What an Online Learning Platform Should Be: T...

What an Online Learning Platform Should Be: The Conceptualized Design of Graduate Students and Teachers

Author Name : Araneta, Bryan Yves G.

ABSTRACT

Tertiary-level teachers, graduate students, and IT specialists were invited to exchange ideas on how an online learning platform or application should look and function. Out of this informal focused-group discussion, an online platform/ application design was conceptualized to complement future developments in the field of online education. It was further refined by incorporating additional ideas from existing platforms. A separate set of graduate school students and teachers where then invited to critic the design and to find potential loopholes in it and out of their subjective judgements. It was unanimously approved by the focused group emphasizing its advantages in terms of user-friendliness and interactivity. This simple study thus, filled established gaps in online learning such as the lack of interactivity, social connectedness, and teacher presence. It also demonstrated that designing through collaborative exchange of ideas qualifies as a viable qualitative research methodology.

Keywords: online learning, educational technology, distance education, eLearning platform