M3-Topic 2-Assessment

TELTA Module (Week 2)

The following is the continuous assessment work carried out by my group during the week immediately after the Tuesday afternoon webinar that took place on 17th January 2017 from 13:00 to 14:00.

Group 4 – Copyright Gate Task (Gerry, Rachel L, Cora)

Four years ago, an employee within your organisation designed and developed an entire online twelve-week CPD module. Since its inception, the module has been run very successfully, for employees only, three times a year. The employee who designed the original module left your organisation last year to take up a post at another institute.

Word has since spread about the success of this module, and you started receiving enquiries six months ago from ‘outsiders’ asking if they could pay to participate. As a result of this, you and your colleagues decided to run an instance of the module for participants from outside your organisation. Thirty five people registered to participate and the module started two weeks ago.

One of the participants on the module is an eminent barrister who specialises in copyright law. He noticed during the first week of the module that there have been numerous copyright infringements and he sent you a private email listing these infringements: one of these happens to be a journal article that he himself wrote five years previously that has been downloaded from a closed access journal and uploaded into the virtual learning environment for all module participants to read.

You have brought the situation to the attention of your line manager and you both need to make some decisions!

In your groups, using your group wiki and discussion board (and any other tools of your group’s choosing), consider the following:

  1.  What course of action are you going to take regarding the module? Explain briefly (in no more than 250 words) why you have made this decision.
  2. You have decided that some guidelines, with links to appropriate resources, need to be created and shared with those in your organisation who design and develop learning materials. Identify (no more than) five key points that should be included in the first draft of this user guide.

Once you have completed the above tasks, nominate one member of the group to post a copy of your responses to the appropriate discussion board. (Please paste the text into the body of the discussion posting rather than attaching a document). Your group’s submission posting must be made by Sunday January 22nd at 18:00 GMT.

Take the time to review what the other groups have written – rate their submissions and feel free to comment on their decisions!

Group 4 – Response (Gerry, Rachel L, Cora)

Decisions

(1) The immediate suspension of any items which were claimed to be copyright infringement from the module.

(2) The barristers’ article and access to the closed journal needs to be immediately removed.

(3) Communicate with and assure the barrister that his notifications have been received and that the matter is being dealt with appropriately.

(4) Assess and corroborate the infringements. This may lead to the removal of any other documents, images or articles which are infringing on copyright until such copyright can be obtained.

(5) Attribute non-OER material (including images) used in the module to the author until a full assessment is completed. Links to copyright material should be used, as this is not considered to be a copyright infringement (CJEU 13 Feb 2014, Case C-466/12).

(6) Bring the infringements to the appropriate body within the HEI and have them assessed by the Intellectual Property Department.

(7) Assess whether the materials are of significant value to the course before seeking appropriate permissions to use any material which had been infringed upon.

(8) Assess other modules in order to ensure compliance, especially should the original developer have been involved.

(9) Examine the copyright policies within the HEI and seek further information and training for all relevant staff.

(10) Create a ‘User Guide’ for ‘Designing and Developing eLearning Materials’ (see below).

Important Note

The ‘User Guide’ (below) includes much of the rationale behind these ten decisions.

User Guide

Section 1 – What is Copyright? 

1.1    Definitions

Copyright is the legal term, which describes the rights given to authors/creators of certain categories of original work, including:

(i)        Text
(ii)       Images
(iii)      Audio
(iv)       Video
(v)        Software

The employer is the owner of the copyright for a work created by an employee of an educational institution.

1.2    Exceptions

Exceptions for educational purposes are given under ‘fair dealing’.  If in doubt about copyright exceptions, seek legal advice.

1.3    Licensing

Copyright legislation differs from country to country e.g. the UK differs with Ireland.  Ensure the appropriate educational licenses are obtained.

1.4      Links

Irish Patents Office
https://www.patentsoffice.ie/en/Copyright/

http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/2000/act/28/enacted/en/html
Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000, Part II, Chapter 6, Section 49-52

Irish Copyright Licensing Agency (ICLA)
http://www.icla.ie/

The Copyright Licensing Agency (CLA)
http://www.cla.co.uk

Section 2 – Placing Non-OER Materials on a LMS (Top Tips)

2.1    Text

  • Use materials created/written by yourself or your organisation as these can be used freely.
  • Make links to web based materials – do not copy and paste web pages.
  • Scanning/uploading of Irish printed publications to the LMS is permitted for some materials under the ICLA licence.

2.2    Images

  • Do not make images available unless you are the copyright holder or have permission from the copyright holder.

2.3    Audio

  • Do not download music or other audio (such as podcasts) – provide a link instead.

2.4    Video

  • Do not download materials from YouTube and other video sharing websites – provide a link instead.

2.5    Links

Irish Copyright Licencing Agency
http://www.icla.ie/

CJEU 13 Feb 2014, Case C-466/12
http://curia.europa.eu/juris/document/document.jsf?text=&docid=147847&pageIndex=0&doclang=EN&mode=req&dir=&occ=first&part=1&cid=58394

Section 3 – Protecting Your Own Work

3.1    Top Tips

  • Keep supporting evidence, such as early drafts.
  • Use the copyright symbol and year of publication.
  • Upload your own photos or photos taken by anyone at the educational institute using a CC0 Creative Commons License.

3.2    Links

The UK Copyright Service
https://www.copyrightservice.co.uk/protect/

Search Free Images having CC0 Licence
http://creativecommons.photos/

Section 4 – Open Education Resources (OER)

4.1    Definition

OER are the teaching and learning materials that are freely available online for everyone to use and adapt.

4.2      Top Tips

  • Use OER to supplement
    (a) materials created by you or your organisation
    (b) materials permitted for use under ICLA
    (c) links to copyrighted materials.
  • Use the Creative Commons search engine to search for Open Access Images e.g. Google Images, Flickr and Fotopedia.
  • The Open Access Policy in Ireland is a useful resource which informs the education institutes policy.

4.3      Examples of OER

  • Course materials, syllabus, lectures, assignments, classroom activities, pedagogical materials and many more resources contained in global digital media collections.
  • Public Domain information.
  • Public Service data.

4.4    Links

Open Educational Resources (OER)
https://www.heacademy.ac.uk/enhancement/definitions/open-educational-resources-oer

Creative Commons Search Engine
https://search.creativecommons.org/

Flickr
https://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/

Section 5 – Creative Commons Licensing

5.1    The Licenses

Familiarise yourself with the six regularly used ‘CC’ licenses plus CC0 (Public Domain):

  • CC 0
  • CC BY
  • CC BY-SA
  • CC BY-ND
  • CC BY-NC
  • CC BY-NC-SA
  • CC BY-NC-ND

5.2      Links

Creative Commons Licenses
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/

M3-Topic 1-Assessment

TELTA Module (Week 1)

The following is the continuous assessment work that I carried out during the week immediately after the Tuesday afternoon webinar that took place on 10th January 2017 from 13:00 to 14:00.

Key Reading 1: What’s the use of a VLE? (Reponse)

Response from Gerard Kilkenny to the following academic paper:

O’Rourke, K.C., Rooney, P. and Boylan, F.  (2015). What’s the Use of a VLE? Irish Journal of Academic Practice, 4(1),11.

http://arrow.dit.ie/ijap/vol4/iss1/10

The paper refers to the low level of use of collaborative educational technology, both within and outside the VLE, by the DIT lecturers surveyed .  These include messaging tool (26%), discussion boards (19%), wikis (12%), SMS texting (11%), BB mobile app (7%), webinars (5%), and chatrooms (2%).  This does not mean that the students of these lecturers in DIT are not using this collaborative technology independently of the lecturers in whole class groups or sub-groups.  As a second level Maths teacher, I have discovered that students mainly use Facebook as their method of communication.  Currently, I have a class of 30 students in 3rd Year following the Junior Certificate Higher Level Maths course who have their own Facebook group for communication purposes.

The school that I work in does not have an institutional VLE.  In the absence of such a VLE, I set up the Schoology LMS for my 6th Year Higher Level Maths class and for one other teacher in March 2014.  Schoology is very user friendly and cloud based with excellent mobile apps.  However, I discovered a major problem with this LMS is that a student can sign up as an ‘Instructor’ which gives them the administrative rights to set up classes.  Consequently, I reluctantly discontinued using Schoology after one and a half years.  Currently, there are at least two teachers in my school using the Edmodo LMS while others use email and Twitter.  I have tested the installation of the Moodle LMS on my own personal website.

One of the main problems I perceive with Blackboard and Moodle is that they are bloated pieces of software originally designed for client/server (desktop) systems. This has resulted in fragmentation rather than integration of the various pieces of application software that constitute a LMS/VLE.  Students in 2017 appear to use mobile apps much more than their desktop equivalents (when they exist).  In my opinion, the challenge for the two main LMS suppliers in the higher education market (Blackboard 41% and Moodle 23%) is to develop their mobile solutions.  In the meantime, the fragmented app landscape whereby lecturers and students use different proprietary solutions for email, instant messaging (binary), instant messaging (group), file repository, file sending, file sharing, group conferencing, whiteboard sharing, etc. will persist.  The MSc in Applied eLearning course is a case in point, using a mixture of email, Blackboard, Slack and Twitter to communicate.

Finally, I have written an annotated bibliography of this academic paper that can be found at http://gerardkilkenny.ie/index.php/2017/01/10/m3-week-1-home/

Key Reading 1: What’s the use of a VLE? (Annotated Bibliography)

O’Rourke, K.C., Rooney, P. and Boylan, F.  (2015). What’s the Use of a VLE? Irish Journal of Academic Practice, 4(1),11.

http://arrow.dit.ie/ijap/vol4/iss1/10

This 2015 paper by O’Rourke et al (who work in the LTTC based in DIT Aungier Street) is based on research carried out by them between February and April 2013.  This research was conducted via a phone call survey of 200 randomly selected staff working in DIT followed by an additional three-question anonymous online survey.

The study sought to

(a) find out how our academic staff was using the VLE as part of their teaching practice
(b) find out if academics were aware of emerging eLearning tools outside of the VLE
(c) gain an insight into factors inhibiting or preventing staff from engaging with eLearning technologies.

The paper begins by providing evidence that when it comes to actual teaching, learning and assessment practices, very little has changed as a consequence of the introduction of VLEs such as Blackboard and Moodle. (Zemsky and Massy, 2004; Weller, 2007).  The authors note that eLearning progress has been cautious in publicly funded third-level institutions with an opt-in rather than mandatory approach for staff members who wish to use technology in their teaching practices.  “In the main, however, it is clear from the emergent patterns that VLE usage is best categorised as supplemental to traditional, didactic teaching methods as evidenced by the relatively low usage of tools which foster and promote interactivity.” (O’Rourke et al, 2015, p.11).

It was interesting to me that the paper traced the history of the VLE in DIT from the introduction of WebCT in 2001 to its replacement by Blackboard in 2012.  I wasn’t aware of how the Learning, Teaching & Technology Centre (LTTC) in DIT came into being.  It was informative to read that it was created from an amalgamation of the Learning & Teaching Centre and the five-member team who were employed for an initial three-year period with a remit to embed eLearning practice in DIT with a focus on mainstreaming the use of WebCT.

The answers to the survey question seeking to elicit how Blackboard is used by lecturers in DIT is consistent with a longitudinal survey conducted among students across several third-level Irish institutions which discovered that students mostly experienced the VLE as a content distribution platform. (Risquez et al., 2013, p.103).  The DIT survey established that that the top five tools used by lecturers in Blackboard were:  file sharing (93%), email tool (71%), announcements (70%), learning module (59%) and YouTube (52%).  The use of other Blackboard tools dipped below 50% for each of the other nineteen tools.  O’Rourke et al 2015, p.11 conclude that “…it is clear from the emergent patterns that VLE usage is best categorised as supplemental to traditional, didactic teaching methods as evidenced by the relatively low usage of tools which foster and promote interactivity.”  The level of usage of collaborative learning tools was discussion boards (19%), Wikis (12%), Webinars (5%) and chatrooms (2%).  Google Docs (now Google Apps) had a 25% rate of usage among lecturers but its Microsoft equivalent (Office 365) is not listed which appears to be an important omission.

The additional three-question anonymous online survey was designed to discover why lecturers in DIT generally didn’t use personal websites or tools such as twitter, audience response systems (clickers), mobile apps, open educational resources, ePortfolios, online games, lecture capture and social bookmarking.  Lack of time to explore and become confident in the use of such tools was cited regularly by the DIT lecturers surveyed as a reason for not using these technologies, both within and outside the VLE.  One lecturer said staff should get timetable reductions for engaging in distance learning over and above their face-to-face lectures.

In my opinion, a weakness in this piece of research is that the students of the lecturers involved in the survey were not also surveyed.  Just because these DIT lecturers have a low use of collaborative technologies, this does not mean that their students are not independently using these technologies in whole class groups or sub-groups especially outside of the VLE.  As a second level Maths teacher, I have discovered that students mainly use Facebook as their method of communication.

The paper concludes that a move away from the individual opt-in approach towards a system of planning and incentivisation at programme, school and institutional level may be what is required for lecturers to use the more interactive and collaborative tools within the VLE.

Survey Result 1 – Tool usage in Blackboard/Webcourses

The telephone survey included a section whereby participants were asked how they used Blackboard with their students by listing out the individual tools available within the VLE and asking them to indicate whether or not they have used or were aware of each one.  Figure 1 gives an overview of the responses.

(1) Sharing files (Word, PDF, etc.) (93%)
(2) Email tool (71%)
(3) Announcements (70%)
(4) Learning Modules (59%)
(5) Weblinks (54%)
(6) YouTube / other video (52%)
(7) Surveys / polls (incl. online Q6) (47%)
(8) SafeAssign (47%)
(9) Assignment dropbox (41%)
(10) Calendar (33%)
(11) Quizzes (26%)
(12) Messaging Tool (26%)
(13) Discussion Boards (19%)
(14) Wikis (12%)
(15) SMS Texting (11%)
(16) BB Mobile app (7%)
(17) Slideshare (7%)
(18) Private journals / Blogs (6%)
(19) Webinars (Wimba / Collaborate) (5%)
(20) Publisher Content (5%)
(21) Wimba Voice Tools (4%)
(22) Campus Pack (4%)
(23) Chatrooms (2%)
(24) Lockdown Browser (2%)

Survey Result 2 – Other Technologies Used

The telephone survey included a section about tools available to lecturers via the DIT applications suite but also extended to social networking and other tools available online: which ones are they aware of and/or how do lecturers use non-VLE tools in their teaching? Figure 2 gives an overview of the responses.

(1) Google Docs (25%)
(2) Ebooks (25%)
(3) Skype (16%)
(4) Digital Simulations (15%)
(5) Screencasts (12%)
(6) Twitter (10%)
(7) Clickers (10%)
(8) Personal Website (10%)
(9) Smart Board (7%)
(10) NDLR Materials (7%)
(11) Mobile Apps (7%)
(12) Flickr (6%)
(13) iPad / tablet (6%)
(14) ePortfolios (5%)
(15) Online games (5%)
(16) Echo360 (5%)
(17) Social Bookmarking (5%)
(18) Google+ / Hangouts (3%)
(19) Moocs (2%)
(20) Second life (1%)

References:

Risquez, A., McAvinia, C., Raftery, D., O’Riordan, F., Harding, N., Cosgrave, R., Logan-Phelan, T., & Farrelly, T. (2013). An Investigation of Students’ Experiences of using Virtual Learning Environments: implications for academic professional development. In C. O’Farrell & A. Farrell (Eds.), Emerging Issues III in Higher Education: from capacity building to sustainability. Dublin: EDIN. Retrieved: 12, June 2015 from http://www.edin.ie/pubs/ei3-chapters/ei3-ch8.pdf

Weller, M. (2007). The VLE/LMS is dead. The Ed Techie, Retrieved June 12, 2015, from http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2007/11/the-vlelms-is-d.html.

Zemsky, R., & Massy, W.F. (2004). Thwarted Innovation: What happened to e-learning and why. USA: The Learning Alliance at the University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved June 12, 2015.

KEY WATCHING – Daphne Koller’s Ted Talk: What we’re learning from online education (Response to Response)

Response from Gerard Kilkenny to Anne Mulvihill’s Response:

Anne, I think that this is a well-considered response to Daphne Koller’s 2013 TED talk.  Your response is logical, well-structured and succinctly identifies the two main reasons affecting course completion:  lack of instructor interaction and perceived effectiveness of content.  I have looked at what has happened to the MOOC since that 2013 TED talk and it appears that by the end of 2013, the media’s infatuation with MOOCs receded.

Since Daphne Koller’s 2013 TED talk, attempts have been made to deal with the two factors affecting course completion:  lack of instructor interaction and perceived effectiveness of content.  Picciano (2014) refers to the four waves of online learning and opines that the latest (4th wave) began in 2014 and is a mixture of blended learning (2nd wave) and the MOOC (3rd wave). In December 2013, Sebastian Thrun (founder of Udacity) was quoted as saying that he was giving up on MOOCs and that Udacity have a “lousy product”. (Chafkin, 2013).  In November 2013, Daphne Koller commented at Sloan Consortium’s Annual Conference that students who lack the basic skills of reading, writing and arithmetic would probably be better served by face-to-face instruction.  Koller went on to say that MOOC companies should consider the development of more pedagogically sound course materials that can be used in blended online formats rather than fully online formats.  (Koller, 2013).

Koller’s evangelical delivery in the TED talk reminded me of a similar delivery I witnessed from Mike Feerick during his keynote speech to the EdTech 2016 conference in Dublin.  Feerick is the Galway based founder & CEO of ALISON, which was launched in April 2007 and is widely credited as the world’s first MOOC (despite the claims of Stephen Downes and George Siemens!).  During this keynote, I remember Feerick telling his audience that his mission was to deliver free education to the (educationally) dispossessed and how ALISON does not charge for its courses.  This is untrue – ALISON does not have a subscription model of payment but it does rely on Internet advertising.  (Feerick, 2016).

References

Chafkin, M. (2013). Udacity’s Sebastian Thrun, godfather of free online education, changes course. Fast Company. Retrieved January 16, 2017, from http://www.fastcompany.com/3021473/udacity-sebastian-thrun-uphill-climb

Feerick, M. (2016).  Keynote presentation to Edtech 2016.  Retrieved January 16, 2017, from http://ilta.ie/edtech/edtech-2016/keynote-presenters/

Koller, D. (2013). Online learning: Learning without limits. Keynote presentation at the 19th Annual Sloan Consortium Conference on Online Learning. Orlando, FL.

Picciano, A. (2014).  A critical reflection of the current research in online and blended learning.  Retrieved January 16, 2017, from http://www.elmmagazine.eu/articles/a-critical-reflection-of-the-current-research-in-online-and-blended-learning

 

M2-Reflection

Reflection on Design Process for Composting Project

Tuesday 25th October 2016 (The Inauguration of the Compostivists)

During class today, Damian Gordon assigned the 11 students to 3 different groups. My group consisting of Allessio Gemma, Michael McKeever, Rachel Maguire any myself (Gerard Kilkenny) began life in Computer Room 2069. We discussed what subject areas we might base our project on and it wasn’t long before we adopted a suggestion from Michael McKeever that we use composting as the theme for our project. Damian asked us to give names to our groups so I suggested that we call ourselves The Compostivists (a play on the word Constructivist borrowed from the field of learning theories). We scheduled our first meeting for three days later in the Westbury Hotel, Dublin 2. Somehow, I already had a feeling that our group will work well together. Later that evening, I set up a group on WhatsApp for The Compostivists to instant message and invited Allesio, Michael and Rachel to join the group (which they did).

Saturday 29h October 2016 (Meeting 1 of the Compostivists – The Westbury Hotel)

I volunteered to carry out the development work for the eLearning resource (using Adobe Captivate 9) and Allesio signalled an interest in taking the lead on creating a storyboard for the resource.

The following areas of composting will be considered in developing the group’s Instructional Design/eAuthoring project:

  • Why compost
  • What to compost
  • How to compost
  • Where to compost (school, house, apartment, etc)
  • Science of composting
  • Economics of composting
  • Best practice composting
  • Duration of composting
  • Composting versus ‘Black Bin’
  • How composting influences retail purchasing choices for the consumer

The group decided to assign the following roles to group members and to organise the group’s work as follows:

Subject Matter Expert (SME):   Michael McKeever
Storyboarder:                              Allesio Gemma
Storyboarder:                              Rachel Maguire
Authoring Tools Specialist:       Gerard Kilkenny

Communication methods will include email, Whats App, face to face meetings. Michael McKeever will ask Dolores McManus to set up a virtual class for the group in DIT’s Blackboad LMS so that the group can use file sharing, chat, etc.

References:

http://elearninguncovered.com/2013/07/e-learning-production-roles/
http://theelearningcoach.com/elearning_design/starting-an-elearning-department/
https://elearningindustry.com/elearning-dream-team-key-players

Thursday 3rd November 2016 (Storyboarding and Video Editing)

Storyboarding with Adobe Captivate Draft on iPad

It was time to get my hands dirty with some new technologies. I discovered today that while Adobe Captivate 9 desktop version (for both Mac and Windows) is designed for authoring, there is an iPad app called Adobe Captivate Draft specifically designed for storyboarding. While I had paid the educational price of €429.27 (full price is €1,351.87) for the Adobe Captivate 9 desktop app, the Adobe Captivate Draft iPad app for storyboarding is free). Incidentally, the educational price of €429.27 allowed me to install Captivate on both my iMac and my Windows 10 laptop. I prefer to use the larger screen (21.5 inch) and more powerful iMac (16GB RAM) to my Windows 10 laptop (8 GB RAM) for authoring.

I discovered that the conduit for passing the storyboarding content developed on my iPad for later authoring on my iMac is Adobe Creative cloud. I already use iCloud (Apple), OneDrive (Microsoft) and Dropbox. I appeared to have no choice so I downloaded and installed the iMac app and iPad app (for Adobe Creative Cloud) onto the appropriate devices. I discovered that I could sign in using my existing Adobe Id that I had when I created an Adobe account for Adobe Reader services a long time ago. So, I set about experimenting with Captivate Draft for storyboarding on my iPad and found that it is relatively easy to use. Later, I created Adobe Captivate Draft test storyboard file (.CPDX file) on my iPad and uploaded this file to Adobe Creative Cloud. I then managed to open this storyboard CPDX file in Adobe Captivate desktop app on my iMac and then saved its as a CPTX file for authoring using the full blown Adobe Captivate desktop app on my iMac.

Video Editing with Total Video Downloader for Mac

I reviewed YouTube Downloaders from:

http://mac.eltima.com/list-of-best-youtube-downloaders.html

Later, I downloaded and installed Total Video Downloader for Mac. I downloaded a 30 second waste management video from YouTube and edited it to a 5 second video using iMovie.  I had used neither of these applications before so I felt quite pleased with myself.

I simultaneously developed part of a composting lesson in Adobe Captivate and Microsoft Powerpoint. I used PowerPoint as well as Captivate for two reasons. First, I wanted to carry out a a comparitative analysis (for myself) of the development process for both of these products. Second, I wanted to find a way of being able to easily pass on my authoring work to the rest of the group who didn’t have Adobe Captivate. (Later, I abandoned this dual development as I became more familiar with Captivate and discovered that I simply didn’t have time to try to replicate my Captivate work in PowerPoint).

I published the Adobe Captivate Project file in HTML 5 format. This means that the single project file is converted into multiple files which, when uploaded to a website, can be opened and viewed in a browser. Specifically, I uploaded this Adobe Captivate Project to gerardkilkenny.ie/compost using the FileZilla FTP application for Mac. I tested that it worked using the URL http://gerardkilkenny.ie/compost/ and it worked!

Tuesday 8th November 2016 – Class (Personas and Learning Outcomes)

The Personas section of today’s class (Lesson 3 of 8) was about the creation of fictional characters to guide your design.  Rather than designing your artefact for every possible user, the idea of personas is that you design for small number of fictional users. An example of a user profile for a particular persona could be:

Name: Susan Normal
Age: 18 years old
Size: 5’8″

Ultimately, my group the Compostivists decided to use a persona in developing the storyboard. It was decided that the persona would be a Transition Year student (approximately 15 years old) who would be influenced enough by the composting lesson to persuade his/her parents to begin composting at home.

The Learning Outcomes section of today’s class was an examination of Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives that I had previously seen in Module 1 (Learning Theories). Even though Bloom’s taxonomy is at its most useful when applied to course design (at a macro level), it was still important for my group when designing the lesson objectives of why, what, how and where (at a micro level) on what was to become the Menu Page.

It was important that today’s class began looking at instructional design models – in particular the ADDIE model and the 7Cs of Learning Design. This encouraged me to some reading later in the week on instructional design.

Wednesday 9th November 2016 (Bolton Street Library – LTTC Section)

I found and borrowed 10 of the 11 books on the Essential Reading List.  This took about one hour but I had found all of the library references for these books yesterday in Aungier Street Library. I brought a rucksack with me to carry the books home!

Thursday 10th November 2016 – Annotated Bibliography 1 (Instructional Design)

I was anxious to learn more about instructional design so I decided that my first annotated bibliography will deal with this subject.  I read the following chapter from Carliner’s 2008 book which is on the ‘Essential Reading List’:

Carliner, S. (2008) A Holistic Framework of Instructional Design for eLearning. In S. Carliner & P. Shank (Eds.) The e-Learning Handbook: Past Promises, Present Challenges (pp.307-358). San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Later, I wrote an annotated bibliography of this chapter. I enjoyed the chapter and found it interesting. I began to understand that the subject of instructional design can be quite academic and complex having its historical roots in the second world war.

Saturday 12th November 2016 – (Meeting 2 of the Compostivists – DIT Kevin Street)

The following summarises progress to date:

  • Storyboard Mk1 Microsoft PowerPoint file (developed by Allesio and Rachel)
  • Authoring Mk1 Adobe Captivate and Microsoft PowerPoint files (developed by Gerry)
  • Webcourses LMS Module (organised by Mick)

The group reviewed Storyboard Mk1 mainly by referencing the ‘Site Plan’ (flow chart) contained in the Powerpoint Mk1 file. The group discussed, and ultimately agreed on, the merits of including the following revisions to Storyboard Mk2:

  • having an engaging launch to the Captivate lesson, in order to grab the students’ interest   and pull them in. This is called a lesson ‘hook’. This could be a short video or animation
  • having a short section, early in the Captivate lesson, on separating the different types of waste for grey bin, green bin, brown bin
  • the location and types of assessment (called ‘quizes’ in Captivate) within the Captivate lesson (assessment at the start for adaptive learning and assessment post-tutorial for summative assessment)
  • customising the background and ‘Actors’ (a feature of Captivate) used in the Captivate lesson for the two types of user: child and adult
  • implementing adaptive learning by using the ‘branching’ feature of Captivate
  • having links from an ‘About the Group’ section to each group member’s ePortfolios.

The group made the following decisions:

  1. To create a Storyboard Mk 2 file to include the items outlined above (Allesio and Rachel).
  2. To investigate how to use the Captivate features ‘Actors’, ‘Branching’ and ‘Assessment’ (Gerry).
  3. To provide expert knowledge on composting for the Captivate lesson (Mick)
  4. To source appropriate digital content for the Captivate lesson (Allesio, Rachel, Gerry, Mick).

Tuesday 15th November 2016 – Class (Instructional Design Models)

The Instructional Design Models section of today’s class looked at the a plethora of different models. However, the most important and popular macro models of instructional design are probably the ADDIE Model followed by the Dick and Carey Model.  As Damian pointed out, most of the models tend to be some variation of the ADDIE Model.  Bloom’s Taxonomy of Educational Objectives is still important in relation to instructional design at the macro level.

The most important and popular micro model of instructional design is probably Gagné’s Nine Events of Instruction. My group decided that it was important to use Gagné’s Events as we were designing a lesson (and not a course) on composting.

For me, the delineation between macro models (for course design) and micro models (for lesson design) of instructional design was probably the most important outcome of today’s class.

Saturday 19th November 2016 – Annotated Bibliography 2 (Adobe Captivate)

I was interested in writing an annotated bibliography on Adobe Captivate as this is the development tool that my group The Compostivists has decided to use for its project.  I read the following research paper from 2014:

Duvall, M. (2014). Adobe Captivate as a Tool to Create eLearning Scenarios. In T. Bastiaens (Ed.), Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2014 (pp. 514-517). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Monday 21st November 2016 – (Meeting 3 of the Compostivists – Blackboard)

Dolores McManus set up a group for The Compostivists on Webcourses with Michael McKeever as tutor. The remote meeting was due to take plave at 8 pm and by 8.10 pm, we had all of the technology working as a group and individually. This was my first time using videoconderencing software. We discovered that the two most useful way to use the software was to have only one person speaking (at all times) and to use the text chat feature for the other particiants to join in the conversation. Additionally, the shared whiteboard was very useful so that all participants could see and write on the same screen. We found that seeing video images of the participants to be of no benefit and we switched this feature off at an early juncture.

The group looked at the second iteration of the Storyboard file (created in Microsoft PowerPoint) and other than minor proposed changes, the group was happy that this would be the basis for producing the eLearning artefact. I captured nine screenshots of this meeting.

Saturday 26th November 2016 – Annotated Bibliography 3 (Applying the Contiguity Principle)

I was aware that I would be using audio narration in the eLearning artefact that I was to develop as part of my group’s composting project. With this in mind, I decided that I would read the following chapter from the Clark and Mayer book:

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011) Applying the Contiguity Principle. In Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E., E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

The second contiguity principle is the principle that spoken words should be synchronised with corresponding graphics.  The instructional designer is advised that when spoken words describe actions in the graphics (including animation and video) in an eLearning course, corresponding spoken words and graphics should be presented at the same time.  The authors borrow from the world of cognitive learning theory to explain why the narration should not be separated from the graphics.  If the learner listens to a narration followed by an animation, he needs to retain the relevant words in working memory so as to match up the appropriate words with the corresponding segment of the animation.

Sunday 27th November 2016 – Annotated Bibliography 4 (E-learning 2.0)

I was aware that Stephen Downes 2005 paper E-Learning 2.0 is considered to be a classic in the field of eLearning. Since I would be publishing an eLearning artefact on composting for the web, I thought that it was important that I should read this paper. Additionally, I hoped that I would develop a sense of the history of eLearning in the context of the web.

Tuesday 29th November 2016 – Annotated Bibliography 5 (Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age)

I understood that Connectivism is the most modern learning theory and that it was the only learning theory to be developed since the mainstram adoption of the computer in society. I was also aware that like Downes paper in the same year (2005), Siemens (a fellow Canadian) paper is also considered a classic.

Saturday/Sunday 3rd/4th December 2016 – Authoring using Adobe Captivate 9

Project Times
===========
Organise Images –   12:30 – 13:30 (1 hour)
Drag and Drop –       14:30 – 22:30 (8 hours)
3 Narration Slides – 22:30 – 06:30 (8 hours)

Introduction
===========

Adobe Captivate 9 has a steep learning curve. I had spent about a day some months ago trying to come to terms with, and learn, Adobe Captivate. Other than that period of time, I was a complete novice to this application. This weekend, I spent 17 hours trying to create the eLearning artefact from the Storyboard Mk2 (Microsoft PowerPoint file). Incidentally, I spent the first hour organising (renaming, filing, etc) images of waste items and bins that Michael McKeever had photographed and emailed to me this morning.

Drag and Drop
============

Trying to implement the drag and drop slides alone took 8 hours of my time. Trying to implement drag and drop with multiple objects to drag and multiple objects to drop is not possible to properly implent in Captivate. In the end, I had to implement it by dragging one object to multiple objects (for drops) per slide. It is very difficult overall, has a lot of complexity attached to it and the softare appears to be cumbersome and contains an amount of bugs.

If you put multiple waste items on the one slide, Adobe Captivate only informs the user that he is correct if all the dropped items are fully correct. If you get even one item incorrect (say out of 5 items, i.e. you are 80% correct) from multiple waste items, Adobe Captivate informs the user that he is incorrect.

So, I put placed one waste item only per slide so that the user could get feedback as to whether he was correct or incorrect for that item.

I didn’t want the user to have to click on the Submit button to get feedback. After some research, I discovered a way of dispensing with the need to use this button via the following link:

https://forums.adobe.com/thread/1280136

Basically, you tick the checkbox Auto Submit Correct Answers.

I learned how to implement drag and drop via the link:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTtL74chAnU&spfreload=10

Narration
========

I spent another 8 hours creating 3 slides with narration. In the end I was very happy with the way the narration slides turned out. The audio is created by speaking directly at your computer (in my case an iMac) and is crystal clear. It is one of the features of Captivate that I think is excellent and quote easy to use once I figured out how timing worked for the different objects on the Captivate screen (which is called a stage in Captivate). I used cartoon type figures (called actors in Captivate) as the narrators.

Lessons to be learned!
===================

Renaming images can mess up drag and drop.
Careful and tedious naming of text captions is really important.
Timing within slides is everything!

Links
=====
Adobe Feature Request
http://www.adobe.com/products/wishform.html

Blog by Captivate Expert
http://blog.lilybiri.com/drag-and-drop-in-2016-with-captivate-9

Very good (and long) Captivate thread in Adobe forum
https://forums.adobe.com/thread/853505

Saturday/Sunday 10th/11th December 2016 – Authoring using Adobe Captivate 9

Project Times
===========
Branching –      13:00 – 16:00 (3 hours) (Saturday)
Menu page –     16:30 – 17:30 (1 hour)   (Saturday)
Assessment –    18:00 – 20:00 (2 hours) (Saturday)
Audio/Music –  12:00 – 15:00 (3 hours) (Sunday)
Other slides –   15:30 – 23:30 (8 hours) (Sunday)

Adobe Captivate 9 runs as an automatic slideshow, continuously from start to end, by default. This is equivalent to ‘kiosk mode’ in Microsoft PowerPoint. I had to disable this mode and remove the default navigation ‘timeline’ at the bottom of the screen. I found a checkbox to do this in Captivate ‘Preferences’ and then replaced it by creating and adding Captivate (Windows style) command buttons for ‘Next, ‘Previous’ and ‘Menu’. I also created buttons on the ‘Menu Page’ that allows the user to go directly to the screens defined by the learning outcomes ‘Why’, ‘What’, ‘How’ and ‘Where’.

Free Audio
=========
I discovered free audio clips at the following website:

http://www.orangefreesounds.com

I downloaded free audio clips (in MP3 format) for correct and wrong answers for the drag and drop assessment at the beginning of the artefact.

The following text is in a Read.txt file that accompanies each MP3 audio file:

Hello from Orange Free Sounds,
Stock audio – Free sound effects, loops and music.
There are no hidden costs or need to sign-up.
Licence: The sound effect is permitted for non-commercial use under license ìAttribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0)
http://www.orangefreesounds.com/

This licence (which was covered in Week 6 by Pauline Rooney) is of the following type: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International

According to the appropriate section of the Creative Commons website at the following link:
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

….. you are free to:

Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format
Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.
NonCommercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

The Big Bang Theory Theme Song
============================

http://www.televisiontunes.com/Big_Bang_Theory_-_Full_(The).html

Monday 13th December 2016 – Authoring using Adobe Captivate

Project Times
============
Remaining slides –   20:30 – 23:00 (3 hours)
Test and fix-              23:30 – 01:30 (2 hours)
Publish to website – 02:00 – 03:00 (1 hour)

I was anxious to get the eLearning artefact fully working for the class presentation tomorrow Tuesday 14th December 2016. I also felt a responsibility towards by fellow group members who had places their trust in me to develop this eLearning artefact.

References

Carliner, S. (2008) A Holistic Framework of Instructional Design for eLearning. In S. Carliner & P. Shank (Eds.) The e-Learning Handbook: Past Promises, Present Challenges (pp.307-358). San Francisco: Pfeiffer.

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011) Applying the Contiguity Principle. In Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E., E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. San Francisco, CA: Pfeiffer.

Dick, W., Carey, L. & Carey, J. (2000). The systematic design of instruction (5th ed.). Burlington, MA: Addison-Wesley.

Smith, P.L. & Ragan, T.J. (2004). Instructional design (3rd Ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Downes, S. (2005). E-learning 2.0. eLearn Magazine, 2005(10), 1.

Duvall, M. (2014). Adobe Captivate as a Tool to Create eLearning Scenarios. In T. Bastiaens (Ed.), Proceedings of E-Learn: World Conference on E-Learning in Corporate, Government, Healthcare, and Higher Education 2014 (pp. 514-517). Chesapeake, VA: Association for the Advancement of Computing in Education (AACE).

Reigeluth, C.M. (2009). Instructional-design theories and models: A new paradigm of instructional theory. (Vol II) Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1), 3-9.

M2-Annotated Bibliography 5

Annotated Bibliography 5

Siemens, G. (2005). Connectivism: A Learning Theory for the Digital Age. International Journal of Instructional Technology and Distance Learning, 2(1), 3-9.

http://www.itdl.org/journal/jan_05/jan_05.pdf

In this seminal 2005 paper, which has 3,848 citations to date, George Siemens begins by making the case for a new learning theory.  He argues that behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism, that were developed before computers, are no longer adequate as they don’t reflect the underlying social environment.  He draws on a paper on blended learning to provide evidence that knowledge is increasing exponentially, and also that the time taken for knowledge to become obsolete is getting shorter.  He refers to the latter as the “shrinking half life” of knowledge and claims that this presents new challenges for teaching and learning. (Gonzalez, 2004).

Siemens explores the three main learning theories:  behaviourism, cognitivism, and constructivism and the three epistemological traditions to which they are linked:  objectivism, pragmatism and interpretivism. (Driscoll, 2000).  He uses five references to the literature during this background exploration but perhaps refers too often (three citations out of five) to Marcy P. Driscoll.  The author argues that in all of the main learning theories, learning occurs inside the person.  He points out that these theories don’t attempt to explain organisational learning or machine learning.  Bob Dylan warned of “…your useless and pointless knowledge” in his classic 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited, (Dylan, 1965).  Exactly forty years later, Siemens attests that “…the need to evaluate the worthiness of learning something is a meta-skill that is applied before learning itself begins.” (Siemens, 2005, p.5).

The path to connectivism, along which Siemens brings the reader, is often less than smooth.  The section where he argues for the inclusion of chaos, in the fabric of learning theories, could be cognitively challenging for some readers.  He defines chaos as “a cryptic form of order” and believes that the learner’s challenge is to recognise these hidden patterns.  (ScienceWeek, 2004).  Later in his paper, the reason for Siemens allusion to chaos theory becomes somewhat apparent.  He appears to be drawing a parallel between the ability to form connections between sources of information to create useful information patterns, and the hidden pattern within chaos.  This reviewer notes that this skill is not unlike that required for data mining.  Phil and Kamber (2011, p.8) describe data mining as “…an essential process where intelligent methods are applied to extract data patterns”.

Siemens uses a computer network metaphor when he writes about nodes and connections.  He suggests that the nodes can be fields or communities, and that when nodes gain recognition for being experts, they attract more connections. The author refers to the cross-pollination of learning communities and the value of making connections between disparate fields to create new innovations.

At this juncture, Siemens hardly refers to the literature and makes the case from here until the end of the paper for his own theory, connectivism.  He outlines his eight principles of connectivism.  One of these is that the capacity to know more is more critical than what is currently known.  This is essentially a different word formulation for the proverb “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”.  Two of the principles could be merged into the single principle that learning is a process of connecting specialised nodes and maintaining these connections to facilitate continual learning.  The principle that learning may reside in non-human appliances appears to be borrowed from the field of artificial intelligence.  Siemens takes some time to make an articulate and passionate argument for the importance of knowledge management and information flow within organisations.  The essence of his theory is that connectivism is the “…amplification of learning, knowledge and understanding through the extension of a personal network.”

Siemens argues that connectivism has implications for management and leadership, media and news, personal knowledge management and the design of learning environments.  As knowledge continues to grow, Siemens places a higher value on access to knowledge than knowledge the learner currently possesses.  The author concludes that connectivism presents a model of learning which is no longer an individualistic activity.

References

Driscoll, M. (2000). Psychology of Learning for Instruction. Needham Heights, MA, Allyn & Bacon

Dylan, B. (1965). Tombstone Blues.  Retrieved November 28, 2016, from http://bobdylan.com/songs/tombstone-blues/

Gonzalez, C., (2004). The Role of Blended Learning in the World of Technology. Retrieved December 10, 2004, from http://www.unt.edu/benchmarks/archives/2004/september04/eis.htm.

Han, J., Pei, J., & Kamber, M. (2011). Data mining: concepts and techniques. Elsevier.

ScienceWeek (2004) Mathematics: Catastrophe Theory, Strange Attractors, Chaos. Retrieved December 10, 2004, from http://scienceweek.com/2003/sc031226-2.htm.