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    • And so, ‘tis the season!

      The firelogs are crackling, the chill has fallen upon us and the marshmallows are poised and ready for the toasting! And to commemorate the start of the festive winter season, we decided to bestow you all with the best gift there is - the gift of knowledge! Course design knowledge, to be precise.

      Starting today and up until the 16th of December, our e-Learning experts at Catalyst EU will be sharing 12 top tips to refresh your course design. How to keep your content organised and up to date, fostering collaborative learning, helping your students to stay engaged and on-track, and much, much more!

      Each day we will reveal the next step on how to enhance your course, so make sure to check back every day, and please do share your work - the more the merrier! And if you have any questions please reach out using the #12DaysOfCatalyst hashtag on Twitter or LinkedIn; we’ll be more than happy to help you with your course design needs.

  • Day 11

    • Review and test your course and content

      You did it, you have finished creating your course and made sure to keep all the advice we've given you in mind for the past 10 days. You're all set and ready to publish the course and set it free into the world.

      Or are you?


      Make full use of your staging or sandbox environment

      No matter how many times we may go through a course while we're putting it together, nothing beats actually completing it from scratch. Upload your course to your test environment and take full advantage of the freedom this sort of environment gives you, how it allows you to make mistakes and push the content to its limits without worrying about repercussions to your site or the content itself.


      Reviewing your freshly made online learning content

      Now that you have your online content prepared and your courses (seemingly) ready to launch, it's time to triple check for any loose ends you may have missed.

      When you go through the course from start to finish as if you were a learner seeing and engaging with this content for the very first time, make sure to consider the following:

      • Layout - are you presenting your content in a logical way? Is the course grouped on a week by week basis, or perhaps by learning outcome? Always remember to consider what structure would flow better for the learners following your course.
      • Goals and objectives - ensure that the goals for your online course, what the learner objectives are and how they will meet these are clear throughout.
      • Signpost - check that you've provided sufficient guides and scaffolding support, especially if you are introducing learners to a new technology or way in which they need to engage with the content or communicate with you or their peers.
      • Accessibility - make sure to get in touch with your student union, a class rep or an accessibility consultant to review your content for accessibility and how it interacts with different assistive learning technologies.




      Don't forget about Mobile Learning!

      Did you know that Moodle and Totara have mobile apps? They can be downloaded from the iOS and Android app stores and mostly revolve around providing learning on the go. If you decide to implement the app for users on your site, make sure to also check how your content looks like on a mobile device.




    • Suggested by Jasmin Davies-Hodge, Senior eLearning Consultant, and Lya Gobetti, eLearning Consultant.