One of the things I’ve discovered in using 3D games with people who don’t play them (at all) is that the concepts of moving and looking around the space can actually be quite challenging. I’ve had people actually report feeling a little nauseous from the experience, so the need for a very straight forward, highly directed instructional level became quickly apparent.
This is the initial stage of Playing the Game, my attempt to do this.
There’s still a fair slab of work to come but I think it’s on track.
Given the scaffolding nature of the skills being developed, it takes a fairly behaviourist directed learning approach, with each skill introduced and accomplished before the learner moves on to the next one.
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.
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
This is the design statement for my latest foray into game based learning. I’ve used FPS Creator once more to create a democratic learning environment which creates a simulation of the Education Development Centre here. Learners can access scenario tasks in the course of find out about the multitude of awesome services and knowledge we can provide
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)
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.
Hedberg, J. and Harper, B. (1997) Creating Motivating Interactive Learning Environments. Keynote address at EDMEDIA, Calgary, Canada, 1997.
This paper repeats a lot of the points covered in the last two.
It still contains a few interesting points though so I’ll try to sum them up as succinctly as I can. (As it’s getting late and wading through this hard to read ode to constructivism has fried my mind a little)
In essence:
learners use productivity tools to construct their own meaningful chunks of content that sum up the available information
In designing learning environments: 1. identify the information to be covered, how to structure it and what the target audience already knows about it 2. find a metaphor to shape the information structure 3. link the design ideas to an interaction structure
This next bit is actually worth quoting (I think):
” Each interaction consists of a node point which forms the basis of the interaction, a set of options which provide links to other nodes or additional information attached to the current node. One of the links must relate to earlier travelled or preferred paths through the materials and each choice must inform the user about what is likely to occur as the result of a choice.
These can translate into the traditional concept of results (correct or incorrect) or performance support enhancement such as suggested hints (maybe you could have levels of hints?) or revision of the underlying concept/principle which might be employed to make the choice.
Depending on the instructional strategy chosen, another element might include the concept of duration, either time or the limit of options based up previous choices or paths taken.”
“The range and extent of user interaction with the data in the software increases as the user is given more freedom to navigate, access, determine the format of information representation and manipulate the data using cognitive and metacognitive tools”
You can have more than just text in the information presented.
In interaction, “it is important that the user is required to think before a response is possible”
“Being able to store and report thoughts and impressions derived from media experiences by using the media itself (actual video/audio and pictures, not just text representations of the media) provides a more powerful means of ‘reformulating’ (Schroeder & Kenny, 1994, p 965)”
Simulations can be powerful tools – “which provides support for the solution to one of the embedded problems by mimicking a “real world process”"
Good idea to allow learners to share and compare the products that they create – particularly to compare them against the work of experts in the field – “learning can occur through the resolution of multiple responses to the same task”
Harper, B. & Hedberg, J. G. (1995). Exploration of Information Landscapes Through Networks. In Connecting the systems: Australian Telecommunication Networks & Applications Conference. Sydney, Australia, 11-13 December 1995 (pp 141-149). Clayton, Vic.: Monash University.
This paper says much the same as the others:
new technology offers new opportunities and requires new approaches
relevant authentic activities that draw on a pool of well organised data are important
learners construct their own knowledge from experiences and by socially negotiated meaning
provide a hierarchical set of problems to solve
It does manage to make a few more points however – heavily focussed on good design practices for information landscapes.
There are four key factors to consider:
interface design
navigation options
learning support for the user
instructional strategies to tie together underlying knowledge structures.
Inert knowledge is “knowledge which can usually be recalled when people are explicitly asked to do so but which is not used spontaneously in problem solving even though it might be relevant.”
“Situated learning has, as its main idea, the notion that “the activity in which knowledge is developed and deployed… is an integral part of what is learned”(Brown, Collins & Duguid, 1989, p32)”
” “Legitimate peripheral practice”… refers to the engagement of a novice in a socially-based practice in which they can perform the same range of skills as an expert. Interactive multimedia provides an ideal structured environment which allows the novice to work with problems and learning situations which are some distance (peripheral) from the core of the expert’s world. As the novice begins to practice more as a full practitioner, the skills and shared experiences overlap more with those who are acknowledged as expert.”
This sounds like a good application of simulations and scenarios to me.
The design of the activities (how real & relevant they are) is just as important as the aesthetics (fancy graphics etc) used in creating immersion.
“The use of systems which can be given a set of attributes and defined rules of relating can prove a great boon for working with a particular information landscape or microworld… The question is, therefore, can we place all ideas into a microworld of objects, attributes and relationships?”
“A second aspect of immersion is the conceptual congruence between user actions and their understanding of the concepts embodied in the learning context. Much educational software doesn’t link the response of the user to progress toward the goal… Within the interactive multimedia environment the action of the learner will lead to a conceptual understanding directly about the context in which they are learning”
“…there has to be a learning environment which intrinsically motivates the participant to work within the context”
Avoid the “pedestrian point and click strategy”
“Active participation in Exploring the Nardoo has been supported through the user “guides” that directly address and challenge the user from the initial entry to the package. This challenge to actively participate in problem-solving and investigation is based around a group of researchers, who advise users on problems to investigate and provide graded hints on how to investigate specific case-based problems”
“Cognitive apprenticeships – using the terms modelling, coaching and fading to explain a sequence of activities beginning with the apprentice repeatedly observing the master who models the target process. This is followed by an attempt on the part of the learner to execute the process with guidance from the master (coaching) and finally a reduction in participation of the master (fading) as the apprentice demonstrates a grasp of the skill “
Harper, B. (1997) Building Technology Supported Learning Environments. Paper presented at the Techno Expo, Professional Development Day, Catholic Education Centre, Parramatta. 2 May, 1997.
At first glance there’s not a lot new in this paper – a reasonably well argued pitch of constructivist philosophy and the need to embrace new learning strategies to make best use of new technologies. From there though it does stimulate some interesting thought about the kinds of learning environments we can now create with technology.
Unfortunately, like a lot of the papers we seem to be reading in this class, 10 years of internet time has passed (which is like 30 years of real time) and it become necessary to extrapolate current tools (such as wikis) to the ideas in the paper, which aren’t able to dig into the potential of these things.
Harper (looking into the research) found that learning environments making use of technology had more use of:
more project work
more extensive projects
more motivation for the writing process
more group work and cooperative learning
more interdisciplinary activities
more opportunities for students to make choices
teachers with a different philosophy of teaching.
He draws some interesting points from Dwyer (1995):
“…technology plays a catalytic role in opening the minds of teachers to new ideas about children, learning and their own role in the education process.”
This makes me think that the key to selling eLearning to resistant teachers is by showing how teaching with technology is different, new and exciting. (Useful for the 916 case study)
Harper goes on to talk about visual metaphors for learning environments -
“With graphical and vidusal display coupled with large databases of resources, it is possible to explore an information space in whatever sequence appeals as appropriate to the user or to the specific task”
Which makes me ask – what if the learning space itself was customisable or at least selectable? – learners could choose their own metaphor from a set e.g a circus or an office or a swamp or a castle. Where is (or is there) the balance point between a “fun” metaphor vs a useful, authentic re-creation of a learning context. How much more useful/engaging is an office vs a castle?
Another question raised is that of giving learners access to rich multimedia resources but then always expecting them to construct their assessment items as text document.
What if learners had options to present their project products in a number of different multimedia forms. – not just the actual multimedia project components but their reflection elements? Why shouldn’t a podcast be as relevant as an essay?
Harper sums up the constructivist push part of his paper by saying:
“… the key to success will be developing opportunities and situations where children can gather information, analyse the information collected, construct new knowledge from this information and then reflect on the outcomes”
In looking at how we can develop technology supported constructivist environments, Harper looks at some instructional design goals from Marcy Driscoll. The following one sparked a question in me about feedback:
2. Provide for social negotation as an integral part of learning to allow insights to emerge through the group process that may not come about otherwise
Is there a difference between the feedback provided by a group to people’s work as individuals compared to their contributions to team projects. Are they less inclined to be critical in a group project as it means that they will have to redo something or will they be more critical as it can impact on their mark. I’ve noticed that the handful of comments that appear in our course forum are generally entirely positive and encouraging – is this because everyone’s right, noone wants to get into a stoush or people are more comfortable providing feedback when they agree with something.
Harper goes on to examine some case studies as good examples of learning environments – Exploring the Nardoo raises some interesting approaches:
“In order to offer these facilities to learners, a sophisticated personal digital assistant was developed, allowing users to collect and save the full range of multimedia resources in the package including video, audio and graphic resources. Additionally genre templates were included to support students in their knowledge construction endeavours”
“The information landscape uses a geographic metaphor based upon a Water Research Centre and a navigable river environment”
The PDA tool allows the learner to assemble their resources in a way that makes the most sense to them – be they text, images, audio or video. There is also a capacity to create their own text notes. The logical next step is the ability to create image, audio and video resources.
Providing templates offers learners guidance on structure for their presentation, which seems pretty sensible.
This model sounds a bit like a Wiki precursor and makes me think that there might be new ways to approach the use of wikis.
What if you had a wiki where everyone had ownership of a particular area and others could make suggested edits but these would have to first be moderated by the area owner? Might you have a reputation system allowing the community to vote on who provides useful additions or suggestions? This is potentially rortable but worth considering.
This also makes me think of something on a slight tangent – a scoring system for online debate. Points for logical arguments, new ideas, expresssion, etc, points against logical fallacies, abuse and so on.
So yeah, there are some interesting ideas here but more in the way they’ve helped me to wander down a few sidetracks.
Harper does manage to move on a bit further though after a couple of pages
In the constructivist philosophy, meaning is derived from the experiences gained while undertaking activities/tasks which are scaffolded by course content. The process of reflecting on these experiences and contextualising them with existing experiences helps to develop knowledge.
Feedback is a vital part of the reflection process as it introduces external ideas and extends the range of experiences and information that the learner is exposed to. It stands to reason then that the broader the range of feedback that a learner receives, the richer their reflection will be. Social web tools offer the possibility of feedback from a global audience.
Oliver (2004) points out that “Students involved in self evaluation are more interested in the criteria and substantive feedback than the grades achieved. The interest is piqued by the need for honesty in the application of the criteria for others (peer assessment) and to their own work as well as being able to defend opinions through evidence over subjective judgements.”
Brown & Voltz (2005) go on to say that “Experience becomes knowledge through reflection, which is enhanced by timely and appropriate criticism”.
On a practical level, “the range of available feedback strategies is vast, including reflective responses to prescribed questions, semi-automated responses by the system to student actions and work, shared comments in online forums and blogs and personal responses via email, telephone and post.”(Brown & Voltz, 2005).
It can be used in such a way that learners complete an initial draft of assessment work, post it publicly as an RFC (request for comment) and then incorporate feedback from the community into an updated final version.
Networked based learning offers opportunities for feedback from beyond the usual teacher and fellow students spectrum. The growth of the social web adds the notion of audience to the pool of sources of feedback – learners can now publish the work that they produce in class to the world and receive unvarnished feedback instantly which expands the range of knowledge being drawn on exponentially.
This notion of audience has been used in the Schools News Project. “The feedback from the community will inform the student teams of the quality of the product, its story telling qualities and its social responsibility in terms of ethical treatment of those whose stories have been included in the news items.” (Lockyer, Brown & Blackall, 2003).
The addition of information from the real world is one of the most exciting things about using the social web in education as it brings greater authenticity to the learning experience which heightens motivation.
It also has a useful side effect of developing greater levels of information, technological, critical and media literacy.
Practitioners (particularly those in the K-12 schools sector) considering making use of the social web will need to be mindful of the fact that it is a relatively uncontrolled environment and conscientious moderation of communication may be required. School and government policies may also determine the level of access learners are given to social web sites.
Lockyer, L., Brown, I. & Blackall, D. (2003). A learning design to support multi-literacy development in K-12 contexts. In A. Rossett (Ed.). Proceedings of E-Learn 2003 World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare and Higher Education. (pp.1703-06) Norfolk, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education.
Oliver, R. (2004). Moving beyond instructional comfort zones with online courses.. In R.Atkinson, C. McBeath, D. Jonas-Dwyer & R. Phillips (Eds), Beyond the comfort zone: Proceedings of the 21st ASCILITE Conference (pp. 713-723). Perth, 5-8 December. http://www.ascilite.org.au/conferences/perth04/procs/oliver-r.html
