Eric's ramblings, experiences and random thoughts about e-Learning, distance education and Educational Technology.
I attended two workshops today at the SITE conference today. The first was a very practical workshop from Patrick Iglehart of St. Edwards University in Austin Texas that described the role of a Media Services department at a University and challenged the group to think of ways of integrating media into learning activities in courses. A few of the interesting ideas were:
1) digital storyboards in creative writing where students take digital pictures and then write a group story around the photo.
2) in a teacher education setting at the prior to the start of the school year, challenging teachers to find images on the internet, or to create their own that evoked a feeling that a student might have on the first day of class. Here’s an example. This way it would bring back to the forefront of the minds of both new, and seasoned, teachers the issues and feelings that students have on the first day of class. Exploring the power of an image to evoke feeling.
3) Critically analyzing video in a marketing class. Those beautiful Superbowl commercials can be examined with a critical eye and marketing themes can be extracted from them. Another neat extension of this was to also examine websites for the product showcased in the video. Question of congruency between marketing strategies in the video and the website could be addressed. Are the strategies similar or different? Complimentary or conflicting? Neat questions. More resopurces can be found at this link.
The second workshop was on ePortfolios. I must admit I have never explored the concept much so I was green going into this 3 hour session. But I learned a lot from the speakers, Drs. Helen Barrett and Joanne Carney, about the different kinds of ePortfolios: learning, employment, and assessment etc. It was also stressed in the process that reflection is the key item to a good ePortfolio exercise. It was argued that without reflection, the Portfolio is only a website, presentation, electronic resume, or scrapbook. The purpose is the difference: website=information while Portfolio=persuasion. They talked about blogs and wikis that could be used as part of ePortfolios. I really like this. I’m trying to design a learning activity for my Fundamentals of Teaching Adults course that might incorporate online journaling with a sharing and analysis/reflection component so this discussion was useful to me personally.
So the content should include evidence, reflection and validation. The purpose should be clear: assessment, employment or learning etc. The process should include tools, sequencing, rules, evaluation and collaboration. An overarching goal of this is also to try to get learners to own the material so they continue it throughout a programme of after a programme. Ownership was important because it intrinsically motivated the learner to produce better products. Be sure to check our Helen’s resources website where she has her “My Adventure with ePortfolios” link. She test drives 17+ products to create the same ePortfolio. Neat.
Another interesting side bar to Helen’s talk was the concept of Digital Storytelling or Narrative Inquiry (…whichever you prefer). Still photos with voice overs and music; the goal is to impart a feeling with these short pieces of work. This was a really neat way to unleash a student’s creativity. I think I might try to do one of these myself someday. I’ll have to find some cheap software to try. MovieMaker II, PhotoStory, Adobe Premiere Elements and Pinacle Studio were suggested for the PC platform.
Tuesday, March 01, 2005
Friday, February 25, 2005
Bloggers beware!
(This cartoon is posted here with permission of the artist. Contact john@kovalic.com for more info.)
CDA Distance Education Workshop
I attended the CDA Distance Education Workshop this week. It was an excellent activity that had a good balance of presentations and authentic-task activities. The workshop leaders and presenters were Judy Roberts and Terry Anderson. Their presentations were delightful. It’s the first time I have seen either of them present and I was pleased that they lived up to their reputations (*grin*).
Here are a few points from their presentations that I feel are worth reiterating in the context of my personal experience.
Judy made an excellent introductory point that terminology is very variable in distance education and instructional technology to the point where researchers have specific challenges when designing literature research strategies. As a trained biochemist, if I want to know something about “Hepatocyte Growth Factor” and “cell-cell signaling,” it’s pretty easy to find out almost everything I need to know from a simple MedLine search on those two key phrases; however, the same is not the case for a phrase like “Learning Management System” or “Distance Education.” Different people have different definitions of these terms, and several synonyms also exist, therefore, special considerations must be made to exploring the literature in a more comprehensive way.
An interesting insight to me was the comment about converging media onto computers. In the old days, circa. 1990s (*grin*), it was rare that the majority of end-users had powerful enough computer technology to run two-way video, two-way audio and other multi-media on their machines. Distance educators sometimes distributed videos on VHS tapes, or audio on audiocassette tapes, and held telephone conferences with students instead. However, now that we’ve reached the middle of the first decade of the second millennium, with the advent of more powerful microcomputers and high-speed Internet networks, this multi-media conversion is occurring in fortunate segments of the industrialized world. Now there is only one tool needed to process all this two-way multi-media: the computer.
There’s a business study out there (no reference given) that says that approximately 50% of participants do something else while on an audio teleconference (i.e. check email, surf the Internet, etc.) I believe there is a big difference between that statistic and the amount of people in a F2F talk that do something else while the presenter is speaking. What are the implications for learning in those two scenarios? Do people learn less on audio-conferences than in F2F situations? Has anyone seen any research on that?
The challenge in distance education and instructional technology is that it is sometimes difficult to achieve economies of scale when delivering courses due to the rapidity of the changes in textbook editions and software versions. There is nothing new here, but it’s nice to see it continuing to be acknowledged.
Terry spoke about Student Agents like the I-Help System from the University of Saskatchewan. It’s open source. I must look into that someday. The idea of teacher agents that might help with marking, tutoring, guiding, coordinating, scheduling, managing course content and tracking developments in the academic field is very appealing!
Very few colleges and universities have a well-articulated and congruent set of these three things: 1) Mission Statement, 2) Teaching and Learning Plan, and 3) Technology Plan. Judy argues that having this material in place brings a great advantage to the institution.
ROI in the course development process is a popular topic. Budget an ROI over time but don’t forget to include the course revisions in the business plan.
Wagner’s (1994) definition of interaction 1994 should not be forgotten: “reciprocal events that require at least two objects and two actions. Interactions occur when these objects and events mutually influence one another.” Note that interaction is suggested to be an important modulator of motivation, perseverance and learning in a student. Many workshop participants were interested in interactivity online. Is a comprehensive taxonomy of web-enabled activities associated with levels of cognitive interaction available? I will have to look for one sometime! The design of web-enabled learning activities for high-level cognitive objectives is a challenge! What are the best practices? Consider also that from a technology perspective, a page-turner in correspondence can still be a page-turner in web-enabled learning. The level of interactivity is critical!
Learning communities that involve learner-to-student interaction are a cost-effective way to promote learning. They’re cheaper than learner-to-instructor and learner-to-content interaction.
Herrington, Oliver and Reeve’s (2003). Authentic activities have real world relevance that can motivate adult learners. They are ill-defined complex tasks that require students to agree on tasks and construct their learning over a sustained period of time. They can offer students the opportunity to reflect, and can result in polished end products that may be useful for sharing outside the classroom environment.
Judy described a useful illustration of the justification of instructional design. Instructional designers find the optimal intersection between capacities of learners, teachers, content and technology, all within the current administrative framework. Neat!
From a learner perspective, how much support should be given prior to the class beginning? Writing skills, technology skills, study skills? How do you prepare the online learner? Are their best practices? Does every institution has to home grow their own support resources or are links to existing material from other institutions sufficient?
Three simple models of web-enabled course development: 1) the “lone ranger” model (i.e. one person does it all), 2) the SME-IT two person model, and 3) the many person project based approach. Which is best? It depends on resources.
Judy notes that the four principles of effective teleconferencing that were developed in the 1970s translate very well to online-based learning: 1) Humanizing (before, online, offline), 2) participating (individual and group), 3) presenting (variety, repetition, reinforcement), and 4) feedback (formative and summative).
So, the above are the “take home” messages that I noted from the workshop. I’ve documented them here in order to remind myself of their importance.
Here are a few points from their presentations that I feel are worth reiterating in the context of my personal experience.
Judy made an excellent introductory point that terminology is very variable in distance education and instructional technology to the point where researchers have specific challenges when designing literature research strategies. As a trained biochemist, if I want to know something about “Hepatocyte Growth Factor” and “cell-cell signaling,” it’s pretty easy to find out almost everything I need to know from a simple MedLine search on those two key phrases; however, the same is not the case for a phrase like “Learning Management System” or “Distance Education.” Different people have different definitions of these terms, and several synonyms also exist, therefore, special considerations must be made to exploring the literature in a more comprehensive way.
An interesting insight to me was the comment about converging media onto computers. In the old days, circa. 1990s (*grin*), it was rare that the majority of end-users had powerful enough computer technology to run two-way video, two-way audio and other multi-media on their machines. Distance educators sometimes distributed videos on VHS tapes, or audio on audiocassette tapes, and held telephone conferences with students instead. However, now that we’ve reached the middle of the first decade of the second millennium, with the advent of more powerful microcomputers and high-speed Internet networks, this multi-media conversion is occurring in fortunate segments of the industrialized world. Now there is only one tool needed to process all this two-way multi-media: the computer.
There’s a business study out there (no reference given) that says that approximately 50% of participants do something else while on an audio teleconference (i.e. check email, surf the Internet, etc.) I believe there is a big difference between that statistic and the amount of people in a F2F talk that do something else while the presenter is speaking. What are the implications for learning in those two scenarios? Do people learn less on audio-conferences than in F2F situations? Has anyone seen any research on that?
The challenge in distance education and instructional technology is that it is sometimes difficult to achieve economies of scale when delivering courses due to the rapidity of the changes in textbook editions and software versions. There is nothing new here, but it’s nice to see it continuing to be acknowledged.
Terry spoke about Student Agents like the I-Help System from the University of Saskatchewan. It’s open source. I must look into that someday. The idea of teacher agents that might help with marking, tutoring, guiding, coordinating, scheduling, managing course content and tracking developments in the academic field is very appealing!
Very few colleges and universities have a well-articulated and congruent set of these three things: 1) Mission Statement, 2) Teaching and Learning Plan, and 3) Technology Plan. Judy argues that having this material in place brings a great advantage to the institution.
ROI in the course development process is a popular topic. Budget an ROI over time but don’t forget to include the course revisions in the business plan.
Wagner’s (1994) definition of interaction 1994 should not be forgotten: “reciprocal events that require at least two objects and two actions. Interactions occur when these objects and events mutually influence one another.” Note that interaction is suggested to be an important modulator of motivation, perseverance and learning in a student. Many workshop participants were interested in interactivity online. Is a comprehensive taxonomy of web-enabled activities associated with levels of cognitive interaction available? I will have to look for one sometime! The design of web-enabled learning activities for high-level cognitive objectives is a challenge! What are the best practices? Consider also that from a technology perspective, a page-turner in correspondence can still be a page-turner in web-enabled learning. The level of interactivity is critical!
Learning communities that involve learner-to-student interaction are a cost-effective way to promote learning. They’re cheaper than learner-to-instructor and learner-to-content interaction.
Herrington, Oliver and Reeve’s (2003). Authentic activities have real world relevance that can motivate adult learners. They are ill-defined complex tasks that require students to agree on tasks and construct their learning over a sustained period of time. They can offer students the opportunity to reflect, and can result in polished end products that may be useful for sharing outside the classroom environment.
Judy described a useful illustration of the justification of instructional design. Instructional designers find the optimal intersection between capacities of learners, teachers, content and technology, all within the current administrative framework. Neat!
From a learner perspective, how much support should be given prior to the class beginning? Writing skills, technology skills, study skills? How do you prepare the online learner? Are their best practices? Does every institution has to home grow their own support resources or are links to existing material from other institutions sufficient?
Three simple models of web-enabled course development: 1) the “lone ranger” model (i.e. one person does it all), 2) the SME-IT two person model, and 3) the many person project based approach. Which is best? It depends on resources.
Judy notes that the four principles of effective teleconferencing that were developed in the 1970s translate very well to online-based learning: 1) Humanizing (before, online, offline), 2) participating (individual and group), 3) presenting (variety, repetition, reinforcement), and 4) feedback (formative and summative).
So, the above are the “take home” messages that I noted from the workshop. I’ve documented them here in order to remind myself of their importance.
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Copyright Matters!
The 2nd Edition of Copyright Matters has been released. It's an excellent overview of Canadian copyright issues in education.
Monday, February 14, 2005
Impatica OnCue Demo
I've been playing around with the recently released version 3 of Impatica OnCue. Basically it's a software package that starts with a PowerPoint presentation and a matching audio/video track, and then compresses it all into a Java object that plays on any Java-enabled web-browser.
The beauty of Impatica OnCue, like their other software Impatica for PowerPoint, is its efficient proprietary compression algorithm. In general, it compresses resources to about 10% their size. That’s very nice!!!
In addition to the compression solution, in order to deal with users with different bandwidth, OnCue actually publishes different versions of your presentation tuned specifically for different bandwidths and network overheads. Typically you can publish to four different output streams: 256k, 128kpbs, 64 kbps and still picture (still picture with audio stream only). Users with LAN or Cable connections can use the 256 kbps stream, while users with dial-up connections can use the 65 kps or still stream. Users can select their stream at the beginning of the presentation. That’s a nice feature.
I created a short demo presentation to prove to myself that it works. I caution everyone who watches it that it is NO FRILLS! There is no editing of the audio/video (I just talked it out in one contiguous block) so I have a few “um’s” and “err’s” that you’ll have to suffer through for the sake of illustration. (*grin*)
Pros:
Cons:
I definitely like this tool. It can be used successfully in distance courses as a way to introduce the instructor or to deliver short lecture segments to students. The degree of post-production can vary as the instructor/producer sees fit. It also might be really interesting to video capture a guest speaker doing a live onsite presentation and then synch the video to the PowerPoint slides to create an archived presentation for later use.
To access my Demo presentation click this link. As a Username and password please use the following: EricGuest. It is case sensitive. Make sure to turn on your speakers too!
Your comments are appreciated!
The beauty of Impatica OnCue, like their other software Impatica for PowerPoint, is its efficient proprietary compression algorithm. In general, it compresses resources to about 10% their size. That’s very nice!!!
In addition to the compression solution, in order to deal with users with different bandwidth, OnCue actually publishes different versions of your presentation tuned specifically for different bandwidths and network overheads. Typically you can publish to four different output streams: 256k, 128kpbs, 64 kbps and still picture (still picture with audio stream only). Users with LAN or Cable connections can use the 256 kbps stream, while users with dial-up connections can use the 65 kps or still stream. Users can select their stream at the beginning of the presentation. That’s a nice feature.
I created a short demo presentation to prove to myself that it works. I caution everyone who watches it that it is NO FRILLS! There is no editing of the audio/video (I just talked it out in one contiguous block) so I have a few “um’s” and “err’s” that you’ll have to suffer through for the sake of illustration. (*grin*)
Pros:
- Starting with a PowerPoint presentation. PowerPoint is the industry standard presentation software. The fact that Impatica works with this type of file as a source is very convenient!
- The end user does not need PowerPoint on their machine to view the presentation! A simple Java-enabled browser is all that is required.
- Different streams for different bandwidth and an excellent compression algorithm.
- Complete control of the synchronization of all PowerPoint animations and synching with the associated audio/video was simple from within OnCue.
- The fully editable running text transcript on the page is excellent for users with the inability to hear the audio track. (You’ll note that my transcript in this demo is not perfectly word for word. My apologies.)
- Reasonably priced!!! Contact the Impatica Sales people at Impatica website for pricing options but they quoted me $1,500 Canadian for a single user educational license and that includes one license of Impatica for PowerPoint (that's worth $300 Canadian in itself). The price quote is reduced 33% if two OnCue licenses are purchased simultaneously ($1,000 CDN each).
Cons:
- No integrated video capture software in OnCue. I had to record the video on tape and then digitally capture it using Adobe Premiere Pro (special thanks to Mike Lortie for his help with the video capture). It would be nice to have the option to record video that is directly captured by OnCue. Then you could easily re-record the audio/video for one slide at a time if you like. As it stands right now, all video production, editing and digital capture has to be done with third party software.
- The look and feel of the end-user interface is only customizable by Impatica Staff manually. They will make changes for you, but you cannot make them yourself.
I definitely like this tool. It can be used successfully in distance courses as a way to introduce the instructor or to deliver short lecture segments to students. The degree of post-production can vary as the instructor/producer sees fit. It also might be really interesting to video capture a guest speaker doing a live onsite presentation and then synch the video to the PowerPoint slides to create an archived presentation for later use.
To access my Demo presentation click this link. As a Username and password please use the following: EricGuest. It is case sensitive. Make sure to turn on your speakers too!
Your comments are appreciated!
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Copyright Code of Ethics in e-Learning
With the rapid expansion of the field of e-learning in the last ten years educational institutions are faced with a major ethical dilemma: how to adapt current copyright legislation to fit the new e-learning phenomenon. Digital rights management is a field that is not legislatively mature and in Canada, like most other jurisdictions, copyright laws pertaining to printed works are adapted when assessing copyright restrictions of digital works; however, the practical aspects of how to implement this adaptation has proven to be challenging.
Ethics is the study of morals and moral interaction between people involves positive, constructive and respectful communication and interchange (Jones, 2001). In the field of electronic publishing this moral interaction must be upheld despite the absence of suitable supporting legislation. The maturation of the Internet has challenged these morals. Hundreds of thousands of web pages are updated daily, and a significant number of them infringe upon the digital rights of others. The simple borrowing of an image, plagiarism of a paragraph or reproduction of an idea without citation is thought by some to be acceptable practise on the Internet. Phrases like “if it’s online, it’s free for me to download and use,” and “if I cite the author I can reproduce her work entirely on my website” are not uncommon statements when discussions arise about this topic. In addition, compounding the confusion in the field of e-learning is the belief by some practitioners that since they operate in the educational sphere they are exempt from considering any copyright issues because of the lack of any personal financial gain (Alfino, 1996). Although many educational uses of media do fall under the “fair use” category, the extreme view that no consideration is necessary is a common myth (Coggins, n.d.a.). Also, with the recent advent of universally accessible personal publishing technology on the Internet in the form of web logs, or blogs, the digital rights management envelope continues to be pushed further. Most “bloggers” do not hesitate to “deep link” into other blog posts or into web pages on commercial websites even though proper practice necessitates requesting the permission of the original author for this (Coggins, n.d.b.; “Website Permissions”, n.d.). The belief by some that explicitly requesting such permissions impedes the natural and public nature of the integrated publishing system of the World Wide Web is very real.
As members of the e-learning community, what are our responsibilities towards the ethics of digital rights management? The following “Code of Ethics” can be useful:
References
Alfino, M. (1996). Intellectual Property and Copyright Ethics. In R. A. Larmer (Ed.), Ethics in the Workplace: Selected Readings in Business Ethics. (pp. 278-294). St. Paul: West Publishing Company.
Coggins, S. A. M. (n.d.a). 4 Basic Questions About Copyright and Weblogs. Retrieved January 31, 2004, from http://weblogs.about.com/od/issuesanddiscussions/a/copyrightblogs.htm
Coggins, S. A. M. (n.d.b). 14 Copyright Tips for Bloggers. Retrieved January 31, 2004, from http://weblogs.about.com/od/issuesanddiscussions/a/copyrighttips.htm
Jones, J. R. (2001). Everyday Ethics: For Career and Personal Development. Toronto: Pearson.
Website Permissions. (n.d.). In Copyright & Fair Use Overview (Chap. 6). Retrieved January 31, 2004, from http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/ chapter6/index.html
Ethics is the study of morals and moral interaction between people involves positive, constructive and respectful communication and interchange (Jones, 2001). In the field of electronic publishing this moral interaction must be upheld despite the absence of suitable supporting legislation. The maturation of the Internet has challenged these morals. Hundreds of thousands of web pages are updated daily, and a significant number of them infringe upon the digital rights of others. The simple borrowing of an image, plagiarism of a paragraph or reproduction of an idea without citation is thought by some to be acceptable practise on the Internet. Phrases like “if it’s online, it’s free for me to download and use,” and “if I cite the author I can reproduce her work entirely on my website” are not uncommon statements when discussions arise about this topic. In addition, compounding the confusion in the field of e-learning is the belief by some practitioners that since they operate in the educational sphere they are exempt from considering any copyright issues because of the lack of any personal financial gain (Alfino, 1996). Although many educational uses of media do fall under the “fair use” category, the extreme view that no consideration is necessary is a common myth (Coggins, n.d.a.). Also, with the recent advent of universally accessible personal publishing technology on the Internet in the form of web logs, or blogs, the digital rights management envelope continues to be pushed further. Most “bloggers” do not hesitate to “deep link” into other blog posts or into web pages on commercial websites even though proper practice necessitates requesting the permission of the original author for this (Coggins, n.d.b.; “Website Permissions”, n.d.). The belief by some that explicitly requesting such permissions impedes the natural and public nature of the integrated publishing system of the World Wide Web is very real.
As members of the e-learning community, what are our responsibilities towards the ethics of digital rights management? The following “Code of Ethics” can be useful:
- Consult in-house first. When faced with a situation you have never encountered, consult with others at your institution. Whether it is the digitization of an image from a textbook, a deep link to a specific web page or the repurposing of an author’s work for your classroom website, ask someone on your staff for their opinion first.
- Consult with the experts. In Canada, consult with commercial copyright clearing houses like Access Copyright, or their license holders, when faced with any new, complicated or confusing copyright issues. Their expert knowledge can be very useful despite the lack of comprehensive digital rights legislation and the consultation is usually free of charge.
- Work with textbook publishers if you can. Publishers have been dealing with requests to reproduce their materials for decades and as demands for the digitization and repurposing of their resources into e-learning content become more and more frequent, they have adapted accordingly. They can often directly grant permission to repurpose figures and diagrams from their textbooks for integration into custom electronic courseware at reasonable costs.
- Start early! In order to avoid the temptation to “cut corners” due to looming deadlines for your project, plan ahead and complete the copyright research early in your e-learning development.
- Actively dispel the copyright myths. Share your experiences and your knowledge gained with other staff at your institution. Many of these situations are reproducible, and it is very likely that others will need to clear copyright obstacles in similar ways. By sharing your knowledge you build efficiency, effectiveness and ethical responsibility in your organization.
References
Alfino, M. (1996). Intellectual Property and Copyright Ethics. In R. A. Larmer (Ed.), Ethics in the Workplace: Selected Readings in Business Ethics. (pp. 278-294). St. Paul: West Publishing Company.
Coggins, S. A. M. (n.d.a). 4 Basic Questions About Copyright and Weblogs. Retrieved January 31, 2004, from http://weblogs.about.com/od/issuesanddiscussions/a/copyrightblogs.htm
Coggins, S. A. M. (n.d.b). 14 Copyright Tips for Bloggers. Retrieved January 31, 2004, from http://weblogs.about.com/od/issuesanddiscussions/a/copyrighttips.htm
Jones, J. R. (2001). Everyday Ethics: For Career and Personal Development. Toronto: Pearson.
Website Permissions. (n.d.). In Copyright & Fair Use Overview (Chap. 6). Retrieved January 31, 2004, from http://fairuse.stanford.edu/Copyright_and_Fair_Use_Overview/ chapter6/index.html
Thursday, January 27, 2005
What is Wikipedia!
Have you ever taken a look at Wikipedia? I have over the last couple years. In the beginning I thought it was a big joke. I thought the premise was noble but that it would never work in a practical sense.
For those that are unfamiliar with Wikipedia, it’s basically an encyclopedia but with one major feature that makes it different than any other encyclopedia you have ever seen: YOU can write for it! Yes, that was not a typo… you (*Eric points directly at you through the screen*) can write and edit any entry in the encyclopedia. You don’t need permission, you don’t need approval, you don’t need to have a PHD, and all you need to have is a keyboard.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve written in it a few times… just for kicks. I’ve tweaked a few entries to include something interesting that I know about, or to make a linkage between two entries. For example, I’m a big music buff so on the entry for my city (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), last year I added a couple of sentences listing a few of the good music bands that have grown out of my city.
Another neat feature is that you can examine the edits that people make to any particular page. The entire history of the changes is kept! Very cool!
What is created from this is a “public good” type of information repository: a place where no one polices except the users themselves. However, when I think of other “public goods,” like the air around us for example, everyone thinks it’s great for breathing and for diluting pollutants in, but no one wants to be responsible for cleaning it up and keeping it in a high quality state. I thought the same would apply for the Wikipedia: it’s a nice place to visit but it’s likely to be vandalized seriously and populated with loads and loads of inaccurate or irrelevant content. Boy was my gut feeling wrong. Check out the Wikipedia and let me know what you think.
Before you do that, check out this nice Flash movie with audio commentary created by Jon Udell that documents the changes in one particular entry in the Wikipedia over the past couple years. It’s great.
For those that are unfamiliar with Wikipedia, it’s basically an encyclopedia but with one major feature that makes it different than any other encyclopedia you have ever seen: YOU can write for it! Yes, that was not a typo… you (*Eric points directly at you through the screen*) can write and edit any entry in the encyclopedia. You don’t need permission, you don’t need approval, you don’t need to have a PHD, and all you need to have is a keyboard.
Over the last couple of years, I’ve written in it a few times… just for kicks. I’ve tweaked a few entries to include something interesting that I know about, or to make a linkage between two entries. For example, I’m a big music buff so on the entry for my city (Kingston, Ontario, Canada), last year I added a couple of sentences listing a few of the good music bands that have grown out of my city.
Another neat feature is that you can examine the edits that people make to any particular page. The entire history of the changes is kept! Very cool!
What is created from this is a “public good” type of information repository: a place where no one polices except the users themselves. However, when I think of other “public goods,” like the air around us for example, everyone thinks it’s great for breathing and for diluting pollutants in, but no one wants to be responsible for cleaning it up and keeping it in a high quality state. I thought the same would apply for the Wikipedia: it’s a nice place to visit but it’s likely to be vandalized seriously and populated with loads and loads of inaccurate or irrelevant content. Boy was my gut feeling wrong. Check out the Wikipedia and let me know what you think.
Before you do that, check out this nice Flash movie with audio commentary created by Jon Udell that documents the changes in one particular entry in the Wikipedia over the past couple years. It’s great.
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
Storyboarding Resources
I came across some lovely storyboarding resources hosted at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC) that were created by Lorraine Stanton and Sam Eneman (from UNCC), and Stephen Rehberg and Jeanne McQuillan (from Georgia State University). They have a detailed worksheet for building your online course, storyboard examples and an associated PowerPoint Presentation.
How to Begin Storyboarding your Course:
http://www.uncc.edu/webcourse/sb/files_sb/Storyboarding_to_Success.doc
(If you are prompted for a password, click Cancel.)
Creating a Storyboard: Multiple Methods:
http://www.uncc.edu/webcourse/sb/storyboard.htm
Course/Storyboard Master Worksheet:
http://www.uncc.edu/webcourse/sb/worksheet.htm
The section I think is most valuable is Section III of the worksheet: Matching the Tool to the Task. It has great stuff in it relating to communication tools, content presentation tools, student presentation tools, and assessment tools. One by one it lists Internet tools/features and then outlines their uses and advantages as well as the associated good teaching principles. I really like this list. The information is really good and is useful for the instructional design process.
How to Begin Storyboarding your Course:
http://www.uncc.edu/webcourse/sb/files_sb/Storyboarding_to_Success.doc
(If you are prompted for a password, click Cancel.)
Creating a Storyboard: Multiple Methods:
http://www.uncc.edu/webcourse/sb/storyboard.htm
Course/Storyboard Master Worksheet:
http://www.uncc.edu/webcourse/sb/worksheet.htm
The section I think is most valuable is Section III of the worksheet: Matching the Tool to the Task. It has great stuff in it relating to communication tools, content presentation tools, student presentation tools, and assessment tools. One by one it lists Internet tools/features and then outlines their uses and advantages as well as the associated good teaching principles. I really like this list. The information is really good and is useful for the instructional design process.
Effective Flash Objects
I've been playing around with Flash for a short time, since last September, and I have a lot to learn. One of the ways to learn is to look at what other people are doing. I thought I would bring forward one particular example that I found interesting to examine.
Check out the Excess All Areas flash object hosted by the BBC.
The target audience is likely young teenagers and therefore, I found this object made very effective use of integrated video and sound. The mouse rollovers were nice and the action escalated as I progressed through the object, and that naturally pulled me through the navigation of all parts of the object. This is excellent.
I also liked the splash screen which gave good explanations of the icons and the functions available to the user throughout the navigation.
One tiny thing that was missing was a universally accessible Quit button.
Check out the Excess All Areas flash object hosted by the BBC.
The target audience is likely young teenagers and therefore, I found this object made very effective use of integrated video and sound. The mouse rollovers were nice and the action escalated as I progressed through the object, and that naturally pulled me through the navigation of all parts of the object. This is excellent.
I also liked the splash screen which gave good explanations of the icons and the functions available to the user throughout the navigation.
One tiny thing that was missing was a universally accessible Quit button.
Friday, January 14, 2005
Podcasting and pull technologies
I have seen some buzz in recent weeks and months about Podcasting... so I figured I better read one or two blog posts about it to get myself up to date. This is how I see it. Podcasting is the production and syndication of audio clips that are listened to either on an MP3 player, like Apple's iPod (hence the name Pod-casting I think!)or even on your simple desktop computer). Much the same way that blog posts can be syndicated. (If you'd like a more comprehensive treatment of this definition see this link in the Wikipedia.) It's neat because you get to "hear" the presenter; however, I don't think it's better than blog postings. Blog postings can have hyperlinks in them or pictures in them and they can have the comment feature enabled where visitors can contribute to a discussion around the posting. What I love about this is the reader-to-content interaction (i.e. text, hyperlinks and pictures) and the reader-to-reader or reader-to-author interaction (i.e. adding comments to blog posts). I really love the interactivity here. It's a multi-layered pull technology where visitors construct their learning. They decide to read text, click links for other related info and write comments to share their ideas.
Now switch your brain back to the podcasting idea. The reader ... or rather listener... listens to the audio. If that's all it is, then it is a simple, and unidimensional, pull technology. Now don't get me wrong here ... there is lots of value in hearing someone speak. You can learn from someone's thoughtful insight even if it's unidimensional audio. (Unfortunately, can can't easily search audio for specific terms in the same way as you can search for specific text.)
All that being said... a better way to use podcasting would be to integrate it into a framework of a blog. This way people could still have the multi-layered pull technology where audio is simply another layer in addition to the text, hyperlinks and picture information.
Now switch your brain back to the podcasting idea. The reader ... or rather listener... listens to the audio. If that's all it is, then it is a simple, and unidimensional, pull technology. Now don't get me wrong here ... there is lots of value in hearing someone speak. You can learn from someone's thoughtful insight even if it's unidimensional audio. (Unfortunately, can can't easily search audio for specific terms in the same way as you can search for specific text.)
All that being said... a better way to use podcasting would be to integrate it into a framework of a blog. This way people could still have the multi-layered pull technology where audio is simply another layer in addition to the text, hyperlinks and picture information.
Monday, January 10, 2005
Sofia Open Courseware Project
In the same vein as the MIT Open Content initiative, the recently released Sofia initiative (by Foothill College's Distance & Mediated Learning program in California) is now publishing open content courses. Under a Creative Commons License, other institutions may re-purpose the work published by the Sophia project for non-commercial use.
This type of "content sharing" is an interesting and noble idea in my opinion. The most important aspect to me is that it offers a glimpse into how other people design online courses (or onsite classroom courses). It gives people ideas on how to design, develop and deploy online courses that may differ significantly from the way in which online courses are presented at their institutions. With this field still rapidly evolving, the process of examination of other people's work is a very valuable tool in the online curriculum development process.
This type of "content sharing" is an interesting and noble idea in my opinion. The most important aspect to me is that it offers a glimpse into how other people design online courses (or onsite classroom courses). It gives people ideas on how to design, develop and deploy online courses that may differ significantly from the way in which online courses are presented at their institutions. With this field still rapidly evolving, the process of examination of other people's work is a very valuable tool in the online curriculum development process.
Wednesday, January 05, 2005
WebCT Compile Demo: Now audio enabled!
I spent 20 minutes this morning putting audio on top of the WebCT Compile Tool Demo that was made with Macromedia Captivate. (See the Dec 15th posting below). I ran out of hosting space on my Queen's server so I have hosted this new audio-enabled Flash movie on the RMC password protected WebCT server. Use EricGuest as both the userid and password at the login screen. (Note the userid and password are case sensitive.) Also, remember to turn on your speakers or plug-in your headphones(*grin*).
Ok, the techies will be glad to note that the output file size only grew 82 kb with the addition of audio (from 303 kb to 385 kb ... only a 27.1% increase). That's amazingly reasonable after audio was added!!! The larger audio-enabled Flash movie is still reasonably short to download even at slow speeds (55 sec @56Kbps and 2 sec @cable).
-Eric
Ok, the techies will be glad to note that the output file size only grew 82 kb with the addition of audio (from 303 kb to 385 kb ... only a 27.1% increase). That's amazingly reasonable after audio was added!!! The larger audio-enabled Flash movie is still reasonably short to download even at slow speeds (55 sec @56Kbps and 2 sec @cable).
-Eric
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Acadia's Remote Microscopes and MIT's iLab
Over a year ago I went to a cool presentation by a Technology Manager at Acadia University where he showed that Acadia students could have remote control access to an Optical Microscope from their residence rooms via an Internet connection. How cool is that? Remote experimentation! I'm a big fan!
Well, take a look MIT's iLab Project. This is great! Now, would they allow remote access from students not registered at MIT? Likely not as the aparatus would fall under extensive demand and their own MIT students would experience huge difficulties getting on the aparatus. Would they consider "hosting" experiments such like this for other institutions by replicating the aparatus and leasing out time? I don't know. Interesting possible business concept though.
Well, take a look MIT's iLab Project. This is great! Now, would they allow remote access from students not registered at MIT? Likely not as the aparatus would fall under extensive demand and their own MIT students would experience huge difficulties getting on the aparatus. Would they consider "hosting" experiments such like this for other institutions by replicating the aparatus and leasing out time? I don't know. Interesting possible business concept though.
Wednesday, December 15, 2004
WebCT Compile Tool: Captivate
My colleague Erika and I have been exploring Macromedia Captivate. Here's a presentation that we made that will be used to introduce students taking a WebCT course how to use the Compile Tool. For those unfamiliar with the Compile Tool, it can be used to compile together all the individual HTML files of a content module into one file that can be printed in one step. This can save the student a great deal of work as some content modules can have dozens of individual HTML files in them. Printing them one by one is indeed arduous! The Compile tool makes this process much easier and quicker.
Please view our short Captivate demonstration. It has screen tips demonstrating each step. The final output Flash movie is only 306 kb in size so this presentation is a manageable download even at low connection speeds (only 43 seconds at 56 KBps). Once downloaded the first time, students can view the presentation as often as they like before trying to use the Compile Tool in their course. (Note that the Flash Player browser plugin is required to view this file.)
Please view our short Captivate demonstration. It has screen tips demonstrating each step. The final output Flash movie is only 306 kb in size so this presentation is a manageable download even at low connection speeds (only 43 seconds at 56 KBps). Once downloaded the first time, students can view the presentation as often as they like before trying to use the Compile Tool in their course. (Note that the Flash Player browser plugin is required to view this file.)
Monday, December 13, 2004
Digital Copyright Issues in Canada
There is continued confusion amonst instructors about Digital Copyright issues and processes in Canada. A lovely article (PDF Format)authored by Lori Wallace of the University of Manitoba appears in a recent issue of the CADE journal. It's definately a good read for anyone in Canada working on Digital Copyrights. Ignorance is certainly not bliss when it comes to copyright infringements.
Tuesday, December 07, 2004
Blogs in Education
I'm going to do some brief research to compile some relevant materials together that describe how to use weblogs in education. I will post this results in this message.
1. Apple Distinguished Educators Bloggers have a nice list of scenarios where blogs might be useful in an educational context.
2. Blogging and RSS — The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators by Will Richardson.
3. Weblogs@UPEI describes a recent initiative at the University of Prince Edward Island where each student is assigned a blogspace for use during their academic degree at UPEI.
4. Blogs in Education from the University of Houston - Clear Lake
5. Weblogg-Ed - A Blog about Blogs in Education! written by Will Richardson.
6. Resources from the EDTU Discussion on Blogs in Education October 2003.
7. Educational Blogging by Stephen Downes in EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 14–26.
1. Apple Distinguished Educators Bloggers have a nice list of scenarios where blogs might be useful in an educational context.
2. Blogging and RSS — The "What's It?" and "How To" of Powerful New Web Tools for Educators by Will Richardson.
3. Weblogs@UPEI describes a recent initiative at the University of Prince Edward Island where each student is assigned a blogspace for use during their academic degree at UPEI.
4. Blogs in Education from the University of Houston - Clear Lake
5. Weblogg-Ed - A Blog about Blogs in Education! written by Will Richardson.
6. Resources from the EDTU Discussion on Blogs in Education October 2003.
7. Educational Blogging by Stephen Downes in EDUCAUSE Review, vol. 39, no. 5 (September/October 2004): 14–26.
Monday, November 29, 2004
Flash Ahh-Ahh!
I've been taking a Beginner Flash course completely online this semester and I must say I have enjoyed it a great deal. It certainly has met my expectations. I went from knowing nothing, to being able to create my own basic Flash movies (admittedly rudimentary however). Here's my final Assignment if you'd like to take a peek. (Flash Player is required. You may obtain it from the macromedia website under the Downloads link). It's 68kb in length and hosted on my Queen's University student server account (since I don't have any public RMC server space. *grin*). I hope to take the Intermediate Flash course next semester!!!
Friday, November 26, 2004
Does multimedia really enhance learning?
An interesting article crossed my desk today. Despite being “long in the tooth” by today’s information age standards, the article published in 1996 in the Journal of Educational Multimedia and Hypermedia (Vol. 5 Issue 2, pp 129-150) by Lawrence J. Najjar is a very good read. While at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Dr. Najjar examines the literature in detail to try and show some foundation to the claim that “multimedia helps people learn.”
His resulting review shows several key studies in a wide range of fields where multimedia can indeed help people learn. He distills the findings to two major themes:
1. When multimedia encourages dual coding of information, it can help people learn better. The idea is that if more than one cognitive pathway is constructed (say, a cognitive pathway for pictures and a cognitive pathway for text) on the same material, learning will be better due to the fact that two pathways are being built. Later the learner can utilize more cognitive paths to retrieve the information than is a single encoding structure were used (i.e. simply text-alone or pictures-alone)
2. When different components of media support each other, it can help people learn better. The key point here is not to create multi-media for the sake of multi-media alone. One media must not distract the learner from the other media. All media must relate closely and supportively when addressing the teaching point, or the learning objective. A picture of a typical lightning bolt accompanied with a detailed text description of the process of how lightening is generated is an example of a one media distracting from another. Students may be distracted from the spectacular lightening photo which in actuality has very little to do with the process by which lightening is generated. The relevancy between these two media is lost.
3. When multimedia is presented to learners with low prior knowledge or aptitude in the domain being learned, it can help them learn better. Educational psychologists believe that information from different media sources can help learners who are novices in the topic to better understand which aspects of the content are most important and as a result, more useful cognitive pathways can be built. Those learners that are experts in the field already have a rich knowledge of the material and can more easily make new connections with existing material with mono-media presentations (i.e. by reading text alone).
On a side-bar topic, Dr. Najjar also notes another interesting observation that self-paced learning models are probably a more effective way to learn that group-paced learning models, as they allow the student to better control the amount of time they spend personally on learning activities for specific topics. The ability to move on to the next topic when required without being bounded by group-paced constraints may be beneficial to learners.
So, overall, an excellent read. Pick it up if you can. It just goes to show you that some research articles certainly stand the test of time.
Speaking of standing the test of time. I quick Google search failed to help me locate Dr. Najjar’s current whereabouts. He left Georgia Tech and worked for companies like iXL, Viant and BMC Software. No clue where he is now. Does anyone know?
His resulting review shows several key studies in a wide range of fields where multimedia can indeed help people learn. He distills the findings to two major themes:
1. When multimedia encourages dual coding of information, it can help people learn better. The idea is that if more than one cognitive pathway is constructed (say, a cognitive pathway for pictures and a cognitive pathway for text) on the same material, learning will be better due to the fact that two pathways are being built. Later the learner can utilize more cognitive paths to retrieve the information than is a single encoding structure were used (i.e. simply text-alone or pictures-alone)
2. When different components of media support each other, it can help people learn better. The key point here is not to create multi-media for the sake of multi-media alone. One media must not distract the learner from the other media. All media must relate closely and supportively when addressing the teaching point, or the learning objective. A picture of a typical lightning bolt accompanied with a detailed text description of the process of how lightening is generated is an example of a one media distracting from another. Students may be distracted from the spectacular lightening photo which in actuality has very little to do with the process by which lightening is generated. The relevancy between these two media is lost.
3. When multimedia is presented to learners with low prior knowledge or aptitude in the domain being learned, it can help them learn better. Educational psychologists believe that information from different media sources can help learners who are novices in the topic to better understand which aspects of the content are most important and as a result, more useful cognitive pathways can be built. Those learners that are experts in the field already have a rich knowledge of the material and can more easily make new connections with existing material with mono-media presentations (i.e. by reading text alone).
On a side-bar topic, Dr. Najjar also notes another interesting observation that self-paced learning models are probably a more effective way to learn that group-paced learning models, as they allow the student to better control the amount of time they spend personally on learning activities for specific topics. The ability to move on to the next topic when required without being bounded by group-paced constraints may be beneficial to learners.
So, overall, an excellent read. Pick it up if you can. It just goes to show you that some research articles certainly stand the test of time.
Speaking of standing the test of time. I quick Google search failed to help me locate Dr. Najjar’s current whereabouts. He left Georgia Tech and worked for companies like iXL, Viant and BMC Software. No clue where he is now. Does anyone know?
Tuesday, November 16, 2004
Macromedia Captivate
I spent a couple of hours this morning trying out Macromedia Captivate. It's the new release of their already popular RoboDemo software. I like the name change!
It allows the creation of presentations containing a series of screen captures and the subsequent layering of audio on each slide. It then exports the presentation as a FLASH object that can be hosted on any server and viewed in any remote browser that is equipped with the FLASH Player plugin. I put together a short demo on the software so you can see the capability.
There may be some immediate use for a tool like this for Prog Dev. In particular, I think the WebCT QuickTips and DCE090 could benefit greatly from technology such as this!!! Although there are still things to test like bandwidth issues. Speaking of bandwidth, you can export this Flash object right into Flash MX 2004 and then manually put a preloader on the file that could ensure the movie is fully downloaded before beginning to play. Under low bandwidth situations this would prevent the movie from choking.
Let me know what you think of my short demo. Turn on your speakers!
It allows the creation of presentations containing a series of screen captures and the subsequent layering of audio on each slide. It then exports the presentation as a FLASH object that can be hosted on any server and viewed in any remote browser that is equipped with the FLASH Player plugin. I put together a short demo on the software so you can see the capability.
There may be some immediate use for a tool like this for Prog Dev. In particular, I think the WebCT QuickTips and DCE090 could benefit greatly from technology such as this!!! Although there are still things to test like bandwidth issues. Speaking of bandwidth, you can export this Flash object right into Flash MX 2004 and then manually put a preloader on the file that could ensure the movie is fully downloaded before beginning to play. Under low bandwidth situations this would prevent the movie from choking.
Let me know what you think of my short demo. Turn on your speakers!
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Introducing Dr. Susan Nash to the Blog Roll
Dr. Susan Nash (a.k.a. the eLearning Queen) has given permission to have her blog listed on my blog roll. There's lots of goodies in it. Be sure to check out her associated website at http://www.beyondutopia.net/ where she has available many resources that she has authored herself.
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