The final assignment on the taught MOOC was to write, what I call, a "Terms of Reference" (TOR). Mine follows:
The MOOC is called Project Management 101 (101 is an American term for an introductory course on a subject).
Course Objectives
- To provide the learner with an introductory understanding of projects in their widest possible sense
- To enable the learner to progress from this course into further study of project management.
The course is aimed at school children aged 11+ through to pensioners and assumes no prior familiarity with projects or project management.
Learning Experience and Learning Objects
Specific course unit objectives include the learner being able to:-
- define a project and differentiate between a project and normal day-to-day activities
- define the terms project (tangible and intangible) products and product-based planning
- list the products that need to be delivered by a project for a case study example
- define the key parts of a project plan
- calculate the shortest project elapsed time for a case study example
- produce a project plan for the case study example listing tasks, estimates, resources and task dependencies
- describe the project dimensions of time, cost and scope that need to be managed
- identify ways of shortening a project's elapsed time
- classify items on their "to-do"/wish list as "projects" or "normal life" activities
I produced a course outline structure during #moocs4all.
The course will make use of videos, text and multiple choice quizzes. The bulk of the material will be sourced from my library of project management resources accumulated over a 31 year IT career. Videos will be filmed specifically for the course and use may be made of videos in the public domain (e.g. for examples of projects in every day life). Peer assessments may be included.
Tools
The main platform for the course will be Teachable.
I will be investigating that platform, prior to build, to identify any functionality that I can make use of in ways appropriate to the teaching content of the course.
Videos are likely to be filmed using Office Mix (a free add-on to Microsoft Powerpoint).
Plan
The elapsed times below are indicative. This work will be done while I am doing a demanding day job in parallel.
- Tool Understanding: to learn Teachable and Office Mix (3 weeks)
- Course Structure: review initial view of course structure and learning objects in the light of the Tool Understanding outputs to produce a revised course structure (2 weeks)
- Build Course Script: document the teaching script for the course including identifying a case study to run through the duration of the course (4 weeks)
- Film Video Clips: for the sections of the course requiring them (2 weeks)
- Produce Assessments: These are the quizzes and other learner activities for the course (1 week)
- Course Walkthrough: my dry run of the course to test links etc (1 week)
- Size Course: identify the likely timeline for someone learning on this course e.g. 4 week course, 10 week course etc (1 week)
- Pilot the course: with “friends” who I am identifying to be ruthless in their testing and assessment of the course (4 weeks)
- Apply feedback (2 weeks)
- Prep for go-live: At this point the course is ready to go live.
I am undecided currently whether to make this a date and time bound course or to be available to start at any time by any learner. As and when this course is planned to go live, I will be doing recruitment activities via Twitter and LinkedIn. This will probably be at least 4 weeks.
Nice!
ReplyDeleteTwo quick questions, my 2 cents, candidly.
What will the course bring me in term of capability, what will I be able to do, I wasn't able to do before? I see timing being mentioned in the details but a general statement would be nice.
In software or in Industry project is a common word with little ambiguity. I noticed that GTD uses it as well. OK it's point 1 but IMHO it would be good to clarify rather early since it's part of the objectives.
Re capability, this is covered in the 1-9 list of course unit objectives. These are mostly basic project management concepts which would be helpful for anyone to know but also include some practical testable skills (e.g. how to manually calculate the critical path through a project).
DeleteRe "... project is a common word with little ambiguity", my experience is that there are many diverse implicit and/or explicit definitions of projects that people hold including people working within and across organisations. It is good, therefore, to get people on the same page working to the same definition. A recent PKM chat was a classic for indicating the challenge that people have communicating when definitions of terms are not shared and consistent. I would also emphasise that the MOOC is being designed mostly for people with no exposure to projects at all and also people who have not worked in organisations. However, the course content and exercises will also be a refresher for those with some project knowledge and experience.
I did not understand your reference to "timing".
Thanks for your feedback. It has reminded me that I need to be tight in my course description when I come to pitch it to people to sign-up for the course i.e. I need people to be clear what they will get out of the course before they sign-up.
Re GTD, a good mention. I will be including a reference to GTD projects and may even include the GTD definition as a wrong answer in a multiple choice quiz.
This is David Allen's, of GTD fame, definition of projects (from http://goo.gl/14VcVY):
"I have a radical definition of a project: anything you’re committed to finish within a year that requires more than one action to complete it."
More controversially may be, my main focus in building this MOOC is to see what I can deliver from an off-the-shelf MOOC platform rapidly and compellingly with the content being a bonus. Nevertheless, I am also planning for the content to be very helpful as hopefully you would expect from me.
PS the PKM chat I was referring to was the one on creativity and resilience on 6 July 2016.
DeleteI see nothing controversial in your personal objective. I'm sure you have enough background to share. two challenges I see are to attract the right people, to place yourself at their level and keep it short. Since they will start from low and have little background to build upon you will have a hard time keeping it short enough so that it's keeps people engaged. You will learn a lot at this exercise.
DeleteTo attract the right people "the MOOC is being designed mostly for people with no exposure to projects" is perfect for describing audience ( I would drop mention of ages, best to let people define themselves) and "basic project management concepts which would be helpful for anyone to know but also include some practical testable skills" as the content.
I would remove mention of 101 as it is understood precisely by people with already a good knowledge of IT. It's the name of the first road along the pacific , going along the silicon valley.
Timing was my word for everything about computing projects durations and optimizing ordering. Critical path was seen twice during my studies: in Highschool in a factory floor process planning course (one year) and in Graph theory in my Math Master, so I guess this MOOC will be a bit slow for me, still keep me posted, I'll add myself to the crowd.
People love teachable, but I have no experience of it.