This course was adapted from the United Nation's Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO) eLearning Academy's (2021) elearning methodologies and good practices: A guide for designing and delivering elearning solutions from the FAO elearning Academy, second edition. 

The FAO elearning Academy provides distance learning opportunities for professionals around the world, including marginalized countries. This course has been developed to provide guidance, examples and good practices for the design and delivery of online learning solutions, based on the work undertaken by the FAO elearning Academy over a 15-year period. We updated some of the examples from the original guidebook to include more relevant examples for our learners in Afghanistan and surrounding regions.

This course focuses on:

  • The design, development and delivery of activities that are specific to online learning, with a particular focus on professional instructional design practices.
  • Online learning solutions suitable for development contexts characterized by technology constraints, such as limited hardware capabilities and low-bandwidth Internet connections.
  • Adult learners, although much of what is covered in this course can be applied to online learning in primary and secondary school education.

By the end of this course, you will be able to:

  • Explain the design, development and delivery of activities that are specific to online learning
  • Explain online learning solutions suitable for development contexts characterized by technology constraints, such as limited hardware capabilities and low-bandwidth Internet connections.
  • Understand how to develop online learning materials
  • Locate online learning resources for yourself and your students

The purpose of this course is to provide guidance on designing and developing online learning-based solutions for teachers, trainers, and instructional designers who are new to online learning design. The course provides basic concepts and information on the processes and resources involved in online learning development, which may be of interest to teachers, trainers, human resource (HR), and capacity-development managers. While we recognize that not all learners in Afghanistan will have access to online learning, many of the principles in the first 7 modules of the course are generalizable to other forms of distance learning. 

Course Introduction

While there are  several definitions of online learning, which reflect different perspectives, online learning in this document is defined as follows:

Online learning is the use of electronic devices and Internet technologies to deliver a variety of solutions to enable learning and improve performance.

The FAO guide used to develop this course focuses on designing courses to meet job-related capacity-development goals and targeted professional profiles. Although many of the practices described can be applied to any capacity-development project, this course focuses on the design, development and delivery of activities that are specific to online learning. Its focus is on online learning solutions suitable for development contexts characterized by technology constraints, such as limited hardware capabilities and low-bandwidth Internet connections. 

Although much of what is covered in this course can be applied to online learning in primary and secondary school education, these guidelines have been developed mainly for online learning aimed at adult learners, i.e. learners who have completed their formal education, but who are still motivated to increase their knowledge and competences.

Adult learners share some characteristics that are different from those of full-time students, which influence the design of learning programmes. In particular, adult learners: 

  • need to know the benefits of learning (why they should learn something);
  • like to learn experientially;
  • approach learning as problem-solving;
  • learn better when they can see the immediate value and application of content; and
  • prefer to study at a time, place and pace that is convenient for them.

Modules 1 and 2 provide an introduction to online learning characteristics, benefits,activities and the resources needed to develop an online learning project. It mainly targets training and capacity-development managers and those who are interested in starting an online learning project or integrating online learning components into their organization’s capacity-development programmes. 

Modules 3, 4 and 5 provide guidance on how to design an online learning course (from the needs analysis to the definition of learning objectives, sequencing, choice of learning strategies and delivery formats). This mainly  addresses trainers and instructional designers who aim to create learning projects that match learners’ needs by choosing among different methods and delivery formats. 

Modules 6, 7 and 8 provide detailed guidance on creating interactive content (from the application of learning  strategies and media to courseware development). These modules target instructional designers and subject matter experts involved in content development, as well as all those who want to know more about the methodologies and tools used to create online learning content. 

Module 9 provides an overview of learning platforms used to host online courses. This is aimed at capacity-development managers, facilitators and instructional designers who want to know how to conduct a facilitated online course and how learning platforms can support course delivery, knowledge exchange and communication among participants.




Last modified: Saturday, 4 November 2023, 9:10 AM