I focused on Sound (chapter 13) and forms (chapter 14) in week 7 posting them at Week 7 exercises.
Note the page and its contents are quite large. Also don't have your volume up too loud as it starts playing almost immediately. pressing the stop button on the second example (top right) will stop the background music.
There are some interesting sound effects. Found the synchronisation exercise quite fiddly - trying to match lengths of animation to soundtrack and vie-versa. Also had problems with the music selector and need to re-visit this at some point - buttons are in a bit of a mess due to playing around with them. Tutorial invites you to break them apart to allow the text to be coloured when the music is playing - this tends to throw the positioning ig you're not careful. However it does show how you can use a series of buttons to play a soundtrack.
The forms and components chapter was okay but not very useful - may explore this further through other material.Would have liked more material on this showing how it can be used for Q & A type exercises.
Tuesday, November 30, 2004
Monday, November 29, 2004
Becta Communities : online conference structures
Sunday, November 28, 2004
7.01 - Learning Objects
There seem to be numerous web sites associated with the ideas behind learning objects. The first one The Instructional Use of Learning Objects -- Online Version had a variety of interesting articles. Others include:
- Learning Objects
- LEARNING OBJECT TUTORIAL
- Learning Object Repositories
- Learning Objects Portal
- Learning about Learning objects
- Learning Objects - Resources
- Learning Objects and Pedagogy Grant Program .
From my own perspective the key point is the ability to design the chunks of material to make them independant of the framework they are sitting in. i.e. the chunks need to deliver a specific learning point that is generic to many areas.
Firstly conceptually the piece can be attached into several different learning strands. So for instance in my own CBT a 'food and drink - ordering drinks and sacks' could be built and used across a number of modules delivering basic Italian e.g. saying hello, ordering Food and drink, Tourism, etc. For example at the level of 'ordering coffee' it's applicability could be across a number of modules in different settings.
Secondly the chunk could be at a level that allows it to be adapted into different learning vehicles. So for example a 'generic' design for saying hello could be similar across different languages. The chunk could then be adapted to bring together appropriate materials depending on the language.
The idea for the CBT would therefore to build the Flash objects at a low enough level to be able to use them within the structure at various points i.e. the Flash CBT would in effect be a series of combined files rather than one large file.
For the more technical the IEEE WG12: Learning Object Metadata site contains a wealth of material.
Many LMS are getting into this idea as the article WebCT Announces Real-Time Delivery of MERLOT Learning Objects indicates. The most recent incarnation of WebCT (WebCT Vista) does advertise itself as allowing the re-usability of Learning Objects.
- Learning Objects
- LEARNING OBJECT TUTORIAL
- Learning Object Repositories
- Learning Objects Portal
- Learning about Learning objects
- Learning Objects - Resources
- Learning Objects and Pedagogy Grant Program .
From my own perspective the key point is the ability to design the chunks of material to make them independant of the framework they are sitting in. i.e. the chunks need to deliver a specific learning point that is generic to many areas.
Firstly conceptually the piece can be attached into several different learning strands. So for instance in my own CBT a 'food and drink - ordering drinks and sacks' could be built and used across a number of modules delivering basic Italian e.g. saying hello, ordering Food and drink, Tourism, etc. For example at the level of 'ordering coffee' it's applicability could be across a number of modules in different settings.
Secondly the chunk could be at a level that allows it to be adapted into different learning vehicles. So for example a 'generic' design for saying hello could be similar across different languages. The chunk could then be adapted to bring together appropriate materials depending on the language.
The idea for the CBT would therefore to build the Flash objects at a low enough level to be able to use them within the structure at various points i.e. the Flash CBT would in effect be a series of combined files rather than one large file.
For the more technical the IEEE WG12: Learning Object Metadata site contains a wealth of material.
Many LMS are getting into this idea as the article WebCT Announces Real-Time Delivery of MERLOT Learning Objects indicates. The most recent incarnation of WebCT (WebCT Vista) does advertise itself as allowing the re-usability of Learning Objects.
Friday, November 26, 2004
Teaching and Developing Online - LMS +
The link Teaching and Developing Online.: November 2004 Archives is a blog will focus on the teaching of High School online. Packed full of interesting links I found it via LMS: The wrong place to start learning article suggested by Emma.
I think that latter article articulates more clearly what I have trying to comment on throughout my work in these areas i.e. what role has a VLE / LMS / Virtual school in todays envrionment for learning.
Is there a dissertation in this?
I think that latter article articulates more clearly what I have trying to comment on throughout my work in these areas i.e. what role has a VLE / LMS / Virtual school in todays envrionment for learning.
Is there a dissertation in this?
Wednesday, November 24, 2004
6.05 Reflection on week 6
Wondered why this wasn't showing on the blog - Forgot to turn the posting from draft to actual. Anyway I've made an entry in my reflective journal for week 6.
Happy reading.
Happy reading.
Tuesday, November 23, 2004
Sunday, November 21, 2004
6.01 Communites again
Some further nuggets:
While looking for issues in online communities I found the paper social cohesion and online community extremely incisive and worth a glance. This paper is part of a project looking into theories of the ways and extent that computer based networks contribute to reinforcing social cohesion and capital.
The paper Cultural and critical dimensions in a virtual power struggle also makes some useful points in that it addresses issues asscoiated with students undertaking purely online courses without F2F - an area where there appears to be little research.
Another paper looks at motivation important in relation to Salmon's first stage.It is especially interesting as it introduces Keller's ARCS model as a measuring tool. Further reading on this can be found at:
While looking for issues in online communities I found the paper social cohesion and online community extremely incisive and worth a glance. This paper is part of a project looking into theories of the ways and extent that computer based networks contribute to reinforcing social cohesion and capital.
The paper Cultural and critical dimensions in a virtual power struggle also makes some useful points in that it addresses issues asscoiated with students undertaking purely online courses without F2F - an area where there appears to be little research.
Another paper looks at motivation important in relation to Salmon's first stage.It is especially interesting as it introduces Keller's ARCS model as a measuring tool. Further reading on this can be found at:
6.01d - trolls on the internet
A simple search on 'managing trolls' and 'trolls on the net' brought vast reams of material some related to the topic. What appeared to work best was to identify a related resources and follow the links.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia has a fairly extensive explanation of the issues with 'Trolling'. It also has links to other sites including a reference to the paper we have been asked to read.
(The same content also seems to be posted The free dictionary.
One of the links gives advice on managing the troll and recommends Andrew Heenans guide to flaming. Another view on managing the troll is given by Diane Wilson.
Because many beleive that trolling is an inevitable part of the internet it might be important to consider the difference between a troll and a flamer, the description at Internet Trolls describes asects that could be flaming and how we can identify a true troll as opposed to someone pushing a discussion too far.
And I thought they were simply a character in the Lord of the Rings. You learn something everyday.
Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia has a fairly extensive explanation of the issues with 'Trolling'. It also has links to other sites including a reference to the paper we have been asked to read.
(The same content also seems to be posted The free dictionary.
One of the links gives advice on managing the troll and recommends Andrew Heenans guide to flaming. Another view on managing the troll is given by Diane Wilson.
Because many beleive that trolling is an inevitable part of the internet it might be important to consider the difference between a troll and a flamer, the description at Internet Trolls describes asects that could be flaming and how we can identify a true troll as opposed to someone pushing a discussion too far.
And I thought they were simply a character in the Lord of the Rings. You learn something everyday.
6.02 Evaluation of learning criteria
I am finding it difficult to identify 10 key points for assessing a piece of CBT. Most of the sites visited seem to offer more complex solutions.
Though not strictly CBT the CIDOC: Multimedia Working Group: Multimedia Evaluation Criteria highlights the need to break the criteria into five sections:
A more comprehensive 'method' is available through peer review of an online course. This has five main sections as follows:
Two sites offering links to other papers on evaluation are LTDE and peer review
Though not strictly CBT the CIDOC: Multimedia Working Group: Multimedia Evaluation Criteria highlights the need to break the criteria into five sections:
- Content
- Functionality
- Interface
- Implementation
- Overall Impact
A more comprehensive 'method' is available through peer review of an online course. This has five main sections as follows:
- Instructional design
- clarity of expectations
- building student knowledge
- learning activities
- assessment
- evaluation
- human interaction
- support
- Interface design
- use of media
- interactive multimedia
- writing style/text accuracy
- copyright
- technical aspects
- comments
Two sites offering links to other papers on evaluation are LTDE and peer review
Learning Theories of Instructional Design
I'm not sure if this was on any of our reading lists but the paper Learning Theories of Instructional Design seems to have quite a lot of useful information.
Saturday, November 20, 2004
LMS: Learning Management Systems
A summary of what a learning managment system (aka VLE) can be found at LMS: Learning Management Systems
The Interactive Syllabus - A Resource-based, Constructivist Approach To Learning
Given our recent research in constructivist learning I liked the approach described in The Interactive Syllabus - A Resource-based, Constructivist Approach To Learning . It has lots of links to diagrams and other pages (some not found) and even a Flash animation.
EDUCAUSE Quarterly - Volume 27 - Number 4 2004
The article
The Real Story Behind the Failure of U.K. eUniversity is worth reading on how wholly online learning can fail big time.
The Real Story Behind the Failure of U.K. eUniversity is worth reading on how wholly online learning can fail big time.
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