Education for a Digital World Advice, Guidelines and Effective Practice from Around Globe, 2008a

13 – Planning Your Online Course
Figure 13.5. Multimedia planning storyboard section
Figure 13.6. Course planning storyboard section
Why should we consider
e-learning styles?
Over the past three decades, a dozen or more learning
style taxonomies have been created by various educational
researchers. For example, Howard Gardner of
Harvard University (Multiple Intelligences Profile)
based his taxonomy on mind psychology, and David
Kolb (1984) of Yale University and the Bates Institute
(LSI—Learning Styles Inventory) based his on experiential
learning.
The latter two and other learning style inventories
based on them, such as the Honey and Mumford
Learning Styles model (1992). based on Kolb’s work;
and Neil Fleming’s VARK (Visual, Auditory, Reading/Writing
and Kinesthetic) (2001) of Lincoln University
in New Zealand, and the Memletics Accelerated
Learning Styles (Advantogy, 2003) models, both similar
to Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences taxonomy, are particularly
suited to online course delivery. All of these
learning style models highlight student preferences and
natural tendencies for processing information and understanding
content. E-learning offers a rich medium
for appealing to the diversity of learning styles if used in
inventive, adaptive, and creative ways. The time to consider
this is at the course planning stage, as the design
team chooses the components and activities during the
development process.
MULTIPLE INTELLIGENCES
“We are all able to know the world through language,
logical mathematical analysis, spatial representation,
musical thinking, the use of the body to
solve problems or to make things, and an understanding
of ourselves and of others. Where individuals
differ is in the strength of these intelligences:
the so-called profile of intelligences—and in the
way such intelligences are invoked and combined
to carry out different tasks, solve diverse problems,
and progress in various domains”. (Howard
Gardner, 1991)
Figure 13.7. Flow chart style storyboard
Howard Gardner, a professor at Harvard University,
hypothesized that people are capable of eight unique
ways of information processing, which he called multiple
intelligence theory. Information processing is the
person’s preferred intellectual approach to assimilating
facts, information, and knowledge. Gardner suggested
that individuals should be encouraged to apply their
preferred intelligences in learning. Learners who have an
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