Richard Ruane

Courseware Modules & Learning Objects

Online Course Development

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From 2003 through 2006, I was able to serve as a member of the content development team for a number of online courses at Kaplan University. These included courses in graduate and undergraduate student success, educational leadership, and general-education sociology. Below, I've linked the teaching and production design documents that our team provided to central production and the faculty responsible for teaching the courses. During this time, all courses were produced online in the Kaplan proprietary learning management system.

  • IT 101 Introduction to Information Technology (PDF), developed with faculty and administrators from Kaplan University's School of Information Technology centered around a series of adapted Web Quests (2003-2004).
  • KU 100 Introduction to Undergraduate Studies (opens in a new window), developed under the direction of Dr. David Harpool, then Chief Academic Officer for Kaplan University (2005).
  • ED 552 Educational Leadership (Word Doc), developed with members of the KU teacher education and graduate business faculties, as well as practicing teacher-leaders in K-12 settings. I also developed scoring guides for the discussions and the self-assessment (Word Docs, 2005).
  • SS 144 Introduction to Sociology (Word Doc), developed with members of the social sciences faculty and instructional designer Sarah Roggio (2005).
  • For KU 500 Introduction to Graduate Studies, in addition to writing the course, I collaborated with U. Illinois Chicago educational psychologist Tony Perone and instructional designer Tim Brannan to create downloadable learning objects to assist students in understanding Gardner's Theory of Multiple Intelligences (Excel Spreadsheet) and Sterberg's Theory of Successful Intelligence (2005).
  • I also developed this model unit (opens in a new window), teaching the Coleridge poem Kublah Khan, as part of a workshop I developed with Tim Brannan for curriculum leads from each KU program area (2005).

Kaplan eGuide Series

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Beginning in 2002, Kaplan, which has a strong connection with the educational publishing industry, began to produce its own texts and supplements for its online courses. I had the privelege of working as a development editor with the financial planning faculty for the print textbook Insurance and Employee Benefits. Beginning in 2003, I worked with other production editors, faculty teams, and instructional designers as a writer, development editor, and managing editor for the Kaplan eGuide series. The series was later expanded to other information technology courses, as well as courses in the social sciences, business, and legal studies. I served as managing editor and lead writer for the first series of eGuides, which accompanied IT 101 Introduction to Information Technology, as well as a software applications course for non-majors.

Learning Objects for Teaching Special Education

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In the fall of 2005, The Kaplan University graduate program in teacher education transitioned from the Kaplan Learning System to eCollege, while simultaneously launching its emphasis area in special education. I worked with the course designers and multimedia developer Ed Przyzycki to develop simple, reusable learning objects that would help us better exploit the possibilities of the new platform while managing the transition.

Excel 2007 Tutorials

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One ongoing need that U. Maryland School of Pharmacy faculty identified was better training for students in the use of Excel, from basic functionality to the use of analysis tools. Since coming to UMB in 2007, I have worked with a number of faculty members to identify gaps in Excel knowledge and create tutorials and assessments that cover those gaps.

Web-Based Collaboration Tutorials

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For Fall 2007, Dr. Stuart Haines approached me about helping him to develop a group writing assignment. We eventually settled on an adapted Web quest format that required student groups to use either Google Docs or Writeboard to collaboratively develop and publish a short paper on the concept of pharmacy care. As part of preparing students for the activity, I developed a set of tutorials on using each technology.