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02 Sep 09

Site de photographe : ce que les visiteurs veulent voir | Journal Photo

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web design photography personal website

25 Aug 09

Innovate: Genome Island: A Virtual Science Environment in Second Life

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e-learning design virtual_world

Virtual experiments performed in Second Life laboratories offer students activities that are both hands-on and minds-on, making it possible for students to replicate classic experiments or perform laboratory activities that might be too dangerous, too expensive, or too time-consuming in the real world. As an added benefit, the social environment invites conversation outside of formal class hours, and the game-like environment of Second Life encourages exploration
Laszlo identifies aspects of play in both the intellectual and procedural components of doing science: Scientists play "guessing games" with the natural world and employ a number of "toys," such as instruments and other laboratory tools, in evaluating their guesses.
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- the feeling of social presence conferred by an avatar contributes to the perception of the virtual environment as a real place. As an additional advantage, in contrast to other kinds of simulated experiments, the immersive graphic environment of Second Life supports learning with visual memory
- By the end of the spring semester in 2007, Genome Island was ready for student trials.
- Activities are organized into four main areas
- There are now about 50 different activities available at Genome Island. For each one, a note card or slide show provides background information, suggests a hypothesis to be tested or a principle to be applied, and gives instructions for using one or more interactive objects to generate a data set
- Genome Island experiments occupy a niche somewhere between a written problem set in which all data are immediately accessible and identical for all students and a real-life laboratory experiment in which data collection might take hours or even weeks to complete and might vary from student to student. At Genome Island, students can perform an experiment quickly, usually within a few minutes, but each data set, within the probabilities governing the experiment, can be different. The four activities described below illustrate some of the data that can be collected on Genome Island and the learning objectives addressed by each experiment.
- Bacterial Transformation
- Monohybrid Pea Cross
- X-Linked Inheritance in Cats
- Message in a Bottle
- The best use of the materials on Genome Island will vary with class size, class level, students' level of access to and experience with computers, students' science background, and the instructor's teaching style. The same activity can be used for multiple purposes and can be revisited as students develop more sophisticated understanding of a given topic. Instructors might wish to assign specific activities as independent investigations or run a given experiment as an in-class demonstration with a large group of observers. Students might be given a list of experiments to complete or allowed to blaze their own trail around the island. Experiments might be followed with a synchronous group discussion in one of the conference areas on the island, by asynchronous online reflections, or by written reports. Self-assessment games are also offered in several areas.
- In Second Life, on the other hand, the instructor may be off-world, students frequently work asynchronously, and the virtual territory to be navigated is the size of a small campus. The Genome Island activities are accompanied by general operational instructions and basic background information; in addition, related activities are grouped together. However, most activities can be used in different conceptual frameworks, and the intended conceptual focus, the specific navigational pathway, informational resources, and data collection procedures must all be included in each assignment
- Student responses to Second Life were about evenly distributed between positive and negative (Table 1); a significant factor in determining students' overall satisfaction was the ability to run Second Life from their personal computers. Being confined to campus labs understandably vitiates the benefits of the online environment. In addition, the pilot group may not have been in-world long enough to overcome the stresses of working in an unfamiliar environment. Favored activities were those that presented puzzles to be solved by the application of principles learned in preparatory experiments performed in Second Life.
- The mean student score on items drawn from Second Life activities was higher than mean performance on items related to other lab activities although the wide variation in individual student performance makes the difference between means barely significant.
- Since time on task is an important factor in learning, general visitor data was collected from proximity sensors distributed at various locations around the island (Table 3). The sensors count unique visitors and total time spent in range of the sensors
- These initial trials indicate that virtual worlds offer a learning environment that combines active engagement with the convenience of online access

22 Jul 09

JOLT - Two Approaches to Podcasting Use in the Classroom

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e-learning design tool podcast

of a system-wide institutional grant, each instructor chose a course for which to develop her own strategy of podcasting use in order to meet her course’s particular needs. These needs reflected two essential drives suggested by Harris and
In a study of podcasting use in Britain during 2006-2007, Harris and Park (2008) conclude podcasting in higher learning may lead to benefits to users from three different perspectives:
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- Podcasting provides lecturers with the facility to emphasize the information, which they feel to be critical for the students, thus augmenting teaching material.
- The flexibility and affordability of podcasting caters to diverse student needs by enabling repeated learning and offering an opportunity for the effective use of time. Finally, from the University’s perspective, podcasting is a communication enabler, reaching out to a wider community. For instance, such podcast usage can provide a lifelong extended education to alumni and also create a culture of knowledge sharing and interdisciplinary collaboration.
- As podcasting diffuses through the general population, one might expect its feasibility and use to also increase in academic institutions.
- One would expect the first application to vary by instructor, department, opportunity, time and access, while the second application would receive better support and wider adoption throughout the institution, likely leading to more comprehensive student use.
- Each instructor chose a course for which to develop her own strategy of podcasting use in order to meet her course’s particular needs. These needs reflect two essential drives suggested by Harris and Park (2008) in their typology of podcasting usage characteristics (p. 550). The first instructor was teaching-driven, employing podcasting to augment teaching, provide supplemental lecture content and for use in a student discussion assignment. The second instructor developed a podcasting assignment for students. However, her goal was more service-driven with hopes of sharing information and ultimately archiving student’s research work.
- Information about the historical novels to be covered in the course, as well as background about their authors was also featured, pointing out parallels between history and historical fiction.
- It is worth noting that many students were using the podcasts at the same time that they reviewed other online class materials. For example, a student might listen to a class podcast on her computer while reviewing the corresponding PowerPoint presentation.
- The instructor surmised that, although the students were given in-class instruction on how to access both podcasts and vodcasts, the extra steps required in subscribing to the podcasts (see Appendix A) might have deterred some students from using them
- Students were encouraged to listen to the podcasts or view the vodcasts and to use them as resources for their written weekly responses, midterms and final papers.
- Podcasting has already become an important component of work routines and job expectations in some fields. Even now, citizen journalism is revolutionizing traditional news writing as individuals establish their own message outlets.
- Accordingly, this instructor developed a podcasting assignment to empower students, with hopes that they might find their voice, develop skills in emerging technologies, and share the fruits of their research, providing useful information in a rapid and competitive digital environment. Ultimately, the instructor sought to develop a podcasting project for an entry level journalism writing class, which would tie into course content, enhance student understanding of the field, and provide students with an opportunity to come together around a community issue of interest to the working student group.
- Altogether, there were three types of podcasts/vodcasts available to the students throughout the semester:
- Close to the end of the semester, the instructor recorded a discussion of one of the novels by two students during a typical in-class group discussion. The intent of this vodcast was to allow students to view and hear their colleagues discuss the current novel. Originally the goal was to post several of these recordings of student group discussions throughout the semester for all students to use as resources.
- The completion and uploading of the multimedia content comprised the grading emphasis for the podcasting project, (which was worth 15% of each student’s overall semester grade, or roughly 20-25% of their individual writing project grade for the class). The instructor encouraged each student group to select a common subject which would have multiple and conflicting viewpoints, such as the status of the family farm, or a topic with multiple dimensions, like the demographic shift in central Indiana. Two student leaders (both taking the class at a higher grade level) were identified to schedule group tasks and keep the groups on track
- Students ultimately created three different forms of interview content for publication on the web:
- While the original intent was to post final, edited content on a public access website, making it available through subscription, the instructor later decided to use PBWorks, (see Appendix B), given its ease of development and timing issues related to the students’ inexperience and equipment access.
- Prior to their development of the audio and video content, students had a chance to review podcasts and vodcasts online. At this time, they developed their own criteria of excellence and examined how professionals integrated their work with online websites. Although final student work was not published, all students had a chance to view and critique one another’s work and class time was dedicated to viewing the content and discussing its strengths and weaknesses.
- ut preparing students to participate in this interactive digital world, whether inside or outside the classroom, poses a challenge for instructors
- Although the instructor was very enthusiastic about trying new technology, the process of creating the vodcasts and podcasts was more time-consuming and tedious than anticipated
- According to the chapter “Confessions of a Podcast Junkie,” in Eli Discovery Tools: Guide to Podcasting (Coghlan et. al., 2007), it is crucial to keep them short: “ When Frydenberg asked his students how many had actually been downloading his podcast lectures, they complained that the podcasts were too long. Students stress the need to keep audio and video concise and engaging” (p. 25). Subsequently, the first instructor decided to keep her podcasts and vodcasts under 15 minutes to make sure her students remained focused and engaged.
- Sometimes perceptions of students’ level of comfort with technological use and interest in newer forms of technology are inaccurate. While podcasting use may be on the rise, the Napa Valley Register reports that percentages of teens using podcasts or downloading books, textbooks or study guides are still limited.
- the key is getting schools to help out with the costs” (p. 3). O’Connor learned first-hand why such funding is necessary when only two out of 16 of her students in her spring 2007 class had their own MP3 players
- The students in the literature course were prepared and capable of accessing the podcasts and vodcasts and benefitted from the supplemental materials. This is probably due to the fact that these were posted on the online course management system as well as accessible through iTunes and the students had the choice of how to access the content.
- Also of significance is the fact that the students received in-class instruction on how to access the podcasts and vodcasts. In fact, such guidance was recommended by Guertin, Bodek, Zappe & Kim
- Flip makes it insanely simple to record and edit movies on your computer, as long as you use the Flip Video application. Things get a little more complicated if you want to use other applications
- the Flip may also require extra steps when used with a Mac format.
- Smaller campuses may not have the resources or economy of scale to integrate teaching technology as easily as larger campuses. With an often cluttered array of responsibilities and service obligations scattered across fewer faculty members, it may be harder to adopt new technologies as quickly.
- n the literature class this mix of students proved to be beneficial as related to iPod use. In fact, the literature instructor could use the podcast to overcome the diversity and create an “equal playing field” for the students, minimizing their discrepancy in preparation. Further, the literature instructor discovered that s hort, focused podcasts are helpful to the students as a way to review material for class discussion or for exams. Instead of having to rewind their conventional recorders and look for key words in an hour-long lecture, the students can target their specific problem areas for review. As a result, their study hours are reduced and the students are able to use their commuting time effectively.
- While it was expected that the journalism writing students would be familiar with and know how to operate an iPod, only two students of the 11 had prior experience with the MP3 player. Accordingly, given its ease of operations, most of them opted to employ the Flip. However, these students failed to predict recording problems and while they were encouraged to practice and play back results, they did not have time or motivation to test their efforts sufficiently. Hence, the interviews were plagued by problems like: background noise, (such as noisy air movement systems), clumsy settings (placing an interviewee in a rocking chair engaged in perpetual movement or in front of a cluttered and chaotic background), and a failure to isolate the interviewee in a quiet setting
- Given that student-created podcasts present a bigger challenge related to student training, the journalism instructor located the following links to online training (as presented in Table 1), which should prove beneficial for use with future podcasting projects.
  
  Table 1. Links to assist with student training
  
  http://ourmedia.org/ Recommended by Kelli Polson (2007), of the Poynter Institute, this website publishes podcasts, vodcasts and multimedia pieces. According to Polson,
  
  …users can contribute content, which means the site is growing constantly.
  
  They can also create a channel -- basically a collection of media items.
  
  You'll find some quirky channels on the site along with channels devoted to gear reviews and other training resources. And, of course, there's a 'Community Talk' channel in which users can submit questions and share tips.
  
  http://www.bbctraining.com/onlineCourse.asp?tID=2555&cat=3 The BBC has a number of online courses available with journalism topics which are easily adaptable to a variety of podcasting assignments. This link takes one to a series on interviewing and journalism—with both final products and critique from the journalist. Helps explore motivations and actions.
  
  http://www.nyu.edu/its/pubs/connect/spring06/pdfs/doogan_podcasting.pdf This website provides a helpful overview of podcasting, its use and appeal. Early distribution of the list should assist students with a basic understanding of the technology and its use.
- Both instructors felt the podcasts helped to integrate the students into a shared community, whether through introduction of the course or through group problem solving and shared research activities
- the vodcasts helped them pass tests and /or improve their grades
  the podcasts, when used, helped them study more efficiently
  the vodcasts helped them understand the course content better
- in spite of this unanimous endorsement, no students referred to the podcasts or vodcasts in their evaluation of the course.
- students found the project time consuming
  students are used to higher quality video and audio than the Flip camera provided and have less tolerance of problems with sound quality, lighting or focus issues, or presentational weaknesses in one another’s work
  despite the public nature of the assignment, students varied widely in their tenacity and drive and the final podcasts varied significantly in their level of quality
  even students who may write effectively may not understand how to maximize the technology and time must be spent reviewing samples and exploring effective ways of recording content—some students’ materials were easily edited, while others were almost impossible to cut
  procrastination was a significant problem, and sequential planning and chunking of the assignment into manageable segments is essential when equipment or time is limited
  students’ anxiety of the technology itself limited creativity and hampered the final efforts of some students
- The podcasts and vodcasts were clearly beneficial to the students and to the instructor in terms of delivering additional material for the course. However, given more time and training with the equipment, the benefits could have been greater. Particularly, the vodcasts of student discussion groups could have been more numerous. The instructor believes they would have been very useful, if posted online for students to access and use to study for midterms and for their final papers.
- Given the varied skill set of enrolled students, the instructor needs to further break down the assignment . Additionally, the instructor needs to employ more hands-on activities with the equipment to build user confidence. Finally, the instructor will work to share samples of student work earlier in the semester, in order to establish higher standards of performance and more reasonable student expectations.

10 Jul 09

Learning and identity: What does it mean to be a half-elf? - Gee 2003

Notions:
identity, game, context

A MUST

Gee's tripartite play of identities defines (in the game setting but Gee shows that the same applies to learning) something similar to Lave and Wenger's peripheral legitimate participation:
- real-world identity: the *player* as character
- virtual identity: the player as *character*
- projective identity: the player *as* character

The projective identity represents the active engagement and investment by the player (or learner) in the development trajectory of the game (or learning) context
Many examples explaning projective identities are given.
For instance, our projective identity can fail when we (real-world identity - i.e. player) make our virtual identity (character) do something that the character we want our virtual identity to be would not or should not do (e.g. score an ugly goal in PES with Arsenal - I want my Arsenal team in PES to win by playing slick passing football). When this happens, users often restart the game.

Good instruction must accomplish three goals:
- entice the learner to try (create bridges to their real-world identities and create a psychosocial moratorium)
- entice them to put in lots of efforts (make the virtual world and virtual identity at stake in the learning compelling to the learner in their own terms - they need to be sucked in)
- this effort must generate an appropriate level of success and the learner needs to be aware there will be yet greater success for greater effort. Design amplification of input into the process and ideally, the virtual world needs to be built so that learners discover new powers and feel the dawning of new valued identities

Learning principles that video-games teach us (MUCH MORE INSIGHTS ARE AVAILABLE IN THE ARTICLE):
6. "Psychosocial Moratorium" Principle
7. Commited learning Principle
8. Identity Principle
9. Self-Knowledge Principle
10. Amplification of Input Principle
11. Achievement Principle
12. Practice Principle
13. Ongoing Learning Principle
14. "Regime of Competence" Principle

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e-learning design ULOE_MSc IDEL_MSc IDGBL_MSc game context tool self

Video games - Greenfield 1984

Notions:
video games, social, interactivity, violence, collaboration, transfer (context), creativity, challenge, peer, motivation

Evidence that games in themselves aren't necessarily addictive nor expensive
Their popularity mainly comes from visual action (not necessarily violent action) and interactivity

Violence:
- all media present some violent content
- evidence that violent games breed violent behaviour but the same goes for other media
- two-player aggressive video games, whether competitive or cooperative, reduce the level of aggress in children's play
- attracts boys but is a turn-off for girls (critical issue since video games are the entry point of children to computers)

Skills (depending on games):
- eye-hand coordination
- rules and patterns induction from observation (Pacman example) may generate in much of the games' excitement
- quickness
- parallel processing (more accessible to children whose main media was tv)
- interacting dynamic variables
- visual-spatial skills (Rubik's cubes may do that too)
- coordinate visual information coming from multiple perspectives (same as parallel processing?)
- creative thinking
- character development
- reflection
- construction, programming or other specific skill
- curiosity
- peer-teaching

Fantasy role-playing games are particularly interesting

Multiple levels: constant challenge, tangible progress, scaffolding create a long-term appeal. Provides guidelines to incorporate in all learning situations

** Interesting chemistry game example **

Transfer from medium to skill depends on how the medium is used: often seems to require verbal formulation (need to bring games to the classroom?)

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e-learning design IDGBL_MSc collaboration social peer context game

WebQuests

Definition, characteristics, examples and design steps

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e-learning IDGBL_MSc design resource reference showcase game

A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which some or all of
the information that learners interact with comes from resources on
the internet, optionally supplemented with videoconferencing. There
are at least two levels of WebQuests that should be distinguished
from one another.
WebQuests of either short or long duration are deliberately
designed to make the best use of a learner's time
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- An introduction
- A task that is doable and interesting.
- A set of information sources needed to complete the
  task
- A description of the process the learners should go
  through in accomplishing the task
- Some guidance on how to organize the information
  acquired
- A conclusion that brings closure to the quest
- WebQuests are most likely to be group activities
- WebQuests might be enhanced by wrapping motivational
  elements
- WebQuests can be designed within a single discipline or
  they can be interdisciplinary
- Examples
- One example of a short term WebQuest is the WebQuest
  1 exercise that EDTEC 596 students completed a month ago. The
  goal was to give them a sense of how Archaeotype, a simulated
  archaeological dig, was conceived and implemented at two very
  different school sites. The exercise took about 2 hours and involved
  students working in groups to answer a series of questions. They were
  given a set of resources to read and interact with which included
  project reports and theoretical papers on the Web, copies of a
  portion of the Archaeotype documentation, and directions to go to
  another room and interact with a teacher at Juarez-Lincoln via video
  conference, or with a staff member at the Dalton School in New York
  via speakerphone. The students broke up into groups to experience
  each of these sources of data and then spent time telling each other
  what they'd learned. The end result was that each person in the class
  could explain what Archaeotype was and what problems and successes
  came with its implementation.
- Another example of a short term WebQuest is WebQuest
  2 in which the student teachers examined a number of web pages
  put up by schools. The point of the exercise was to expose them to a
  variety of ways in which a school could portray itself on the web in
  preparation for their creating the O'Farrell
  web pages. By the end of the exercise they were able to articulate
  general principles of good and not-so-good design for school web
  sites.
- Design Steps
  
  Learning to design WebQuests is a process that should go from the
  simple and familiar to the more complex and new. That means starting
  within a single discipline and a short-term WebQuest and then moving
  up to longer and more interdisciplinary activities. Here are the
  recommended steps:

23 Jun 09

Innovate: MUVEs and Experiential Learning: Some Examples

The value of exploring for oneself rather than imitating pre-specified steps.

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e-learning design virtual_world social

Weigel (2000) argues that most current attempts to create online learning environments suffer from a "port the classroom to the Web" model. Researchers have noted a similar phenomenon in multiuser virtual environments (MUVEs)
Weigel (2000) argues that most current attempts to create online learning environments suffer from a "port the classroom to the Web" model
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- To some extent, this tendency is driven by common expectations about what education should look like
- These expectations constrain the degree to which educators can innovate.
- Some researchers have described attempts to use MUVE environments to go beyond typical models of instruction (e.g., Barab et al. 2007; Nelson et al. 2005). We are particularly interested by the potential of MUVEs to help students connect knowledge by description to knowledge by experience; in a MUVE, students can experience phenomena rather than only reading about them. To facilitate these kinds of connections, we constructed a maze in Second Life (SL) that allowed students in a class on learning theories to experience a key phenomenon, the aha effect, that plays a role in a number of concepts in educational psychology. We introduced students to the maze by having them watch others traverse it; we then encouraged them to navigate the maze themselves without explaining the underlying principles governing the maze's navigation. The procedural learning that students engaged in when they first navigated the maze solely on their observations set the stage for them to experience the reorganization of knowledge that characterizes the aha effect when they were given a clue to the underlying structure of the maze. Thus, our MUVE maze let students reliably experience key phenomena described by the theories they were studying.
- We wanted to allow students to experience the benefits of the aha effect (Bransford and Johnson 1973; Auble, Franks, and Soraci 1979; Bransford and Stein 1993; Wills et al. 2000; Luo, Niki, and Phillips 2004; Mai et al. 2004) and to be able to connect their experience in the MUVE with a number of theoretical works and classic studies in learning theory, including behaviorism (Exhibit 1), functional fixity (Exhibit 2), positive and negative transfer (Exhibit 3), learning with understanding (Exhibit 4), and adaptive expertise (Exhibit 5) among others
- Traversing the maze required students to solve problems conceptually similar to those presented by Thorndike’s (1913) puzzle boxes for cats (he saw no evidence of "aha" in cats) and in other key studies of rewards, learning, and transfer
- The maze could be navigated in a fairly obvious way, relying on procedural knowledge acquired through trial-and-error learning. However, there was also a deep structure to the maze that once discovered explained why particular behaviors were effective in particular rooms and allowed the user to perform flexibly rather than simply following the surface rules.
- gestalt theory that, unlike the theories of connectionists such as Thorndike, emphasized the importance of sudden reorganizations of complex information into new forms (Wertheimer and Wertheimer 1959).
- All who mentioned changing their understanding with regard to the wood/humidity relationship described the change as abrupt as opposed to gradual, indicative of the aha effect.
- a meaningful connection to educational practice, including problems with jumping right into a learning process, for instance, by imitating the actions of other avatars rather than exploring other options and the trade-offs between efficiency and exploration modes.
- We introduced the experience in a teacher preparation course for 38 masters of education students in the fall quarter of 2007. All were first-year graduate students taking a required introductory class on human learning and education practice, including technology practices. The maze was used to introduce the students to MUVEs and to allow them to experience phenomena described in class readings—especially functional fixedness and aha effects and their relationship to adaptive expertise (Hatano and Inagaki 1986).
- After these individuals successfully completed the maze, the entire class was told that there was a quicker way to get through the maze. Students worked in small groups to generate ideas that they wanted to explore in the live maze.
- Students were very engaged in hypothesis generation and testing, and they generated a number of creative hypotheses, including exploring whether they could simply fly over the maze. The avatar was indeed able to do this, but students concluded that flying was out of bounds since the contest required traveling through the maze. Another innovative thought was to have the first avatar in the group of three use the rope or chair to prop open the doors, which would allow the other two avatars to get through very quickly. Interestingly, the designers of the maze had never thought about this option.
- When the door opened, the gasps of surprise from the class were clearly audible (Exhibit 8). Class discussions following the MUVE experience and readings were very animated, convincing us to use more MUVE experiences in future courses.
- We also gathered evidence that the students were able to associate their experiences in the maze to educational psychology theories studied in the class.
- In any case, the MUVE experience clearly gave students a personal experience on which to build understanding of the theoretical concepts discussed in the class.
- MUVE experiences can provide opportunities for teachers to observe and assess students' understanding of concepts based on their performance. The experience may then be the subject of reflective writing and discussion, allowing more opportunities to assess student learning. In the context of theoretical or abstract concepts, like those covered in the courses we teach, a virtual environment can provide a more reliable and instructive learning experience than may be available in a real-life context.
- The procedures we used to introduce the MUVE experience to an entire class also indicate that MUVEs can be powerful learning tools even when only a single computer is available in the classroom and where students are novice users of MUVEs
- Our experiments helped us realize that there are affordances available in everyday environments that are missing in MUVEs
- the importance of direct perception in our everyday lives. It is also a consideration for MUVE design; many kinds of perceptions may still have to remain symbolic in MUVEs, but perhaps there are visual and other ways to make these factors increasingly clear.
- We have shared our MUVE videos and findings in the hope of helping researchers in teaching and learning build a suite of simple but powerful MUVE learning environments that can be shared to allow interactive inquiry
- One use is to allow students, teachers, and researchers to experience and then read about phenomena rather than only read about them without ever having experienced them
- Another use is to share resources that make it possible to conduct additional research on MUVE-enabled experiences in order to explore more deeply their learning and motivational effects. We suggest that educators take advantage of ways to share such resources (using services such as YouTube and Salamander/MERLOT). Having others use materials or environments for additional experiments or reprogram them in ways that provide even more compelling learning experiences could be a great help for the field.

11 Jun 09

Eat your vegetables and do your homework: a design-based investigation of enjoyment and meaning in learning - Barab et al 2005

Notions:
motivation, game, learning, design-based, social, participation, collaboration, context, brand

Division playing-learning in elementary school

List of principles of design-based research

1. Quest Atlantis as an example of design-based research

3D virtual world where children perform educational activities (Quests) through their avatar (powerful motivator contributing to their sense of self)
Though connected to academic standards, Quests are rooted in our social commitments and framed by children's interests

2. The design evolves

The importance of the backstory in relation to the defined practices of community members and the attributes that create a product identity and culture
In addition to mandatory acitivites, students voluntarily completed additionoal ones.
Thanks to the game, students began to have an appreciation for the subject areas relation to their own lives (unlike before the game). Participation in the game increased their academic efficacy.

3. Learning Engagement Theory

The 3 dimensions of Learning Engagement Theory: learning, playing and helping (motivation is at their intersection)

QA shows evidence that academic learning was occuring alongside or in the process of playing and helping.
Hard work should and can occur in the context of an activity to which the student is already engaged.
Joy and meaning: integral elements of the framing of curricular activities

4. Motivation as a complex process

Consensus regarding the belief that extrinsic incentives (rewards) undermine intrinsic motivation
Both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation steadily decline over grades 3 through 9
By over-valuing product and under-valuing the rich processes of learning, the joy, fun, challenge and meaning have in part been stripped out of educational activity

Motivational elements: game challenge, stimulating curiosity, sense of control, fantasy of the game, identity presentation, social relations, playing, learning, achievement, helping, reward, immersion, uniqueness and creativity

Importance of context

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e-learning tool design social community virtual_world context ULOE_MSc self

10 May 09

Spooky Action: Categories of Fun and Experience Design

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e-learning design IDGBL_MSc

12 Apr 09

Situated cognition and the culture of learning - Brown et al 1989

Notions:
situated cognition, community, activity, authentic activity, induction, abstraction, cognitive apprenticeship, enculturation, social, collaboration

A must-read, seminal paper

Example of learning words from dictionary definition compared to learning vocabulary outside of school shows the situated nature of cognition
A concept is always under construction

Tools share significant features with knowledge:
- only fully understood through use
- using them entails changing the user's view of the world and adopting the belief system of the culture in which they are used
It isn't possible to use a tool properly without understanding the community or culture in which it's used

** Learning is a process of enculturation which must involve activity, concept and culture in a collaborative way **

School activity too often tends to be hybrid, implicitly framed by one culture but explicitly attributed to another, which limits students' access to the structuring cues that arise from the context.
It is often very different from what authentic practictioners do (and from what people do when they naturally learn) and students rely on cues that are not those of real practitioners (authentic culture of an authentic community vs school culture)

In authentic settings, the problem statement is also the solution and the procedure for solving it.
Problem solving isn't carried out solely in the heads but in conjunction with the environment. Even students do that in unexpected ways in school but this becomes ineffective in authentic settings.

Cognitive apprenticeship methods try to enculturate students into authentic practices through activity and social interaction

** Very helpful examples illustrating excellent and natural learning strategies are provided **
- continuity with familiar knowledge
- several cases leading to students generating their own learning path (and participating in the community's activity)
- abstraction
All of which are carried out collaboratively with the teacher becoming a facilitator of the process

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e-learning design ECDEL_MSc context social collaboration

Desinging Courses For Higher Education (Society for Research into Higher Education): Toohey: Amazon.co.uk: Books

The book suggested by Siân

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e-learning design wish ECDEL_MSc

Desinging Courses For Higher Education

11 Apr 09

The Theory and Practice of Online Learning - eBook

ebook suggested by Clara

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e-learning design ECDEL_MSc

10 Apr 09

Instructional Design Models

Resource suggested by Clara

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e-learning design ECDEL_MSc

24 Mar 09

Evaluating e-learning initiatives - Bastiaens et al 2004

Notions:
e-learning, evaluation, framework, reaction, learning, performance

Kirpatrick's four-level evaluation framework:
1. Reaction level: what participants think of the training
2. Learning level: what participants have learned
3. Performance level: to what extent the participants change their behaviour on the job
4. Organization level: monitors the organisational improvement

The evaluation requires a clear plan describing the goal, the object and the criteria
It's also important to specify the evaluation goal, design and arrangements (management and organisational issues)

** A very detailed example is used **

In addition to a detailed elaboration of the framework, it's advisable to take into account general aspects such as authenticity, exploration, scale, time requirements, objectivity required and focus

The approach proposed by Kirpatrick is partial and has to be revised conceptually to be applicable, particularly in e-learning environments today:
- the main problem with the evaluation of satisfaction is the atheoretical approach
- the effect of a course on learning cannot be measured by a simple test just after completion of the course but should be measured in an authentic situation
- it is very difficult to measure the transfer of learning on work behaviours
- the same applies to the measure of the impact on organisations (in terms of results, etc.)

Because a four-level evaluation is quite demanding, it's not wise to perform one for every learning event but only for the implementation of a new media or course type (otherwise, the cost of the evaluation may exceed that of the e-learning initiative itself).
As a minimum, the authors recommend performing an evaluation at the reaction level every time the e-learning event takes place.
Finally, evaluation has to be based on a well-considered theoretical model

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e-learning ECDEL_MSc evaluation research feedback design

Evaluating courses and teaching - Hounsell 2009

Notions:
evaluation, course feedback, research methods, colleagues, students, external, peer

Looks at broadly based approaches that can be tailored to specific contexts and needs

Kinds of feedback which are sought depends on both motives and focus
These considerations are influential in determining not only *how* and *from whom* feedback is to be sought be also *when* it is to be elicited - a dimension that's often overlooked

Sources of feedback, each of which has its strengths and weaknesses:
- students
- teaching colleagues and professional peers
- self-generated
- incidental

The more sources feedback draws on, the more robust

It's also important to consider the methods of feedback (see also Hounsell et al 1997)

Questionnaires are very useful but can generate 'fatigue' and happily, there are alternative approaches, including 'instant' questionnaires, 'one-minute' papers, proformas, focus groups, student panels, structured group discussions, discussion boards.

Techniques used for gathering feedback from colleagues can be adapted for self-generated feedback

Teachers are in a unique position to analyse data gathered but equally crucial is the need to acknowledge that it can benefit from the involvement of others

In many situations, there is no ideal or obvious response to feedback, but rather, an array of options from which a choice has to be made. Sometimes, we may benefit:
- consulting with colleagues because of resource implications
- further probing to pinpoint more precisely the nature of concerns expressed
- getting students' views on the various options under considerations

www.routledgeeducation.com/...er-Education-isbn9780415434645 - Preview

e-learning ECDEL_MSc evaluation research peer feedback design

Feedback on courses and programmes of study: a handbook - Hounsell et al 1997

Notions:
evaluation, course feedback, research methods, colleagues, students, external, peer

** A must read **

Draw from several sources and methods (so as to avoid 'questionnaire fatigue' for example) of feedback, depending on its aim, focus, constraints, etc.

1. Course team colleagues:

- course team interaction
- previewing

2. Students

** Many forms of feedback collection are examined and examples of such tools are given **

- structured discussion
- the pyramid approach
- nominal group technique (NGT)
- student panels
- post-it displays
- email comments and variants
- staff-student consultative committees
- assignment, placement and project logs
- conventional questionnaires
- pro formas
- on-line questionnaires
- one-minute questionnaires

3. External academic colleagues and and professional or industrial peers:

- comment on course materials
- external examiners and assessors
- quality assessment and accreditation

4. Incidental feedback

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e-learning ECDEL_MSc evaluation research peer feedback design

17 Mar 09

Sue Habeshaw Books - 53 ...

Sources of inspiration for interesting educational activities in various domains

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e-learning design resource

13 Mar 09

What makes things fun to learn? heuristics for designing instructional computer games - Malone 1980

Notions:
games, challenge, fantasy, curiosity

The ideas raised are basically the same as those in Heuristics for designing enjoyable user interfaces: Lessons from computer games (Malone 1982) but it includes additional useful examples

** Great paper: read it for details, explanations, etc. **

** Gives many helpful examples of how simple educational games can be easily improved using these heuristics **

It's important for skills to be means of achieving the goal of the activity, not the goal itself (avoid making the game explicitly educational so as not to ruin its learning potential)

portal.acm.org/citation.cfm - Preview

e-learning IDBGL_MSc design

Heuristics for designing enjoyable user interfaces: Lessons from computer games - Malone 1982

Notions:
tools, toys, games, framework, challenge, fantasy, curiosity

** Great paper: read it for details, explanations and examples of the framework **

I. Challenge

A. Goal. Is there a clear goal in the activity? Does the interface provide performance feedback about how close the user is to achieving the goal?

B. Uncertain outcome. Is the outcome of reaching the goal uncertain?
1. Does the activity have a variable difficulty level?
For example, does the interface have successive layers of complexity?
2. Does the activity have multiple level goals? For example, does the interface include score-keeping?

II. Fantasy

A. Does the interface embody emotionally appealling fantasies?

B. Does the interface embody metaphors with physical or other systems that the user already understands?

III. Curiosity

A. Does the activity provide an optimal level of informational complexity?
1. Does the interface use audio and visual effects: (a) as decoration, (b) to enhance fantasy, and (c) as a representation system?
2, Does the interface use randomness in a way that adds variety without making tools unreliable?
3. Does the interface use humor appropriately?

B. Does the interface capitalize on the users' desire to have "well-formed" knowledge structures? Does it introduce new information when users see that their existing knowledge is: (1) incomplete, (2) inconsistent, or (3) unparsimonious?

portal.acm.org/citation.cfm - Preview

e-learning design IDBGL_MSc

02 Mar 09

E-tivities: the key to active online learning - Salmon 2002

Notes:
e-learning design, induction, development, collaboration, social, peer, activities, tasks

1. The 5 stage framework and e-tivities

I HAVEN'T READ THAT CHAPTER ENTIRELY YET BUT I WOULD CERTAINLY BENEFIT FROM DOING SO

Her model makes an argument for increasing the skills and comfort of online learners through the use of appropriately scaffolded learning activities over five stages
(very effectively applied on IDEL, which first few weeks were like an introduction to the whole Masters)

** Figure 2.1 (p. 11) an the text in front are crucial as it sums it all up nicely **

2. Resources for practitioners: 5 spark ideas for e-tivities

** Fantastic and inspiring list of e-tivities that can be applied (sometimes needs adaptation) at the various stages of the model **

Stage 1: Access and motivation
Quick e-tivities; giving practice with technology; offer 1-1 support for anyone in need; provide rationale

Stage 2: Online socialization
Getting to know each other; understanding the approach the group will take; impatience means that some e-tivities will need to be disguised a little; watch for issues of equality when using humour (netiquette?)

Stage 3: Information exchange
Suggest and model strategies for active online learning; help participants to deal with mass of messages; help them personalise and prioritise learning tasks and social interactions

Stage 4: Knowledge construction

Stage 5: Development
Try to allow maximum choice; make summaries and archives accessible; focus on self-reflection and evaluation of the learning (often assessable to ensure alignment)