'e-learning'
Alexander, B. (2006). Web 2.0: A New Wave of Innovation for Teaching and Learning? EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 41, no. 2 (March/April 2006): 32–44. Available athttp://www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm06/erm0621.asp?bhcp=1
Major points:
The web has been highly social since it began (listservs, Usenet groups, discussion software, groupware etc)
Web 2.0 breaks “away from the notion of the Web as book, they are predicated on microcontent. Blogs are about posts, not pages. Wikis are streams of conversation, revision, amendment and truncation.”
“Like social software, microcontent has been around for a while. Banner ads, for example, are often imported by one site from another directory. Collaboratively designed web pages sometimes aggregate content created by different teams over a staggered timeline”
“Openness remains a hallmark of this emergent movement, both ideologically and technologically”
“Openness and microcontent combine into a larger conceptual strand of Web 2.0, one that sees users as playing more of a foundational role in information architecture” (tagging)
“How can social bookmarking play a role in higher education?… First, they act as an “outboard memory”, a location to store links that might be lost to time, scattered across different browser bookmark settings or distributed in e-mails, printouts and Web links.
Second, finding people with related interests can magnify one’s work by learning from others or by leading to new collaborations. Third, the practice of user-created tagging can offer new perspectives on one’s research, as clusters of tags reveal patterns (or absences) not immediately visible by examining one of several URLs.
Fourth, the ability to create multi-authored bookmark pages can be useful for team projects, as each member can upload resources discovered, no matter their location or timing. Tagging can then surface individual perspectives within the collective. Fifth, following a bookmark site gives insights into the owner’s (or owners’) research, which could play well in a classroom setting as an instructor tracks students’ progress. Students, in turn, can learn from their professor’s discoveries. ”
Wikis, blogging and RSS are good. (He says more but you surely know this stuff by now 
The reverse chronological nature of Web 2.0 is particularly good for queries on current events.
Potential issues – copyright, network security when hosted on local networks, stability/longevity of service providers, preservation of useful pieces of microcontent, corporate buy-ups
Some interesting ideas in this one, much more based in what is happening rather than the hype of what might come.
October 17th, 2007
Bennett, S. and Reilly, P. (1998). Using interactive multimedia to improve operator training at Queensland Alumina Limited. Australian Journal of Educational Technology, 14(2), 75-87. http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet14/bennett.html.
Lockyer, L. & Bennett, S. (2003) Digital video cases: Investigating the effectiveness of technology-supported continuing professional education for general practitioners. In N. Smythe (Ed.), Proceedings of the Apple University Consortium Conference (pp. 13.1-13.7). (Proceedings published on CD-ROM.)
These are two papers published about the process of developing some multimedia learning resources. They are written by some of my uni lecturers, which makes this a little weird but I’ll press on anyway.
The first revolves around a package called Dual Diagnosis, which is designed to assist GPs with evaluating patients with both mental illness and substance dependencies. It includes video clip case study examples of patients attending a number of sessions with a doctor. It also has pre and post tests and a range of printed information and weblinks. There is also the ability to take notes within the tool.
Overall this is a pretty well put together package (well, at least given my knowledge of medicine) – however one thing I would have found useful was more in depth feedback in the pre and post tests. It gives you a breakdown of the questions that you got right and wrong but doesn’t reiterate what they were and what the correct answers should have been. This might have broken the elegance of the single page presentation but would have been more helpful.
“Case-based methods are considered to support learners in making links between theory and practice – specifically such methods support active, independent learning with authentic situations and interactions. (Bromley, 1986). Learners are required to analyse these ‘real-world’ problems, reflect on their understandings, interact with other learners and thus explore multiple perspectives and reflect upon or suggest a course of action. (Bennett, Harper and Hedberg, 2002). Specifically these strategies are seen to support deep understanding, critical analysis, decision-making and communication skill development”
This package was tested on two groups of GPs – one that had attended a face-to-face orientation session and another that hadn’t. This paper was written before the evaluation was complete but some of the responses to and concerns about the package were interesting – “Participants expressed concern about using it in an office setting – particularly with a patient in the office. They also identified that they already felt pressed for time and were unsure that they would find opportunity to work through the package. Some identified lack of access to a computer or were concerned that they might lack the necessary technology literacy to use the package”
This suggests to me that some people will instinctly react against the use of multimedia technology and that the design of the interface should be as simple as possible (which I think it is in this case) and probably should reflect something that the learner is already familiar and comfortable with.
The second package is a fairly specific training package for alumina producers at an aluminium refinery in Queensland. It is very much about training workers in particular processes to ensure maximum efficiency and safety.
Bennett begins by illustrating the proven usefulness of multimedia in education.
“Interactive multimedia can offer a range of benefits over traditional training approaches by providing improved flexibility, cost and time effectiveness, consistency and availability… Forman (1995) identifies benefits and values in four major areas – organisational benefits, instructional benefits, learning effectiveness and business efficiency.l Multimedia can also provide improved and more consistent testing and administration… Keppell and Richards (1996) also suggest that self paced multimedia materials offer a private environment which enables trainees to review the material as many times as they wish”
The multimedia package was designed as a supplementary resource to the face to face instruction.
“A new training structure was designed which incorporated a multimedia tutorial which could be used before, during and after practical training sessions with an experienced operator”
There was a comprehensive development cycle used:
- Needs assessment
- Costing and scheduling
- Content collection
- Planning grid development
- Editorial
- Client review
- Revision and sign-off
- Image collection
- Digitising
- Authoring
- Audio
- Beta testing
- Client review
- Revision and sign-off
- Delivery
- Trial and evaluation
“These multimedia packages were developed to train operators of heavy mining equipment and were designed to address limited literacy and computer skills through the following strategies:
- the use of simple direct language
- limiting screen information to a single concept
- logical explanations for procedures
- use of graphics to support and explain text
- use of large buttons
- avoidance of icons
- limited navigation options (next, back, help, quit, menu and settings”
“Further development of this model has seen the inclusion of optional, full narration which matches the on-screen text and text/audio help which provides an explanation of the features on each screen. Kenworthy (1993) recommends that information be both visualised and verbalised for poor readers and that supporting audio match on-screen text exactly to allow the identification of unfamiliar words.”
Those are some particularly handy hints – the use of audio in a lot of educational multimedia resources is very underdone and I think it should be used in most places that you have text. I was surprised by the avoidance of icons – maybe this means icons by themselves without accompanying text – I might have to follow that up.
All in all a couple of interesting projects with some good detailed information about the multimedia design and development process.
October 1st, 2007
Gagne, R., Briggs, L., & Wagner, W. (1992). Principles of Instructional Design. Fort Worth: Harcourt Brace Javanovich. pp 185-204.
This is pretty well the first non-constructivism oriented reading I’ve had in this course so it’s been interesting to see the other side – as far as I can tell, the differences between the behaviourist/cognitivist and constructivist approaches aren’t nearly as vast as is made out and most of them are cosmetic in nature, aside from the emphasis on discovery learning, socially created meaning and a stronger focus on activity.
The behaviourist approach also benefits from having a much more detailed strategy for designing individual classes and activities, with the “9 instructional events” offering a fair amount of structure.
I read this chapter with a particular project in mind, for Instructional Strategies and Authoring we have been given the task of creating a prescriptive learning environment (to complement the democratic one from before) which is meant to draw heavily from the 9 events.
I felt that this could be an appropriate area to focus the “training level” of the Exploring the EDC game on – a pre-game level that teaches users (particularly non-gamers) how to move in and view a 3D environment as well as interact with objects and solve basic puzzles. The instructions that I included at the start of the previous game that I made (a single text based image) weren’t adequate for most of the first-time users who tried it out.
The prescriptive approach/environment seems very much about setting up clear outcomes and providing step by step instructions (with feedback) that allow learners to develop the scaffolding knowledge needed to move to the scenario based activities in the Exploring the EDC game. (Actually, this might need a new name – I think it’s now the CEE)
Here are the pertinent points from the chapter as well as the ideas this triggered and any other general ramblings that come to mind.
“Planning a course of instruction makes use of the principles… :determining what the outcomes of instruction are to be, defining performance objectives and deciding upon a sequence for the topics and lessons that make up the course.”
“During a lesson there is progress from one moment to the next as a set of events acts upon and involves the student. This set of events is what is specifically meant by instruction”
“Whatever the medium, the essential nature of instruction is most clearly characterised as a set of communications”
“The events of instruction are designed to make it possible for learners to proceed from “where they are” to the achievement of the capability identified as the target objective”
“Mostly however, the events of instruction must be deliberately arranged by an instructional designer or teacher”
This seems to be one of the biggest points of difference between the two approaches – one focusses on the activities of the teacher and the other on the learner – but they are both to the same end, learning.
“There is perhaps no better way to avoid the error of talking too much than to keep firmly in mind that communications during a lesson are to facilitate learning and that anything beyond this is mere chatter”
“The purpose of instruction, however it may be done, is to provide support to the processes of learning. It may, therefore, be expected that the kinds of events that constitute instruction should have a fairly precise relation to what is going on within the learner whenever learning is taking place”
“Each of the particular events that make up instruction functions to aid or otherwise support the acquisition and the retention of whatever is being learned. These functions of external events may be derived by consideration of the internal processing that makes up any single act of learning”
This seems to be making the same point in two (slightly wordy) ways, which, funnily enough is one of the key strategies in the instructional events.
Gagne’s approach is heavily tied to cognitive theories about the physical activies undertaken in the brain in the process of learning. This can be broken down (relatively simplistically perhaps) to:
- Stimulation (i.e information/input) is “briefly registered by sensory registers” (e.g you see/hear it)
- “This information is then changed into a form that is recorded in the short-term memory, where prominent features of the initial stimulation are stored”
- These items may be retained by being internally rehearsed
- Meaning is added to the information (semantic encoding) and it is transferred to long-term memory
- “When learner performance is called for, the stored information or skill must be searched for and retrieved”
- “It may then be transformed into action, by way of a response generator”
- “Retrieved information is recalled to working/short-term memory, where it may be combined with other incoming information to form new learned capabilities”
- “Learner performance itself sets in motion a process that depends upon external feedback, involving the familiar process of reinforcement”
From here, we pretty well move into the actual instructional events – just quickly, they are:
- Gaining attention
- Informing the learner of the objective
- Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning
- Presenting the stimulus material
- Providing learning guidance
- Eliciting the performance
- Providing feedback about performance correctness
- Assessing the performance
- Enhancing retention and transfer
I can see here how the constructivists take issue with the vibe of this approach, the language has an overly scientific feeling, as though learners are lab animals, but the principles in themselves seem sound when they are fleshed out.
1. Gaining Attention
“The initial event of gaining attention is one that supports the learning event of reception of the stimuli and the patterns of neural impulses they produce”
“Basic ways of commanding attention involve the use of stimulus change, as is often done in moving display signs or in the rapid cutting of scenes on a television screen. Beyond this, a fundamental and frequently used method of gaining attention is to appeal to the learner’s interests. A teacher may appeal to some particular student’s interests by means of a verbal question such as ‘Wouldn’t you like to know what makes a leaf fall from a tree?’ ”
This made me think about having some kind of video – maybe in fast-forward – of a screen capture of navigating through either the EDC game or maybe through the obstacle course/puzzle section of the training game.
2. Informing the learner of the objective
“This… is presumed to set in motion of process of executive control by means of which the learner selects particular strategies appropriate to the learning task and its expected outcome”
“In some manner or other, the learner should know the kind of performance that will be used as an indicator that learning has, in fact, been accomplished”
“What kind of purposeful activity might the learner be engaged in once the multiple objectives of the lesson have been achieved?”
Maybe (as mentioned) there is a final puzzle or series of actions to be achieved before the learner is able to access the EDC game – this of course raises the question of how to make the training level optional. There may be players who don’t need it or who have already completed it. This could be done by offering two initial doors for the player to choose from – however if they are already able to enter a door, they probably don’t need the training.
3. Stimulating recall of prerequisite learning
“Much of new learning (some might say all) is, after all, the combining of ideas”
“Component ideas (concepts, rules) must be previously learned if the new learning is to be successful.
“The recall of previously learned capabilities may be stimulated by asking a recognition or, better, a recall question”
We could start with a look at navigation in 2D games – maybe even play some examples – Pong for up/down control, Breakout for left/right and move on to something like Pacman for 4 directional. Getting players used to the W,A,S,D controls is an early step – maybe after camera control with the mouse, maybe even before. The idea of holding keys down to move is important.
Using the mouse to look around – need to get the concept across (not sure how) that it’s just like moving the cursor, only it’s not the cursor that moves, it’s the environment
Different kinds of learning outcomes for this event – by the nature of the capability to be learned
Intellectual skill – Essential for learner to retrieve to working memory prerequisite skills and concepts
Cognitive strategy – Recall task strategies and relevant intellectual skills
Verbal information - recall familiar well organised bodies of knowledge related to the new learning
Attitude – recall the situation adn the actions involved in personal choice.
Motor skill – recall the executive subroutine and relevant part skills
4. Presenting the stimulus model
“The stimuli to be displayed (or communicated) to the learner are those involved in the performance that reflects the learning.”
“Stimulus presentation often emphasises features that determine selective perception. Thus, information presented in text may contain italics, bold print, underlining or other kinds of physical arrangements designed to facilitate perception of essential features. When pictures or diagrams are employed, important features of the concepts they display may be heavily outlined, circled or pointed to with arrows.”
“Stimulus presentation for the learning of concepts and rules requires the use of a variety of examples”
The variety of examples approach rings particularly true here, it’s useful because it supports transfer of an idea to other contexts.
“Retention and transfer are also likely to be enhanced by presenting problems stated in words, in diagrams and in combinations of the two over a period of time” What about video?
More concepts to cover in the game – jump and jump forward. (Not entirely sure why this was triggered by this “event” but it’s where I wrote it down. Text based or video instruction? (Players walk up to tv units to trigger videos – like in GTA schools)
Different kinds of learning outcomes for this event – by the nature of the capability to be learned
Intellectual skill – Display the statement of the rule or concept, with example giving emphasis to component concepts Cognitive strategy – Describe the task and the strategy, and show what the strategy accomplishes
Verbal information – Display printed or verbal statements, emphasising distinctive features
Attitude – Human model describes the general nature of the choice of personal action to be presented
Motor skill – Display the situation existing at the beginning of the skill performance. Demonstrate executive subroutine
5. Providing learning guidance
This gets into the cognitivist side of things a little more, very much about structuring the information
“…These communications and others like them may be said to have the function of learning guidance. Notice that they do not “tell the learner the answer”; rather, they suggest the line of thought which will presumably lead to the desired “combining” of subordinate concepts and rules to form the new to-be learned rule”
“The amount of learning guidance, that is, the number of questions and the degree to which they provide “direct or indirect prompts” will obviously vary with the kind of capability being learned… If what is to be learned is an arbitrary matter such as the name for an object new to the learner (say a pomegranate), there is obviously no sense in wasting time with indirect hinting or questioning in that hope that somehow the name will be “discovered”. In this case, just telling the student the answer is the correct for of guidance for learning. At the other end of the spectrum, however, are cases where less direct prompting is appropriate because this is a logical way to discover the answer and such discovery may lead to learning that is more permanent than that which results from being told the answer”
“Too much guidance may seem condescending to the quick learner, whereas too little can simply lead to frustration on the part of the slow learner”
Different kinds of learning outcomes for this event – by the nature of the capability to be learned
Intellectual skill – Present varied examples in varied contexts; also give elaborations to furnish clues for retrieval Cognitive strategy – Describe the strategy and give one or more application examples
Verbal information – Elaborate content by relating to larger bodies of knowledge, use mnemonics, images
Motor skill – Continue practice with informative feedback
WASD mnemonic?
6. Eliciting the performance
“We must now ask them to show that they know how to do it. We want them not only to convince us, but to convince themselves as well. Accordingly, the next event is a communication that in effect says “show me” or “do it”. Usually, this first performance following learning will use the same example (that is, the same stimulus material) with which the learners have been interacting all along. ”
7. Providing feedback
“…as a minimum, there should be feedback concerning the correctness or degree of correctness of the learner’s performance”
Forms of feedback in the game – aural, a square (or other object) changes colour, a door opens
8. Assessing performance
“The immediate indication that the desired learning has occurred is provided when the appropriate performance is elicited. This is, in effect, as assessment of learning outcome”
“When one sees the learner exhibit a single performance appropriate to the lesson objective, how does the observer or teacher tell that he or she has made a reliable observation?”
In the puzzle/obstacle course section, needing to repeat several, increasingly complex steps (preferably involving a lava pit
“How is the teacher to be convinced that the performance exhibited by the learner is valid? This is a matter that requires two different decisions. The first is, does the performance in fact accurately reflect the objective?… The second judgement, which is no easier to make, is whether the performance has occurred under conditions that make the observation free of distortion? As an example, the conditions must be such that the student could not have “memorized the answer” or remembered it from a previous occasion. The teacher much be convinced, in other words, that the observation of performance reveals the learned capability in a genuine manner”
9. Enhancing retention and retrieval
“When information or knowledge is to be recalled, the existence of the meaningful context in which the material has been learned appears to offer the best assurance that the information can be reinstated”
Maybe the training level should use similar decor to the game level?
“As for the assurance of transfer of learning, it appears that this can best be done by setting some variety of new tasks for the learner – tasks that require the application of what has been learned in situations that differ substantially from those used for the learning itself”
Or maybe it should use different decor. Have to think about that one. The tasks in the actual Exploring the EDC game will certainly offer the variety.
“Variety and novelty in problem-solving tasks are of particular relevance to the continued development of cognitive strategies. As has previously been mentioned, the strategies used in problem solving need to be developed by the systematic introduction of occasions for problem solving, interspersed with other instructions.”
Interesting to see that constructivism doesn’t have the lock on higher level skill development, particularly in problem solving, that I’ve regularly read about.
Gagne (et al) wraps up by saying:
“In using the events of instruction for lesson planning, it is apparent that they must be organised in a flexible manner, which primary attention to the lesson’s objectives”
So it’s a relatively flexible system after all
One final thought about the game itself, maybe as some kind of reward there could be an art gallery that they could explore
September 30th, 2007
Schwier, R.A. and Misanchuk, E.R. (1993). Interactive Multimedia Instruction. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Educational Technology Publications. Chapter 9, pp.155-192.
This is a fairly wordy section on a quite specific aspect of the process of designing interactive multimedia so I’m just going to scan for salient quotes. (I’m a little tired
“Given the capability of multimedia systems to house massive quantities of information and to construct complex delivery systems, it seems reasonable to encourage the development of instructional systems which contain mre than a single cognitive orientation. In this way, the designer can impose consistency between the cognitive orientation and different learning tasks, and also capitalise on the possibility of designing instruction which is compatible with learning styles and preferences”
I won’t quote it but there’s a pretty good summation of the differences between the behaviourist, cognitivist and constructivist philosophies and approaches in this chapter.
They then move on to look at options for specifying content.
“Many projects will result in a glut of information you need to organise. In fact, one can argue that instructional design is largely the process of organising rather than creating, opportunities for learning”
The Content Outline is a suggested approach, consisting of a set of objectives for the course, the content necessary to achieve them and the treatment that the the content might be given. (How it is presented)
From here, Design specifications are quite useful – simple things to ensure consistency across the multimedia product- These might be broken into technical standards, instructional formats and aesthetic considerations.
Technical standards could look at issues like:
- Writing style
- Screen format (eg a single idea to a screen of text)
- Grammar (eg no contractions to be used)
- Numbering
- Layout restrictions
- Abbreviations
Instructional formats could consider:
- Strategy (e.g scenarios with background reading)
- Menu Organisation (advanced organisers)
- Length of segments (time allocated to activities)
- Reading level
- Test-like events
- feedback
Aesthetic considerations:
- Screen text (font + size)
- Color
- Computer vs video
- music
- illustrations
- visual cues
From here, Misanchuk & Schwier see the next step as setting up the framework for the content.
This takes five forms.
Core instruction: introductory segments (what’s to come, objectives) + core instruction (the primary content) + summary segments (reinforcing key points)
Complementary instruction: help segments (rephrasing or embellishing core instruction) + remedial segments (filling in scaffolding knowledge that should already be there) + additional information (enriching but not essential extra info). (Complementary instruction shouldn’t appear by default but should be easily accessible if it is needed)
Management elements: quizzes, games, scenarios which offer feedback (or assessment)
Navigation elements: easy access to all sections of content, global escape route, “you are here” type maps
Interactive elements: immediacy of response, non-sequential access of information, adaptability, feedback, options, bi-directionality and interruptability (pause and escape options and context sensitive help)
“For interaction to be dynamic, it is necessary to build content for the varied directions the instruction may follow.This means developing a great deal of content which any particular learner may never see.”
From here, Schwier and Misanchuk move on to the matter of allowing learners to practice their new knowledge in the multimedia environment. They outline some generalised principles for this:
- practice during instruction should be varied, not constant
- as familiarity with the learning task increases, so should the difficulty of practice increase
- learners should be weaned from prompts as their facility with knowledge or skills increases
- use practice often during the early stages of learning and gradually lengthen the space between practice sessions on a particular topic as instruction progresses
- for some types of learning, practice should progress from accuracy to speed to automaticity
- review segments can be used successfully in place of questions
- feedback should identify the successful and the unsuccessful features of the interaction and describe why incorrect responses or omissions are insufficient
- learners can benefit from memory or organisational strategies to make information more meaningful
- practice events should require learners to use information and discover and derive new relationships in information
- practice should be designed to motivate learners
Learner control:
There are a range of areas that learners might control in a multimedia product:
- which content they access
- the method it is presented in
- whether they access supplementary material
- the order they access the content
- how much practice they undertake
- level of difficulty of exercises undertaken
They finish up the chapter by looking at some different studies on what happens when learners use multimedia products in groups – some show that retention is the same for singles as pairs but drops off with 3 or more in the group while other studies don’t. (But the 2 vs 3+ thing seems to make a certain amount of sense – hard to cram three people around a screen for one thing)
September 8th, 2007
Harper, B. (1992) Navigation Options in Interactive Multimedia. In J. G. Hedberg and J. Steele, Educational Technology for the Clever Country, Selected papers from EdTech’92,Conference of the Australian Society for Educational Technology. University of Adelaide-Australia, 1-3 October (pp 10-16). Belconnen, A.C.T. : AJET Publication for the Society.
This article, like many others, starts out with the usual rah-rah interactive multimedia is great, shift to learner-control, enriching the learning experience yada yada spiel. It’s all fairly true but it seems to be at the start of every article I’ve read for a while now.
Once it gets past this preliminary stuff though, it is actually fairly useful and contains a number of interesting approaches to designing navigation in multimedia. It’s a little unfortunate that the article is 15 years old though as you get the sense that there’s probably been a lot more work done since. It therefore requires a little extrapolation to move the concepts to the 3D game based environment that I’m thinking about (I think Wolfenstein 3D had only just been released at the time this was written)
My project is to develop a 3D game space that the learner walks through in first person perspective. It provides new teachers at CIT an orientation to the services and resources available within the Education Development Centre at CIT, which includes Curriculum, Teacher Education, the Library and Flexible Learning Solutions (the online learning unit).
It’s possible to run this as a multiplayer game which allows for real-time text chat interaction between a number of players.
I’ll run through some of the interesting ideas about multimedia navigation in the paper and how I might use them in my game.
(To begin, here is why good navigation design is important)
“… used effectively, the technology can allow users to interact in ways that the designers of the system did not plan… good instructional design of interactive multimedia materials makes it unnecessary to materials to be structured for the learner. Effective student use of unstructured materials however, will depend on the type of access to the information the users can obtain i.e. the navigation options available to the user. ”
“When a learner can branch down multiple paths and rapidly change the direction and focus of the learning sequence, there is possible interference with effective learning through the inappropriate application of information by the learner to their internal schemas”
Navigation options:
“the guide metaphor where a character is created and used by the author to link ideas and visual travel through the hypermedia materials” – this is certainly one approach to the game and could be done in several different ways.
A non-player-character is automated and sets the learner tasks to complete in the environment (although this isn’t a guide so much I guess) – there could be NPCs in hallways that can answer basic queries about where certain areas are. The other option is to have a live guide in the multiplayer version who runs a bit of an orientation – though this isn’t necessarily very practical or realistic.
“other suggested structures include those which are based on ideas such as sequential navigation (using cues to show how far you are along a path; the clues varying from a simple screen number of the total or some conceptual description of the sequence), visual navigation (using a plan of the possible paths) and hybrid navigation (mixtures of both) (Hedberg & Harper, 1991)”
This has given me some thoughts about ways to set up the activities – in recreational gaming I’m fairly partial to sandpit style games such as the Grand Theft Auto series, where you can take on missions or just explore the environment. (But you need to complete certain missions to unlock new missions or new parts of the environment). I could have the entire area explorable, with different kinds of resources accessible (including being able to chat to all the staff) as well as having a room where you can get your missions from. You could collect keys (or something) which allow you to unlock rooms which provide additional missions. You could measure your progress by looking at the rooms you’ve opened.
Techniques to provide navigation cues for users:
“using colour to identify the area or major learning path”
This actually works pretty well as we recently had the rooms in our area repainted and each dept went with a different colour scheme. I’m thinking that it would be useful to have a few “You are here” maps around the place and/or some signs which could be colour coded without too much difficulty.
“simple use of contextual clues, regular use of a standard format of basic word style format to indicate links with other sources of information”
Other than the fact that this seems like a fairly tortured sentence, what I got from it was that in the rooms, on the walls near the desks of the different people we could have text and icons that reflect their areas of expertise. These could also be replicated on the maps. (E.g an artists palette for our graphic designer)
“written directions which appear in separate areas or windows to the information required to learn the underlying concepts”
I agree with this idea although I’m not sure entirely how to put it into action in the software that I’m thinking of. (FPS Creator). If the player/learner had a key that they could toggle a PDA on and off, you could have this information there. It could be possible to have some computer screens that the player/learner could access this information from but they would need to go to the screen any time they wanted to check a detail. If it was a multiplayer game I guess the instructions could just sit in the chat window.
“enabling learning path maps to be modified highlighting the paths which have been travelled”
This comes back to my earlier point about knowing what you’ve done by what rooms you’ve unlocked. I’m a little unsure about this however as it goes against my desire to have an environment that people can wander around completely freely.
“creating new links by the learner using a series of tools which enable the package to be modified, either by adding new information or by adding new hypertext linkages based on the students’ own conceptual maps”
It would be great if there was some way to embed web access (and presumably a wiki) into a part of the game. As far as I’m aware, this isn’t an option but I’ll keep looking. A setup like the 3D browser called 3B would be good – it could live on the smartboard in the training/conference room part of the game.
Defining Navigation types:
This is another of those instances where the datedness of this article shows – the concepts are still sound, just behind the times.
“Materials can be designed to focus on the appropriate development of schema and hence improve learning efficiency. In effect, any navigational system must employ elements with as much intrinsic meaning as possible… this link can be enhanced through understandable and well chosen metaphors”
He goes on to list a few different options:
- Modal (icon based)
- Relational (stack maps)
- Hierarchical (more like an organisational chart or a website map)
- Sequential (basic back, forward and index buttons)
- Geographical/Spatial (much closer to Florin’s info landscape model – and my 3d game)
- Conceptual (metaphor + info landscape)
The Geographical/Spatial seems to reflect my approach with the game so I guess I’ll note the quote:
“selecting parts of a whole by an inherent physical/geographic relationship. This approach might be exemplified region by using a map as a link between objects” – or a navigable 3D environment.
I had a few other thoughts as I was reading this paper:
What about a bookshelf in every person’s area? (Or similar metaphor for stored info – maybe a pda?)
It would be good to be able to access the online pd courses from inside the game – again, in game web access is the key.
September 7th, 2007
Using authentic activities that reflect the situations and cultures in which learners will use new knowledge and skills makes course content more enjoyable, more relevant to them and easier to recall. In scenario based learning, learners are placed into a fictional setting where they take on roles that relate to the material being covered.
According to Brown and Voltz, “an interesting scenario will make extensive use of humour, imagination, reward, anticipation, or drama to enhance the activity. It will have topics and themes likely to be relevant and interesting to the target audience. It will make the learning activity seem like an obvious or necessary thing to undertake, given the situation presented by the scenario. “ (2005)
Brown, Collins and Duguid (1989) strongly emphasise the idea that concepts exist in a particular context which helps to shape the concept into useful knowledge. Presenting this information in a form related to its use in the real world, ideally in a form which requires the learner to act as though they are also in that context (i.e. As a historian or an educational designer), adds important layers of additional cultural meaning to the information being shared.
This is a useful strategy for me as an instructional designer as I recently worked on a project with a teacher which focused on a competency called Practice within legal and ethical parameters. This teaches nurses about legal and ethical issues within nursing practice, the law and their responsibilities. In the past, it had been taught essentially as a list of laws and policies that nurses needed to be aware of.
We created a detailed case study simulation in which nurses make decisions based on developments in a particular patient’s case, consultation with colleagues and other available information.
As the nurse progresses through the story, ethical and legal complications arise with the patient which highlight key areas of content.
This added hospital and nursing culture issues to the learning and allowed nurses to connect more personally with the course content, which to that point was considered fairly dry and boring. My approach was to use online multimedia resources to better visually represent the scenario context – something that Agostinho, Meek and Herrington (2005) didn’t emphasise, believing that “cognitive realism to the real-life task was of more significance”. (p. 231)
I have an interest in the use of games in learning, which is why this area interests me specifically and I’m currently in the process of creating an immersive 3D environment which is based around our umbrella dept at work, the Education Development Centre. A scenario based approach to this “game” seems like an effective way of structuring user interaction with it.
One factor to consider from the Agostinho et al (2005) research is that “use of scenario should be more flexible, to allow students with appropriate real-life contexts to substitute their own evaluation needs while still fulfilling the requirements of the course. (p. 241)
Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, Jan/Feb, 32-42.
Agostinho, S., Meek, J., & Herrington, J. (2005). Design methodology for the implementation and evaluation of a scenario-based online learning environment, Journal of Interactive Learning Research. 16(3), 229-242.
Brown A.R., & Voltz B.D. (2005) Elements of Effective e-Learning Design, International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning. http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/217/300
August 19th, 2007
The discussion board is a highly useful tool in network based learning, offering learners (and teachers) a space to collaborate and share information and opinions about course content and class work. As an asynchronous form of computer mediated communication, it provides flexibility, accessibility and a level playing field for learners who might not normally feel comfortable speaking up in a face-to-face class.
It’s important to recognise however, that an effective discussion board – one with regular, meaningful posts from a majority of the class – doesn’t run itself and it is the responsibility of a moderator (generally the teacher) to “initiate and sustain the interaction in a networked learning community”(Levin, 1999).
This is done initially through orientation and socialisation (Salmon, 2004) and by providing clear objectives and guidelines (Graham, Cagiltay, Lim, Craner & Duffy, 2001) for the use of the board.
Graham et al (2001) offer a number of practical suggestions for this:
- “Discussions should be focused on a task”
- “Learners should receive feedback on their discussions”
- “Instructors should post expectations for discussions”
- “Instructors can still give prompt feedback on discussion assignments by responding to the class as a whole instead of to each student”
This might involve contacting the learners individually at the start of the course to ensure they are able to access the discussion board, running a face-to-face orientation session to the technology, encouraging them to make a brief post about themselves (and comment on others) and offering clear information about the role discussion plays in subject assessment.
It could also involve driving discussion by posting relevant topics or “sparks” (Salmon, 2004) and responding to queries in a timely manner.
In my role as an educational multimedia designer, I regularly work with teachers at CIT (Canberra Institute of Technology) who don’t understand why their students aren’t making use of the discussion boards in their WebCT courses. Frequently it’s because the learners have been told that the board is there and have then been left to their own devices with it. Other times teachers regularly post discussion questions but don’t always follow up with feedback.
I must admit that the first time I had my multimedia students use individual blogs for their work/process journal with the aim of stimulating critical reflection, half of them thought they had to set up a new blog account each week and I’d offered no real guidelines on post length, specific content or frequency – so I am aware that it’s an area that requires a certain amount of thought as a designer.
Gilly Salmon’s 2004 book “e moderating – the guide to teaching and learning online” is a great resource for teachers looking for practical guidelines. She offers a 5 stage scaffolded model which moves from Access and Motivation to Online Socialisation to Information Exchange to Knowledge Construction and finally to Development, where learners largely drive discussion on their own.
Levin, J. (1999). Understanding the Lifecycles of Network-based Learning Communities. Paper presented at Symposium 6.29 “Indicators of Change in Computer-Based Community Building” Annual Meeting of the American Educational Research Association,Montreal, April 1999 . Retrieved 10 July 2006 from http://faculty.ed.uiuc.edu/j-levin/Levin-Cervantes.final.html
Salmon, G (2004) emoderating – the key to teaching and learning online (2nd ed.) London, UK. Taylor and Francis books ltd.
Graham, C., Cagiltay, K., Lim, B-R., Craner, J., & Duffy, T. M. (2001). Seven principles of effective teaching: A practical lens for evaluating online courses. The Technology Source Archives at the University of North Carolina
August 19th, 2007
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August 19th, 2007
Graham, C., Cagiltay, K., Lim, B-R., Craner, J., & Duffy, T. M. (2001). Seven principles of effective teaching: A practical lens for evaluating online courses. The Technology Source Archives at the University of North Carolina: http://technologysource.org/article/seven_principles_of_effective_teaching/
This is one of the best guides to practical, across the board strategies for better online teaching I’ve ever seen.
It’s simple, doesn’t get bogged down in which philosophical approach beats which and offers clear guidelines for online best practice.
It’s based on a larger report available from http://crlt.indiana.edu/publications/crlt00-13.pdf
These are the key principles:
1. Instructors should provide clear guidelines for interaction with students.
Establish policies describing the types of communication that should take place over different channels (e.g. send your technical support questions to FLS)
Set clear standards for instructors timelines for responding to messages (e.g. I will respond to emails on Tuesday and Friday afternoons)
2. Well designed discussion assignments facilitate meaningful cooperation among students
- Learners should be required to participate (and their grade should depend on participation)
- Discussion groups should remain small
- Discussions should be focussed on a task
- Tasks should always result in a product
- Tasks should engage learners in the content
- Learners should receive feedback on their discussions
- Evaluation should be based on the quality of the postings (not length or number)
- Instructors should post expectations for discussions
3. Students should present course projects
“Students presented case study solutions via the class website. The other students critiqued the solution and made further comments about the case. After all students had responded, the case presenter updated and reposted his or her solution, including new insights or conclusions gained from classmates. Only at the end of all the presentations did the instructor provide an overall reaction to the cases and specifically comment about issues the class identified or failed to identify. In this way, students learned from one another as well as from the instructor”
4. Instructors need to provide two types of feedback: information feedback and acknowledgement feedback.
Acknowledgement feedback is simply a response that an assignment (or whatever) has been received.
As the semester gets busier and time is scarcer, this often drops off – maybe having a simple template to copy/paste or even an automated system might be helpful here.
Information feedback is a fuller response to submitted content – “when constraints increase during the semester’s busiest times, instructors can still give prompt feedback on discussion assignments by responding to the class as a whole instead of to each individual student. In this way, instructors can address patterns and trends in the discussion without being overwhelmed by the amount of feedback to be given”
5. Online courses need deadlines
“Regularly distributed deadlines encourage students to spend time on tasks and help students with busy schedules avoid procrastination. They also provide a context for regular contact with the instructor and peers”
My personal experience makes me wonder if it might be useful to break assignment tasks down into a number of small milestone chunks with set deadlines – although these could be optional to avoid overloading the teacher – Perhaps the milestones could serve to provide learners with an indication of how long a part might take and whether they are on track or need to put in more time.
(Maybe this is something that learners should be able to do on their own but my personal experience is that I often forget about the breaking the task down into smaller parts/actions until afterwards)
Maybe some kind of personal tick box checklist
6. Challenging tasks, sample cases and praise for high quality work communicate high expectations
This is essentially about applying more relevant, more authentic, context oriented activities which offer higher levels of challenge.
It’s also about providing examples of past student work, “along with comments explaining why the examples are good”
7.Allowing students to choose project topics incorporates diverse views into online courses
“The instructor allowed students to research their own area of interest, instead of assigning particular issues… Instructors can provide guidelines to help students select topics relevant to the course while still allowing students to share their unique perspectives”
This seems largely about motivation but also about creating a more democratic learning environment.
August 16th, 2007
Assumptions about Learning
Jonassen, D. H., Peck K. L. & Wilson, B. G. (1999). Learning With Technology: A Constructivist Perspective. New Jersey: Merril. pp 2-11.
This is the first thing I’ve read that has given me any kind of real appreciation of the philosophy and theory underpinning Constructivism.
Until now it has all seem far too vague and airy-fairy but this introductory chapter to what seems like a very interesting book is able to clearly explain the learning concepts at the heart of this educational philosophy.
Here are some of the essential points made and some of my thoughts in response to them:
“We learn from experiencing phenomena (objects, events, activities, processes), interpreting those experiences based on what we know, reasoning about them and reflecting on the experiences and the reasoning. Jerome Bruner (1990) called this process meaning making”
“Constructivists believe that knowledge is constructed, not transmitted. Individuals make sense of their world and everything with which they come in contact by constructing their own representations or models of their experiences”
“We believe that teaching is a process of helping learners to construct their own meaning from the experiences they have by providing these experiences and guiding the meaning-making process”
“Knowledge construction results from activity, so knowledge is embedded in activity” Do all facts need “meaning” to be remembered or to make sense – I’ve never stuck a knife in a powerpoint but I know it’s bad. (How do I know this?) What if the urgency with which information is passed on affects our learning of it? – This would be much more about teaching than learning per se.
“Knowledge is anchored in and indexed by the context in which the learning activity occurs… Information about the context is part of the knowledge that is constructed by the learner in order to explain or make sense of the phenomenon” – does this give the learner too much credit? does the learner always do this – or always want to do this? Might they see it as too much work?
Relevant activity enhances information – but is it just another form of info?
Is it just like saying it twice but better (repetition) – reframing/contextualising – like making food easier to digest by pre-chewing it.
Motivation is still of vital importance
“The knowledge that a learner constructs consists of not only the ideas (content) but also knowledge about the context in which it was acquired, what the learner was doing in that environment and what the knower intended to get from that environment” This defines knowledge as a set of unique combined elements
“So the more directly and interactively we experience things, the more knowledge about it we are likely to construct”
“What we really understand about skills and knowledge is the application of them. When we learn how to use a skill, we store that use as a story, which is a primary medium of conversation and meaning making among humans (Schank 1986). ”
Oh, so how do something in WebCT – I guess I have more of a visual physical conception of it – is that a story?
This part is about both relevance and transferance.
“Meaning is in the mind of the knower”. We can share parts of our reality “by socially negotiating shared meanings. That is, we converse with others and agree on the relative importance and meanings for things.”
Everyone’s knowledge is different but if one apprentice chef burns their hand on a pot, it’s very much the same as if another one does
“Therefore, there are multiple perspectives on the world. Since no two people can possibly have the same set of experiences and perceptions of those experiences, each of us constructs our own knowledge, which in turn affects the perceptions of the experiences that we have and those we share”
“Making meaning is prompted by a problem (GAMES?), question, confusion, dissonance (a need or desire to know) and so involves personal ownership of that problem… Meaning making often starts with a problem, a question, a discrepant and inexplicable event, a curiosity, wonderment, puzzlement (Duffy and Cunningham 1996), a perturbation (Maturana and Varela 1992), expectations violations (Schank 1986), cognitive dissonance, or a disequilibrium. We can memorize ideas that others tell use but to actively seek to make meaning about phenomena involves the desire to make sense of things”
My model for the Constructivist approach:
{Context (Information + relevance) Activity} + (Past experiences) => meaning + reflection => knowledge
“Knowledge-building requires articulation, expression or representation of what is learned… For usable knowledge to be constructed, learners need to think about what they did and articulate what it meant. Usually that articulation process is verbal, but learners can construct a variety of visual or auditory representations of their experiences or understandings”
Reflection offers evidence => assessment items
“Meaning may also be shared with others, so meaning making can also result from conversation… Social constructivists believe that meaning making is a process of negotiation among the participants through dialogues or conversations.”
“So meaning making and thinking are distributed throughout our tools, culture and community. As we interact with others in knowledge-building communities, our knowledge and beliefs about the world are influenced by that community and their beliefs and values”
“Just as the cognitive properties of individuals vary, the cognitive attributes and accomplishments of communities also vary, depending on differences in the social organisation of the groups (i.e., the ways in which members distribute cognitive responsibilities) (Hutchins 1991)”. Collective wisdom/shared knowledge depends on how smart the members of the group are.
“Learning can also be conceived of as changes in our relation to the culture(s) to which we are connected (Duffy and Cunningham 1996). As we spend more time in a club, we become more influenced by its beliefs and culture, because the group’s knowledge is distributed among the participants (Saloman 1993)” If this is the case, where does new knowledge, innovation and ideas come from – if everyone becomes like everyone else?
“Within any knowledge-building community, share ideas are accepted and agreed upon. That is, meaning is reflected in the social beliefs that exist at any point in time. If individual ideas are discrepant from community standards, they are not regarded as viable unless new evidence supporting their viability is provided” Oh, that’s where it comes from
So something is only right as long as enough people believe it and no viable alternatives are proven
“Assessing the viability of anyone’s knowledge involves many criteria” Checks and balances system of knowledge in the group
“In order to engage different types of thinking, we must rethink the ways that we teach and the ways that we use technology in our teaching”
“When learning about things in natural contexts, humans interact with their environment and manipulate the objects in that environment, observing the effects of their interventions and constructing their own interpretations of the phenomena and the results of the manipulation”
Doing gives meaning but it only goes so far.
“Through formal and informal apprenticeships in communities of play and work, learners develop skills and knowledge that they then share with other members of those communities with whom they learned and practiced those skills”
Someone generally shows them what to do and the rules of the game. This reminds me of the paper about experienced people mentoring newbies in MMORPGS at http://users.bigpond.com/colsim/edugames/simpson3/annotate.html#Steinkuehler
“Real learning requires active learners ; people engaged by a meaningful task (not just pressing the space bar to continue) in which they manipulate objects and the environment in which they are working and then observe the results of their manipulations ” Games – but then again, why use a game when reality is available? Well, because it’s not always there or affordable or easily repeatable
“Activity is necessary but not sufficient for meaningful learning. Learners must reflect on their activity and observations to learn the lessons that their activity has to teach… By reflecting on on the puzzling experience, learners integrate their new experiences with their prior knowledge about the world, or they establish goals for what they need to learn in order to make sense out of what they observe… The active and constructive parts of the meaningmaking process are symbiotic. They both rely on the other for meaning making to occur.”
“When learners are actively and willfully trying to achieve a cognitive goal (Scardamalia and Bereiter 1993/94), they think and learn more because they are fulfilling an intention… Technologies need to engage learners in articulating what their learning goals are in any learning situation, and then support them. Technology based learning systems should require learners to articulate what they are doing, the decisions they make, the strategies they use and the answers that they found” And WHY they are doing something. This reminds me of Bronwyn Hegarty’s critical reflection model. Can problem based learning be prescriptive as well as democratic (levels of direction/guidance)
“A great deal of recent research has shown that learning tasks that are situated in some meaningful real-world task or simulated in some case-based or problem-based learning environment are not only better understood but also are more consistently transferred to new situations… we need to teach knowledge and skills in real-life, useful contexts and provide new and different contexts for learners to practice using those ideas” – ok but then we should point out the base, underlying ideas.
“And we need to engage students in solving complex and ill-structured problems as well as simple problems (Jonassen 1997) - like levels/progress in games.
“Humans naturally work in learning and knowledge-building communities, exploiting each others’ skills and appropriating each other’s knowledge”
“Often, educators will promote collaborative methods of learning, only to resort to independent assessment of learning… We cannot forget that most learners are strategic enough to know “what counts” in classrooms, so if they are evaluated individually, collaborative instruction may fail because students realize that group outcomes are not important” This strikes me as a VERY valid point – perhaps collaborative approaches need collaborative assessment to validate the process
Some very interesting explanations of the underlying philosophies of Constructivism here – I think I got more out of this than I have from anything else I’ve read to date.
There was one more interesting point made in the extract about collaboration that seems worth mentioning:
“Collaboration most often requires conversation among participants. Learners working in groups must socially negotiate a common understanding of the task and the methods they will use to accomplish it… When learners become part of knowledge-building communities both in class and outside of school, they learn that there are multiple ways of viewing the world and multiple solutions to most of life’s problems. “
August 14th, 2007
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