Matt Dundas :: Blog

http://openlearn.open.ac.uk/course/view.php?id=1735

For my OpenLearn assignment, I chose to study Motion Under Gravity. The lesson starts with a brief history of gravity, and gives the user some learning outcomes that they should learn by the end of the tutorial. I think this is a nice feature for e-learning because knowing what you are about to learn will help you learn it since you know the topics that will be included in the lesson. As I was going through the tutorial, I found that it was mostly text. It seems like the farther I got, the more text there was. Personally, I think too much text becomes hard to understand. I found myself having to reread several parts of the lesson over again to understand them. The lesson did have many diagrams that were pretty easy to understand. I feel like if it had even more diagrams with concise descriptions, then the lesson would have been much better and easier to understand.

The user interactivity in the lesson was minimal. There were only a couple areas where the user was actually able to click something and get a response. Questions were given on each page of the tutorial. After the user got a chance to read and understand the question, they could click a link that said ‘view the discussion’ or ‘view the answer’, and more text would appear that would explain the question in detail. I also noticed that the lesson didn’t have any videos whatsoever, which I feel causes the whole tutorial to fall short of being successful. You can never know if the user viewing your tutorial will be a more text-based learner, or a video-based, so catering to both of these types will guarantee that the people who take your lesson will learn it easily.

Before viewing the lesson, I knew just a little about gravity. I knew what it was, what it did, just the basics. After reading the lesson, I was hoping to have learned much much more, but I didn’t. I feel this was because the overwhelming amount of text I had to read. After the first couple pages, it seemed like the lesson wa sn’t being clear enough, or providing enough ways to learn the content. With this in mind, I knew the rest of the lesson would be the same, so I wasn’t as interested in reading it as I was prior to starting. The first couple pages were actually pretty interesting, but after that, the lack of interactivity and videos made the lesson hard to enjoy. If I was doing this lesson on my own time, and not for class, I would have left the site and tried to find another one. I think this lesson was meant for people who like learning through textbooks or other similar mediums. I think this lesson would be better if it were spread out more. The content is organized by well, but there is too much of it at once. Spreading it to a couple of pages would make it a longer tutorial, but much easier to comprehend, so that’s a small cost to pay to satisfy the user.

In closing, I think the lesson was pretty decent overall. It just didn’t have enough ways to present the information to the user to help them understand. With no videos, minimal user interactivity, and an overwhelming amount of text, I feel that this lesson was not successful in teaching me about gravity. Or maybe I just don’t understand gravity.

Just noticed that I posted my proposal to the wrong WordPress blog, so here it is:

For my e-learning website, I will be creating a site that provides users with Flash tutorials primarily dealing with Actionscript. The problem I intend to solve would be to introduce Actionscript to a user who has beginner/intermediate-level experience with Flash. The site will feature a variety of Actionscript tutorials that will explain to the user in great detail how to accomplish a certain task using Actionscript. If the tutorial is how to make a ball bounce using Actionscript, it will first discuss how everything works, such as the physics behind a ball bouncing. Giving the user a wealth of information will help them learn better, and make their Actionscript exercises more successful. The tutorials on the site will be separated by level of difficulty so a beginner doesn’t accidentally access an advanced tutorial. However, the site will focus on having more beginner tutorials than advanced ones. The tutorials will be delivered in a number of ways, including through audio/video, step-by-step tutorials, and user-submitted videos.

The target audience for my site will be a man or woman age 16-40. The 16-21 age range will be using the site to find basic tutorials, since they most likely use Flash for leisure. The 21-40 age range will be using the site to find more advanced tutorials, since they will most likely be working in the design industry, and be familiar with Flash.

I plan on creating the site using Adobe Flash because I feel that using Flash, I will be able to let the user interact with the tutorials, which greatly helps the learning process. I will also use imaging programs such as Photoshop and Illustrator to create the images used on my site, and of course, the Internet for research purposes.

• Ning:

Ning is an online platform for people to create their own social network. Ning can be used in an e-learning project by allowing you to address questions to your social network that can be answered by anyone in that network. Any type of e-learning activity can be incorporated with Ning, since all you have to do is create a social network and invite people to join. If you wanted to get some help on how to build a computer, you can just make your group and ask any question you have to the people in that group.

• Skype

Skype is simply a software application that lets you make calls over the Internet. If you have a webcam, you can even have a video conversation with someone. I think this is a great application for e-learning because with the use of voice and video, you can be taught almost anything. Programs like Skype are making e-learning easier and easier since you can communicate with people via Skype just as easily as you can in person. The Skype website even features many ‘extras’ you can add to Skype that will make e-learning even easier.

• Twitter

Twitter is a free social networking and micro-blogging service that enables its users to send and read other users’ updates known as tweets.Of the three technologies I researched, I think Twitter is the least efffective for e-learning. The site is mainly used to post what’s on your mind, not to teach someone how to use Photoshop. Sure, Twitter can be used as an e-learning application, but since that’s not what it’s made to do, the process will take much longer than it would have if a user had used Skype or a weblog.

http://steve-wheeler.blogspot.com/2009/01/teaching-with-twitter.html

This article discusses using Twitter as an e-learning application. It mentions some good ways Twitter can be used to teach online, but also brings up some points that make the application unfit for e-learning. With a limit of 140 characters per post, using Twitter for e-learning would force a user to limit their questions, which might make the teacher misunderstand the question.

1. Lesson 1: Learning to Play Guitar
2. Lesson 2: CSS Tutorial
3. Lesson 3: Flash Menu Tutorial
4. Lesson 4: Building a Resume
5. Lesson 5: How to Build a Computer

• http://guitar.about.com/library/blguitarlessonarchive.htm

The first lesson I chose was how to play guitar. I chose it because guitar is something I never learned that well, and I would like to. The first thing I noticed about this site is that its organized very well. It has 11 different lessons that progressively get more advanced. The first one starts with the most basic guitar knowledge so anyone at all can learn how to play guitar. From there, it starts teachnig you scales, chords, and all sorts of techniques for playing guitar. In addition to having lots of great content about how to play guitar, the lessons also had videos and pictures to help guide you along, which is very helpful. Alot of sites just tell you what to do, and assume you already know the basics of the content being taught. For an e-learning site, it is very important to teach a topic the way this site does. Its good to start with the basics, slowly get more advanced, and include videos and images with the lessons to help the visual learners.

• http://www.html.net/tutorials/css/lesson1.asp

This next tutorial teaches you about CSS. I chose it because I already know the basics of CSS, but would like to look at a couple more advanced aspects, such as the z-index. On this site, I discovered a pretty good explanation of the language, and lots of good tutorials that were accompanied by detailed examples. On sites like these, where a user might be learning about CSS for the first time, I think its especially important to have detailed examples and diagrams so the user has more information to help them learn. There were no videos on the site, which I think would have been useful for some of the tutorials. For an e-learning site, I think this site is pretty decent. I feel like there are alot more aspects of CSS that the site could have covered. However, the information it DID cover was covered well.

• http://www.toxiclab.org/tutorial.asp?ID=85

The third tutorial I found shows you how to make an animated flash menu for a website. I feel that my websites could use a little animation in them, so this tutorial will be useful for me. When I entered the site, I found it pretty easy to get started with the learning process. The tutorial starts by summarizing exactly what will be taught in the tutorial, followed by what the final result will be from the tutorial. I thought showing the final product was helpful because it lets you know what direction you’re headed in, and can even give you a chance to understand the ActionScript better since you see what you are trying to create. The explanations used in the tutorial are pretty clear; even a new Flash user would be able to get along pretty easily. As an e-learning site, this site is pretty decent for learning Flash menus. There are some directions that could be clearer (one step tells you to move your text ‘a little’ to the right, which might be unclear to some people). Also, the tutorial would benefit from having videos, and maybe some different techniques for completing Flash menus.

• http://www.jobaccess.gov.au/JOAC/Jobseekers/Getting_work/How_to_apply_for_a_job/How_to_build_a_resume/

The 4th lesson I chose was how to build a resume. I chose it because building a resume is important, and its something I need to do. The site was pretty clean in terms of design, and the content was organized by the different pasrts of a resume. There was alot of content on the site, and I think some of it could have been left out, but leaving it in there is a good way of making sure the information on the site will be understood. After browsing this page for awhile, I found that the site not only deals with building resumes, but with many different aspects of employment. There are tutorials on how to find a job, how to apply for one, and even how to thrive at work. As an e-learning site, the site tells you how to build a resume very well. It lets you know all of the important stuff you should put on your resume, and even gives you some exemple resumes at the bottom of the tutorial. I think having various tutorials pertaining to employment makes this site a very successful e-learning site.

• http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/how-to-tech/build-a-computer.htm
  

This tutorial shows how to build a computer from scratch. I was interested in this tutorial because the computer I currently have is ready to be replaced, and making a computer from scratch typically costs less than buying one made from Dell or Best Buy. I took a class over computer building a couple quarters ago, but I still need a tutorial to help me figure things out that I either forgot or am just unclear about. The tutorial starts by giving a background to computers, and how to build one that fits your needs. I found several tutorials that give a much shorter tutorial, that starts with telling you just where to put each hardware component, instead of telling you what the component itself does. This tutorial helps you choose which hardware components are best for you, and how they work. Essentially, this tutorial not only tells you HOW to build a computer, but it also teaches you about a computer, and how they work, which is very important if you want the computer you build to last. I feel that this is a very successful e-learning site because it tells you everything you need to know about a particular topic, instead of covering just a small part of the topic. Many e-learning sites overlook this important step, which might end up confusing the user, and cause them to try and find the tutorial elsewhere.

Logo 1: http://aid.aiistudentwork.com/pl/motion/dundas_m/wk2/logo1.html

I didn’t run into any problems while making this logo. The design is a sound wave with the name of the company, with a black and orange color scheme. This one is my favorite, because I think it looks best out of the 3, and it will be easiest to animate. Not necessarily easy as in it will take me no time to animate it, but easy in the sense that I feel I can do alot of different things with the logo using Flash.

Logo 2: http://aid.aiistudentwork.com/pl/motion/dundas_m/wk2/logo2.html

I didn’t run into any problems while making this logo either. Its pretty simple; it consists of 2 tilted triangles with the entity name to the right of it. The color scheme is the same orange and black as the first logo.

Logo 3: http://aid.aiistudentwork.com/pl/motion/dundas_m/wk2/logo3.html

Like the first 2 logos, this one posed no problems during creation. However, out of the 3, I like this one least. Its basically the second logo, except tilted slightly. I don’t think the tilt effect ended up looking as cool as I thought it would. The color scheme, again, is orange and black. Even if the logo did end up looking like I thought it would, I’m pretty sure I would like the first logo most anyways.