What entails an interactive online course?

You need to determine first and foremost if you are going to develop and implement a true virtual environment, or, adapt a hybrid approach. Either way, you need to ensure that the learning environment entails consistent communication, organization, targeted goals and clear expectations, realistic timeline, quality professional development, and availability of abundant resources.

Wiggins and McTighe explained the concept behind  "Backwards by Design". What is Backwards Design? As an online course developer, it is important that one has to understand and visualize what the end looks like before beginning the development of the course. Backwards Design allows and provides opportunities (even challenges as opportunities) to identify what issues or problems learners will eventually encounter in a course, what process and accessibility will be easy for them, what works and does not work in the course, how learners will be gauged in their learning levels,  to name a few.

Assessment is key in determining an online student's success. Think about Backward Design, rubrics, posted due dates, and email/posted reminders. Communication is important in relaying feedback and information to parents. Text-blast is a good tool in sending mass text to students and parents.

I am all about providing free resources that are made available in a free learning management system to teachers. I believe in this strongly. Simply because charging teachers with the tools and resources that should be provided to them, in the first place, is unfair and unjust. For this reason, I applaud Moodle LMS and the thousands of web 2.0 technologies that are made available by talented and skilled programmers and web application designers who share the same belief of sharing resources for free. In this day and age, when technology funding is on the line, why spend money to purchase a box system when, constantly, you hear district and school administrators bombarding you with words such as, "to think outside of the box"?

In developing a course, there should be student interactivity. Address various learning styles create a community, and produce projects that are meaningful and challenging. Some instructional strategies that you may consider to use include, but not limited to, Gange's 9 Events of Instruction, Madeline Hunter, Marzano, and Phil Schlecty.