At Proximity Online Course Design we assist university and college lecturers to design and develop high quality online courses for remote and blended learning. 

Our range includes modules at the following levels: 

• certificate
• diploma
• undergraduate, and
• post-graduate (Honours and coursework-based Masters), as well as
• stand-alone continuous professional development (CPD) courses.

Our work is shaped by the firm belief that online learning, in either remote or blended form, can be just as effective, engaging, challenging and interactive as face-to-face learning. In fact, it is often more so. However, we are realistic about the place of digital technology – it should serve the purposes of teaching and learning, not determine their shape.

  1. Programme and course content writing and design 

     We can: 

     1.1 develop new fully online or blended courses from basic curriculum documents (i.e. ‘from scratch’)

     1.2 adapt an existing face-to-face course, designing an exciting, interactive blended or fully online offering, or 

     1.3 collaborate with subject experts (as much or as little collaboration as the lecturer desires) to design courses in a variety of content domains.

       Each of these options may entail: 

• conducting the necessary desk-top research
• submitting draft course outlines to match specifications
• submitting a course ‘storyboard’ for comment
• searching for appropriate learning resources, as well as finding and possibly adapting quality open educational resources (OER)
• commissioning and overseeing artwork from trusted and talented illustrators and graphic artists
• designing learning activities and formative assessments – where appropriate using, or providing specifications for the use of, a range of digital teaching and learning tools
• submitting first-unit drafts for comment
• peer reviewing these and further drafts,
• recommending trusted production houses and technical freelancers, and
• re-working drafts in response to trialling or other feedback from the lecturer.

2. Online course production

     Course options 1.1, 1.2 and 1.3 may be rendered as: 

– text versions in MS Word or pdf, for conversion by a third-party service provider or providers to a SCORM or Moodle package, or

– interactive SCORM or Moodle packages, which, with the addition of required videos, audio or multi-media, will be suitable for uploading on to any of the learning management systems (LMSs) used in SA universities.

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Background

Up till the mid-1980s, thinking about teacher knowledge tended to focus either on teachers’ content knowledge or on their pedagogic knowledge. In 1986 Shulman introduced the helpful idea of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK), which ‘exists at the intersection of content and pedagogy’, rather than viewing them in isolation. PCK represents ‘the blending of content and pedagogy into an understanding of how particular aspects of subject matter are organised, adapted, and represented’ in teaching, with an eye to rendering specific subject content teachable as well as accessible to learners. 

Since the late 1980s successive waves of new digital technologies including hardware, software and the internet, have exerted an increasing influence on teaching and learning, and on pedagogical content knowledge. Some two decades after Shulman, Mishra and Koehler pointed out how these new technologies have the potential to change not only the nature of teaching and learning, but even the nature of the subject content itself, as well as the social context in which learning takes place. 

One example which they provide illustrates how subject matter itself can be changed by the application of technology. A particular software programme designed for teaching geometry

"allows students to play with shapes and form, making it easier to construct standard geometry proofs. In this regard, the software program merely emulates what was done earlier when learning geometry. However, the computer program does more than that. By allowing students to ‘play’ with geometrical constructions, it also changes the nature of learning geometry itself; proofs by construction are a form of representation in mathematics that was not available prior to this technology. Similar arguments can be made for a range of other software products" (Mishra & Koehler, 2006: p.1028). 

In online and blended learning, three types of knowledge converge: pedagogical, content and technological knowledge (PCTK, often referred to as TPACK). The new digital technologies require us to reconfigure our understanding, not just of technology, but of all three components (Mishra & Koehler, 2006: p.1030). 

The design capabilities of the Proximity Online course writers and educational designers combine content knowledge (in Education-related subjects broadly), pedagogical knowledge, and technological knowledge (understanding the range and affordances of today’s online technologies), as well as the intersection of these three in course development. 

We prefer to leave the more technical hands-on production (videos, audio, multi-media) to trusted experts in these fields. These experts may be in your institution’s media production unit, or they may be freelancers or in external production houses that we trust and will be happy to recommend.  

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Benefits

Constructing an academic course that is effective on all levels typically requires the services of at least a subject matter expert, a writer, an instructional designer, a graphic designer, a language editor, possibly an illustrator, a videographer, a voice-over presenter and audio technician, a multi-media developer and the educational technologist who combines what each of these specialists produce into a package that can be loaded on to an LMS, such as Blackboard, Sakai or Moodle. This is what contributes to the relatively high cost of online course production.

However, we have been able to assemble a multi-skilled team who are all first and foremost thoroughly grounded in educational theory and practice as well as being experienced writers and designers of highly-rated learning material. In addition, the power of today's software brings within our reach much of the combined functionality of the diverse specialists mentioned above, with the exclusion of video, audio and some multi-media production. We are thus able to keep development costs to a minimum. 

Institutions which have their own technical production units, or well-established arrangements with external service providers, may choose to use only our course writing service up to the point of delivering a polished course in print form (MS Word and pdf), i.e. 1.1, 1.2 or 1.3 above.

Please request our Pricing Guide, 

and/or share your needs with us at CONTACT US

Proximity Course Development is a new start-up enterprise drawing on the proven talents and expertise of a small team of highly experienced writers and designers. All of us have worked on contract to universities, colleges and NGOs over the past two decades, developing a wide range of courses up to post-graduate level since the 1990s. We have also kept abreast of new developments in educational technology and online course design approaches. We understand:  

– the different level descriptors associated with the various academic levels on the National Qualifications Framework (NQF), including the Higher Education Qualifications Sub-Framework (HEQSF)

– the critical importance of teaching/learning texts being accessible (epistemological access) and engaging, especially where the subject matter is necessarily complex or involves fine distinctions

– that there are academically legitimate ways (always keeping higher order cognitive engagement in view) to ensure that students do not have to struggle to learn a discourse that is new to them, especially if they are studying remotely. And that some, but not all, of these means depend on the skilful and appropriate use of digital learning technologies

– the centrality of pedagogic content knowledge – employing the active learning approaches and technologies appropriate to each subject or content domain that will challenge students and help them to achieve understanding, insight, and the ability to apply, evaluate and transfer knowledge.

Quality

The kind of quality we are after is the kind that produces engaged and successful students. The use of digital educational technology must always be in the service of sound pedagogical design, not the other way round. 

Courses must be learning-centred 

Learning materials and resources must engage the student and challenge the student. Learning, especially in higher education, is not memorising, nor is it even just understanding. It must involve using and applying knowledge and conceptual understanding – to create, evaluate, make choices and think critically. 

Online learning should be at least as effective as good face-to-face teaching 

We believe that in many ways well-designed online courses, whether offered at a distance or in blended form, can and should provide a more effective learning experience than traditional contact education – though of course it does not do so necessarily simply because it's digitised. Most shortcomings of remote learning can be compensated for, and many of its benefits are in fact not encountered in contact courses. 

Collaboration

As a collective of seasoned educators and materials developers, we know that collaboration, with one another and with our clients, is vital to both our service and the courses we produce. At the heart of collaboration is the art of listening. 

Social justice  

Looked at holistically, no education is ever culturally, politically or economically neutral. Throughout our careers, our work has always reflected values consonant with people-based empowerment, democracy, decolonisation and social justice. 

Integrity

Professional integrity is at the root of our work. Dependable service and production, ethical dealings, earned respect and trust are its fruits.