Developing tools to support online learning – insights from education in the charity sector
By Daisy Ward, Virtual Learning Coordinator, Parkinson’s UK
Education in the charity sector was brand new to me when I took up my role at Parkinson’s UK last year. It’s an area that may also be unfamiliar to many readers of this blog.
Starting a new role often means hitting the ground running—especially during a period of change. That was certainly true when I became the newest member of the charity’s Education team.
Context
A blend of long-standing team members as well as newcomers like myself, the team had been energised by new leadership articulating a clear vision to revamp our education offer and grow our reputation within the sector. This made it the perfect moment—not just for me, but for the whole team—to pause, reflect, and take stock of what our curriculum comprises, identify the key professional roles within health and social care that we cater to, and extract insights that could inform our curriculum planning and future development.
With that in mind, I developed three practical tools designed to support both individual courses and the broader curriculum. These tools have already proven useful, and we expect they’ll continue to guide our work well into the future.
The Tools
#1: Curriculum chart
One of my early initiatives was to create a visual representation of our online courses, which came to be known as the ‘curriculum chart’ or ‘curriculum diagram’. Each block within the diagram represents a piece of learning: examples being training videos publicly available on the charity’s website, a 1-hour introductory webinar on Parkinson’s for health and social care staff, and a number of self-directed e-learning courses hosted on our Moodle platform.
You’ll notice that the blocks are colour-coded, with colours representing specific roles within our broader audience of health and social care professionals. Meanwhile each row on the chart corresponds to a level of learning, from Level 0 (‘taster’ level) through Level 3 (advanced).
Why this chart matters
Creating this chart has already delivered several key benefits:
- It brings together the complexity of our diverse education offer into a single, visually engaging page.
- It provides a shared reference point, enabling more focused and meaningful conversations within our team.
- It supports clearer communication with colleagues across the organisation about what we offer.
- It highlights gaps in our current curriculum, helping us make more informed decisions about future development.
One possible next step is to create an alternative version of this chart which, rather than capturing what we already have, depicts what we would like our curriculum to look like in the future.
#2: Topic index
While the curriculum chart is a useful visual overview of our education provision, it does not indicate what topics are covered within each piece of learning. For that purpose, I set about compiling an index of course topics.
The index is organised by alphabetised topics related to the overarching theme of Parkinson’s, and further broken down by levels of learning. As an example, the section on Medication types includes a short summary of how this topic is covered in courses at Introductory, Foundation, Intermediate and Advanced levels (where applicable).
At the time of writing, the index has grown to a substantial 60 pages—which may sound like a lot (and it is!). However, thanks to clear formatting and extensive use of hyperlinks, the document remains easy to navigate and user-friendly
We’ve already seen—and anticipate continuing to see—several key benefits from using this index:
- It allows us to track how topics are addressed across different learning levels, helping us build on existing content and maintain continuity.
- It supports consistency of provision across our diverse audiences.
- It identifies gaps in topic coverage.
#3: Student workload estimator
In the e-learning space, I have noticed an apparent lack of rigour when it comes to estimating course duration. I expected that there would be more tools available for working out an approximate duration of a piece of e-learning, or at least a stronger consensus around how to do that, besides relying on user testing.
Seeking a more reliable method on which to base our course duration estimates, and in the absence of any readily available tools that fit our purposes, I set out to create what has become known as the ‘student workload estimator’. Built using formulas and data validation in Google Sheets, this tool can be applied to any e-learning course that primarily includes text and videos—just like ours.
The tool relies on three key inputs to estimate course duration:
- Total course word count
- Total video playback time
- Course level – each one of three levels is linked to a value representing words per minute, based on available data about average reading speeds.
Student Workload Estimator: Front End
At the back end (on a sheet labelled Formula), there are optional modifiers to account for additional time spent: e.g. video replay (setting this number to 2 would allow for learners watching videos twice).
Using this tool offers several key benefits:
- A solid basis for informing learners of anticipated engagement (important for our audience of time-poor healthcare professionals).
- Common language for curriculum planning: It establishes a consistent vocabulary for discussing curriculum and planning within our team.
- Improved course design.
Conclusion
In summary, the three tools outlined in this article have brought significant benefits in two key areas:
- Improved communication: They’ve enhanced how we discuss our curriculum—within the team, across the wider organisation, and with our target audience.
- Streamlined curriculum management: They’ve supported more effective planning, development, and management of our curriculum.
Organisations in comparable situations to ourselves may find value in drawing inspiration from these tools.
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