Introduction to Building Your Module Draft

The activity this week is designed to help take the information from the Module Outline and use it to begin building a module draft. As previously mentioned, a module is an independent unit or lesson that usually, but not always, contains one week's worth of online content. For this draft, use the information from the outline to begin creating the actual module content.

Draft the parts you decided to include/add:

    1. An introductory paragraph to the content
    2. Objectives for this module
    3. Content such as activities and materials (PPTs, images, PDFs, web links - keeping copyright and accessibility principles in mind). This is where you can link to the files you may have uploaded in Step 1. Note that your content does not have to be complete this week, but at least drafted out.
    4. Any additional content if appropriate. You may want to highlight a few topics or provide your perspective beyond the textbook. Note that your content does not have to be complete this week, but at least drafted out.
    5. Specific assignment details; for example, for a discussion posting, provide the description of the posting, tell students when they should post by, when to go back and add a second or third post; give students questions they need to answer: Do you agree? Why or why not? You may further refine the assignments in the following weeks.
    6. Remember to click Save Changes at the bottom of the page.

(Visit the Teaching Online Pedagogical Repository for some examples. If needed, please review the Options for Creating and Delivering Content for a refresher on the process to link the pages and assignments for this Showcase module.)

Now that you have built the basic structure for your module content, think about how you can organize ("chunk") the information. It is likely that you will find it necessary to create a new Page and cut and paste some of the content from the Module Template to the new Page. For instance, your first page may have an introduction to the content, objectives, and a list of assignments, while the next page may have a full description of the assignments. It is possible you may create multiple Pages.

Module development over the next few weeks should be as follows:

  1. Week 6 (this week) includes building a draft of your actual module.
  2. Week 7 provides you with additional time to develop your content further and make any changes/suggestions provided by your instructional designer as you wish. 
  3. Week 8 includes a peer review activity. This session provides you with the opportunity to share your course-in-progress with your peers and receive feedback from them.
  4. Week 9 provides you with the opportunity to refine and finalize your module so that you will have it ready to present during the Showcase.
  5. Week 10 IDL Showcase Event/Presentation

Creative Commons License

TOPKit Sample Course was prepared by the University of Central Florida (UCF). This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License Links to an external site..