Prepare: what this week is for

Welcome to the course. Over four weeks you will learn four models that help you design online learning that students can follow and enjoy. This first week starts with PANDA, a simple structure that gives every week of an online course the same five parts: Prepare, Activate, Navigate, Demonstrate and Articulate.

The course follows PANDA itself. Every week opens with a short Prepare lesson like this one, then Activate, Navigate, Demonstrate and Articulate, always in that order. You will see the pattern at work as a learner before you build it as a designer.

What to do this week

1. Activate (about 10 minutes): think about what makes a week hard to follow.
2. Navigate (about 40 minutes across three short lessons): why the pattern helps, the five elements and how to build them in Canvas.
3. Demonstrate (about 30 minutes): outline one real week, then take the short quiz.
4. Articulate (about 10 minutes): reflect on what has changed since Activate.

In total, plan on about an hour and a half. You can spread it across the week, and you can repeat the quiz if you need to.

You will get the most from the course if you have a real course or module in mind. It does not need to be a Canvas course that is live, because a plan on paper is enough to start.

Next, in Activate, you will recall what makes a week difficult to follow.