Truth For The World
Bible College

Building and Administering an Online College

The Problem

Bible coursework was being offered through other venues and means, but they had some disadvantages.

Courses were offered synchronously, so people in other countries were required to log in at odd times, whether the middle of the day or the middle of the night.
Since courses were offered synchronously, teachers had to be recruited for every semester.
Some teachers taught the same courses repeatedly, and since they were synchronous, they gave the same lectures over and over again.
All classes were recorded on video. This meant that students who could have watched the same lecture on a video from two years ago at their own convenience, were forced to login on a synchronous schedule to listen to the same lecture live.
Due to the synchronous schedule, students were limited to one class meeting scheduled per week.
Most teachers were not utilizing on-screen visuals. Therefore, the video portion of the class gave no relevant information.

The Solution

Truth For The World decided to launch its own online Bible College. The advanages of this college would be:

Asynchronous: Students can learn when it is convenient for them. All courses are available online 24/7.
Unrestricted Number of Class Sessions: Students can take as many class sessions and courses as they can fit into their available time.
No Recurring Teacher Recruitment: Once the courses are created, they are complete. They can sit on the college and be available without the need to constantly recruit teachers.
Multimedia and Interactive: The class session modules will be rich with multimedia and interactive, and students will not just listen to a talking head lecture for an hour. They will be able to see images, listen to sounds, watch video clips, hyperlink to websites, hover their mouse over words for definitions, etc. This rich material will further enhance their understanding and enjoyment of the lessons. The interactivity can test their skills and/ or knowledge with questions or activities. It can also allow the learning to be self-directed, as students can pursue paths such as hyperlinking to more information to read more about topics they understand less, or skip the hyperlinks and breeze faster through material they understand more.

Responsibilities and Tools Used

Responsibilities: Collaborate on curriculum design, collaborate on instructional course design, create the college interface and structure, develop the individual courses, and administer the LMS.
Tools Used: Adobe Captivate, Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Audition, Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Premiere Pro, and Moodle LMS.