Abstract:

The macro-design of an e-learning or blended course implies a series of phases in order to create the general architecture of the course, considering didactic strategy, media resources, activities and evaluation. The macro-design output is the fundamental milestone for all micro design and development activities that will follow.

Macro-design becomes very delicate with complex e-learning projects or when there are no adequate resources (temporal, economic or human resources).
In fact, in these cases, instructional designers may make decisions according to their common sense or their experience. Sometimes they can make mistakes, with reference to the lack of information or non-coherence among the various methodological options. These mistakes may compromise the success of the project and improve the risk of non effectiveness of the whole learning path, especially when instructional designers are asked to make many decisions on methods and didactic solutions.

In the present paper we propose an experimental software architecture in order to support instructional designers in the various phases of macro-design.

This software module – E-learning MacroDesign™ - represents a didactic DSS (Decision Support System) for the creation of training paths related to the objectives, didactically effective and coherent in terms of complexity.
Using this tool, each decision on didactic activities of a course is no more conditioned only by the designer’s experience or professional background neither by a certain common sense, but it depends on a rigorous standard model.

In fact, E-learning MacroDesign™ permits to make decisions among all traditional and e-learning methodologies, through a general evaluation of the didactic opportunities in terms of adequacy to the target, to the course, to the context and to economic and organizational conditions of the project.

The software can be integrated in a common Learning Management System and includes the following modules:

1. a chart of all methods
2. a chart of all didactic activities
3. a chart of all didactic tools and media resources
4. a multi level taxonomy chart
5. a matrix for the integration of strategies, didactic activities, multimedia resources and tools with taxonomy levels.

The output of this Decision Support System is a report with the guidelines of the macro-design. It suggests a sequence of didactic activities, methods and tools coherent with the complexity of the objectives of the course.
The report includes, therefore, some useful suggestions in order to create the training architecture and the flow chart of a effective learning path.