A Study on Designing Online Learning Activity

Abstract

How to enhance the quality of online learning? The curriculum design is the most important part among all and the learning activity is the key to high quality delivery. In the meanwhile, the design of content and learning activities have to meet the needs of different target groups. The study is based on interviews of 105 e-Learning courses in consideration of online learning activity and current situation, etc. The purpose of the study is to design an online program with higher quality and it will be able to motivate the target groups’ willingness to learning, for instance, what are their interests, how are they learning and ways they prefer to, etc. The study provides five kinds of online learning activities which fit for the learners and provide the methods and tools of designing. Online learning achieves its objective by e-Learning courses. Online learning activities are the basic elements of e-Learning (Chao, 2012). The advantages and disadvantages of online learning are the key factors affecting the quality of the e-Learning. The Distance-Teaching Academic (DTC) has been running for 20 years, but the quality of education has been questioned and its efficiency has not been proved as planned. The reasons for this are as follows: • Online learning needs much more motivation and determination than that of normal learning (Illeris, 2007). Online learning also requires the individual learner for much more motivation to self-learning. • Learners of the DTC have been unable to maintain high level of motivation and they have very poor self-learning skills. • The majority of the courses rely on the resources of the DTC and usually provide learners with a variety of tools including literal texts, photographs, animation, videos, and etc. The learners are required to complete the study tasks but it is difficult to ensure that the study has been undertaken as expected. How to design online learning activities to motivate the learners? This is the key point affecting the outcome of e-Learning. This essay will analyse the current situation in e-Learning in China and learners’ motivation to undertake modern distance higher education in China. It will attempt to design online learning activities, which could motivate the learners; outline the design concepts for online activities, and provide a framework for increasing the quality and efficiency of online learning.