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Simples

Just a quick note to talk about VLE-design methodologies.

We were provided a link to a development framework for e-learning design called SIMPLE (Systematic Instructional Methodology for Personal Learning Environments - a forced acronym if I've ever seen one). It provides a structure to the planning, development and testing of e-learning environments that is intended to make it easier for educators to deal with technical implementation and techies to develop the educational side. It has four stages, each of which is further split into non-linear concepts:

  1. Requirements analysis
    • Course curricula
    • Course design
    • Course assessment
    • Requirements specification
  2. Design
    • Environment selection
    • Tool selection
    • Human-Computer Interaction
    • Design/source instructional materials
  3. Development & Implementation
    • Build
    • Test & fix
    • Deploy
    • Operation
  4. Evaluation
    • User satisfaction
    • Facilitator evaluation
    • Review
    • Revise
If you've ever done any software development, or any User Experience design, or really worked on anything involving product life-cycles, you should be seeing a lot of familiar elements here. The basic concepts being shown are effectively the agile development cycle with some amendments. It is based on the idea of understanding your users' needs and iterating designs to continuously refine the product, testing frequently. 

I've used agile, or very similar design cycles frequently over the years, so SIMPLE is - to me - a pretty standard approach. For this assignment not all of it is relevant - I have little choice over the platform and I won't have the option of quality user-testing, to give two examples - but I have been following its principles where I can, simply (oh boy I crack myself up) as I consider it common-sense.
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