Instructional Design & eAuthoring Module (Week 5)
The following is a reflection on the week immediately after the class that took place on Tuesday 22nd November 2016 using Gibbs Reflective Cycle.
Wednesday 23rd November 2016 – PDST TECHNOLOGY IN EDUCATION ICT CONFERENCE
Description
PDST/PDST Technology in Education, in conjunction with the ICT committee of NAPD, hosted a conference for school leaders providing an opportunity for all attendees to consider a number of whole school issues in advance of annual funding being released by the Department of Education and Skills (DES) as per the Department of Education and Skills Digital Strategy for Schools (2015 – 2020). I attended this full day conference in The Convention Centre Dublin.
Summary of reflections of today’s conference:
(1) ePortfolios for TY students
(2) Microsoft OneNote (Microsoft Classroom) for ePortfolio.
(3) A constructivist pedagogical orientation is encouraged according to Seán Gallagher, Deputy Director, PDST.
(4) €210 million for all primary and secondary schools over five years.
(5) Probably €15,000 per year for my school.
(6) A WiFi infrastructure in my school is likely to cost in the region of €25,000.
Feelings
I hadn’t been in The Convention Centre Dublin before. It’s an extremely impressive large light-filled modern building overlooking the River Liffey on Dublin’s north quays.
Evaluation
This was a very good conference. I learned about a Transition Year pilot project (which is due to go mainstream in 2017) where students use ePortfolios for storage, workspace and showcase instead of hard copy folders of their work for the year. I discovered that one of the schools that presented at the conference (Colaiste Muire, Ennis) use OneNote Online for their ePortfolios. This is an Office 365 tool and Colaiste Muire is an Office 365 School. My own school is an Office 365 School so it makes sense that my school evaluates OneNote Online as a tool for creating ePortfolios.
Analysis
The conference began with the following two keynotes. The first keynote by Jim Devine (who is based in Joint Research Centre (JRC), Seville) looked at an EU digital learning project (DigComp 2.0). The second keynote from Seán Gallagher looked at the situation nationally and in particular the funding in relation to the current five year National Strategy (2015 – 2020). He mentioned that the PDST try to champion a constructivist pedagogical orientation and favour ongoing assessment. There are ‘good practice’ videos on the PDST website. He also looked at the Scoilnet website (created and managed by PDST Technology in Education) and in particular the following digital material on this website:
– Irish Times Archive
– Maps
– Science hooks
– Licenced Digital Content (encyclopaedias, etc)
– Census At School
– Arts in Education
Conclusions
It was interesting to see that ePortfolios are now being encouraged in second level schools as well as being something that is an integral part of my MSc in Applied eLearning degree course.
Personal Action Plans
Inform the Transition Year Co-ordinator in my school about the ePortfolio pilot project.
Encourage my colleagues to register for the excellent Scoilnet website.
Friday 25th November 2016 – FEEDBACK & RESULT (LEARNING THEORIES PAPER)
Description
I received my result and feedback by email from Claire McAvinia today on my Learning Theories paper. I received 4 passes out of 4 in the areas covered by the marking rubric for the paper. The main areas which could have been improved were my ‘Conclusion’ section and by providing more examples linked to my professional practice. I did a section at the end called Implications for Instructional Design without referring to this section earlier in the paper. There were a very small number of slightly incorrect APA citations / references. The overall feedback was very favourable towards my paper.
Feelings
I was pleased but not surprised that I had passed all sections (as per the rubrick) of Module 1 (Learning Theories). I had spent a lot of time reading for and writing this paper with twenty nine references in total.
Evaluation
I didn’t have a ‘Conclusion’ section and this is something that I must include next time I write a paper. I could have provided more examples linked to my professional practice but I had reached my word count quota (of 2200) words.
Analysis
I began work on the paper quite early and I devoted about five weekends to it. I think that the key to writing a good paper is to do enough background reading to feel comfortable with the topic, create a structure for the paper, write a full draft of the paper and finally distill the paper to its final version through a series of edits.
Conclusion
I’m happy that I passed and I think that I was already aware of my paper’s minor shortcomings (other than APA) prior to receiving feedback.
Personal Action Plans
None.
Sunday 27th November 2016 – ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 3 AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY 4
Description
I wrote two annotated bibliographies this weekend:
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.
Downes, S. (2005). E-learning 2.0. eLearn Magazine, 2005(10), 1.
While reading Stephen Downes hugely influential 2005 paper E-Learning 2.0, I came across the first reference below which in turn refers to the second reference below
The E-Learning Framework (2004 – 2012 – archived and defunct)
http://www.elframework.org/framework/index.html
Cetus LLP
http://cetis.org.uk
Also check out IMS Global Learning consortium
http://www.imsglobal.org
Monday 28th November 2016 – HOMEWORK FOR TOMORROW’S CLASS
Description
I prepared for next Tuesday’s class (Week 6) on Instructional Design and eAuthoring by doing a comparative analysis of Articulate Storyline 2 versus Adobe Captivate 9. I divided this up between SECTION A – SUMMARY and SECTION B – MORE DETAIL but I have provide just the summary here:
_________________________
SECTION A – SUMMARY
_________________________
(1) Comparison between Adobe Captivate 9 and Articulate Storyline 2 (link):
http://ecoach.com/articles/storyline2-vs-captivate9/
Overall
======
Storyline verus Captivate (Storyline % first versus Captivate % second)
LEARNING CURVE (75% versus 60%)
MOBILE LEARNING (20% versus 90%)
COMMUNITY (90% versus 50%)
PRICE (60% versus 75%)
PUBLISHING OPTIONS (90% versus 95%)
_____________________________________________
OVERALL (67% versus 87%)
_____________________________________________
(2) Adobe Captivate 9 Pricing (including VAT)
€1,351.87 Full Licence Price
€552.27 Upgrade Price
€429.27 Student & Teacher Edition
€442.48 Subscription (€36.89 per month)
(3) Annotated Bibliography
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).
I read the following paper that looks at how instructional design can bring about constructivist learning.
https://sites.google.com/a/boisestate.edu/edtech504/using-instructional-design-to-implement-constructivist-e-learning-1
Feelings
Although Articulate Storyline 2 and Adobe Captivate 9 are similar products, Captivate comes out with a higher review score. I was pleased that I had reviewed these products in the past and that I appear (objectively) to have been correct in choosing to purchase Captivate. This was a major decision with both products costing approximately €1,300 although I managed to purchase an academic version of Captivate for approximately €400.
Evaluation
Adobe Captivate scores much higher than Articulate Storyline for its mobile learning features (90% versus 20%). This is probably because Captivate allows for app development and responsive design whereas Storyline does not. However, Articulate Storyline scores much higher than Adobe Captivate for its community of practice (90% versus 50%).
Analysis
Overall, Captivate scores 20% higher than Articulate (87% versus 67%).
Conclusion
Adobe Captivate is a better product overall than Articulate Storyline. Also, see the following link:
Adobe Captivate 6 Vs Articulate Storyline
Personal Action Plans
None.
