Topic 4, I guess it is the cool topic as it deals with the designation, imagination and drawing something creative to be interesting for students. Mostly, students, espcially in Nordic countries are somehow shy, and they are not really into open their camer for the others during the class. So, the interaction is very challenging and difficult and trickey. I faced with thid during my class and we are not allowed to ask students to turn on their camaera. some of them also dont have the webcam. Therefore, for us it is very important to know how to design a course to be interesting and informative to students.

We have had discussion on advantages and disadvantages of synchronous versys asynchronous learning in online education. I may refer to the comparision mentioned in The Best Schools . Based on that, synchronous learning has advatnages of:

• class engagement
• dynamic learning
• instrcutional depth

While, asynchronous learnig has advantages of flexibility, pacing, affordability. For example, fully asnychronous programs are among best options like masisve online opne courses (MOOCs) often carry a lower price tag because they do not require hourly support and effort from the instructor, while they can control over the courses.

I peronsally beleive each method has their own pros and cons. But, the most important fact is how to desing the course in order to be instrcutive. For my experience using MOOC through Moodle platform, students needs to have access to the instruction and pre-task before starting the course. They need to be identified and notified with the key sources and material prior to the course. During, the course, the materials can be updated by the instructor accordingly. Then, there should be an exist strategy upon the ending course or program. We need to ensure the students do have access to all required materials ontime.

Kintu et al. (2017) investigates the effectiveness of a blended learning environment through anlayzing the link between student characteristics, design features, and learning outcomes. Their results indicate that some of the student background and design features through moodle are significant predictors for student learning outcomes in blended learning, i.e., a combination of online teaching and face-to-face learning).

Kintu, M. J., Zhu, C, and Kagambe, E. (2017). “Blended learning effectivness: the relationship between student characteristics, design features, and outcomes, International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education, 14.

During our discussion in the group, we realized that the desing process for online education could be a like a journey starting from one spot, one could imagine from a sea port A, to the other destination. There is a lead in the boat to bring the student into a B destination. Logistically, it needs a means of transportation with minimum costs and lead time. However, the challenge is we dont know the students background, thus a ice breaking and torchlight needed to recognize the starting point. Then , we can give them the instructions and get to know them more. The learning process continues and as we get close to the destination, the students get familiar and reach to the saturation point. Thats the point typically recieve the product with satisfaction. However, we believe that the learning process is a like a cycle continuously evelove. I came out a process for my illustration as illustarted below.