.

Smith, P. L., & Ragan, T. J. (2004). Instructional design (3rd Ed.). Wiley.