From On-the-Ground to In-the-Cloud

Ohio State Online is growing rapidly and adding programs to give all students, no matter their location, the opportunity to earn a degree from Ohio State. Jerry Bean, a lecturer in the College of Social Work, worked with Marcia Ham, one of ODEE's instructional designers, to develop a course for one of these programs. They worked throughout spring semester to develop a fully online version of Social Work Practice 7400 as part of the Master of Social Work program.

Bean shared his thoughts on his overall experience developing this online course:

Tell us about the project.  What challenges did you face? 

This project is part of a larger effort by the Ohio State College of Social Work to increase the number of online courses available to students. More specifically, Social Work 7400 is a foundation course for students who enter the master's program with advanced standing status. Although I have been teaching the in-class version of Social Work 7400 for a number of years, I was humbled by the amount of work it takes to get a class into an online version. It literally felt like writing a text book. Online class development forces you to think critically and carefully about course objectives and how content and activities can be scoped and sequenced to meet those objectives.

What was your favorite part about this project and the collaboration? 

I very much appreciated the storyboard structure used to develop the class. I can't imagine doing an online class without it.  In my humble opinion, I think all instructors would benefit from an online course development project. It encourages critical and disciplined thinking. I plan to review all my classes using the storyboard framework.

What’s it like working with ODEE and their instructional designers?

Marcia Ham was absolutely outstanding and the final product shows her skills. In terms of the development flow, she worked with me on the original storyboard and then let me know where I needed to add or clarify content. One of my goals was to make sure I did not slow the development process and Marcia was quite effective in keeping everything ‘in line.’

Anything else you want to add? 

I would do a course with ODEE again without question. Marcia is an example of staff competency, and I would enjoy a future collaboration with ODEE.

For more information on how to transform an in-class course to an online format, email the ODEE Instructional Design Team.