For over 10 years, Genesee CC has offered EDF 211, Instructional Design, as a professional development workshop for faculty that included sessions in pedagogy, educational philosophy, student learning outcomes and the principle of backward design. Every time the course was offered, students commented there was not enough technology training offered as part of the course. As a result of that observation, EDF 221, Instructional Design 2 was offered starting in Spring 2010.

This follow-up class/seminar was designed and delivered by SunGard Higher Education Academic Computing staff as a fully online professional development workshop. The course built on the principles delivered in EDF 211, focused firmly on technology training and included topics in Social Networking, Audio/Video and advanced Blackboard topics (discussions, gradebook and assessments). Except for one class meeting at the end of the semester, all course sessions were offered online and participants worked on their own on projects and course assignments. A deliberately limited group of 12 faculty participated in the class.

We'll take a look at what went well, what didn't go so well, the topics covered, what the participants thought and what changes were made for the next offering.