Public Health Concepts and Practice , developed by Bernard J. Turnock for University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health, skillfully integrates a range of activities and media types, including video. Discussions are structured activities with specified roles for students that makes them more focused and relevant to the course. Calculus Quest , Developed by Bill Bogley, Robby Robson, and Dick Schori for Oregon State University. What We Learned It would be impossible to summarize briefly all that we learned about the current state of practice, but here are a few items of general interest. Beyond this, here are a few observations that stand out, all of which are probably typical of the broader world of online courses beyond this group of entries.
Most courses are still almost exclusively text.
Graphics and photos are beginning to be a regular feature, but slides with narration are still about as common as video. Animation was almost non-existent. There were some good java applets though. There is very little appreciation for the power of the database, either for progress tracking and assessment or for the dynamic generation of HTML pages to customize content. There is not nearly enough thought or imagination devoted to collecting evaluation data on the effectiveness of learning activities or the extent of student satisfaction.