A New Beginning...

How time flies as I come to an end in my Masters course at the University of Melbourne. It has been both an enriching and fulfilling year for me. I would like to thank Ted for his guidance and fellow MMWE friends for your kind comments and encouragement. As for my journey ahead, I hope to be able to fully utilise the new multimedia skills and knowledge in my new job as a Project Officer in the Curriculum Planning & Development Division of the Ministry of Education, Singapore. I will be leaving Melbourne for Singapore on 18th June 2007 and here’s wishing everyone, all the very best in your future endeavours. Take care and bon voyage!

The Last Part of The Final Assignment

This is a joint project done by:
Danamalar Kanagasabai - Student ID: 272245
Yi Chew - Student ID: 252828

Project Title : Unit on Photosynthesis

Target Audience : Year Six Students

Objective: Students will be able to learn how plants make food. They will learn that water, light energy and carbon dioxide are needed for photosynthesis. In addition, sugar and oxygen are the products of photosynthesis.

Technologies/media used to create this project

1) The entire web page was consolidated using Microsoft Frontpage by Danam.K
2) Texts and graphics images for webpage created by Danam.K
3) The audio file for the podcast was created using Audacity in MP3 format by Danam.K
4) Crossword puzzle - developed using Hot Potatoes – created by Danam.K
5) Quiz - developed using Microsoft Frontpage – created by Danam.K
6) The two video clips in avi format was converted to Flash format by Chew Yi
7) Feedback form - developed using online formsite – created by Chew Yi
8) Concept Map in Summary Link created using Inspiration software by Chew Yi

Project is best viewed using Internet Explorer. Other browers may not support inline framesets used in the webpage.

Project is uploaded into Danamalar Kanagasabai webraft public folder. Folder name : Final or you can click on link below to access the site.

http://webraft.its.unimelb.edu.au/485833/students-2007-1/dkan/pub/Final%20project/

Acknowledgment

Basic photosynthesis image in the concept link page was downloaded from:

http://grapevine.net.au/~grunwald/une/KLAs/science/irrigation-photosynthesis.gif

The Use of Wikis

After last week’s lesson, I have realized that the wiki software could have the potential to support knowledge-building networks, and to be a useful tool in the shared repertoire of communities of practice engaged in collaborative learning. This can be seen in
existing wikis such as Wikipedia where a clear ‘etiquette’ or repertoire of practices has arisen and the wiki has become a functioning tool for a community, with members able to contribute to the knowledge of others.

Perhaps introducing students to an existing wiki as new members could enable them to learn from the practices of an existing community to appreciate the affordances of the wiki as a tool for collaborative practice in written content as well as in the negotiation of technical and design aspects. Equally, studying a wiki as a model of practice may also have opened up more options to these students. The teacher may also be able to play a role by modelling a collaborative process through participating in the students’ wikis as an equal, although more experienced, group member.

Wikis can be used as a tool for creating knowledge collaboratively. In the case study report “Using Wikis in Schools” by Lyndsay Grant, she discovered that there are areas such as the negotiation of online and offline space, performance and negotiation of identity in social software communities, development of multiliteracies and engagement in multimodal design that can be further developed. Wikis offers huge potential to learning both inside and outside the classroom. This kind of social software has the potential to support and structure communities where individuals come together to share, learn, create and collaborate with each other. The diversity of communities that can be formed through wikis and other forms of social software can be a source of creativity and inventiveness. Recognising contributors as individuals with unique experience and as members of a group allows for a personalised learning experience while also experiencing learning as part of a community through collaborating with others in shared activities. I will be very interested in using Wikis when I return to the classrooms in Singapore.

Digital Storytelling

I have found the following definition on Digital Storytelling by Daniel Meadows very clear and concise. He states that Digital Storytelling are “short, personal multimedia tales told from the heart.” The following web link reinforces this definition and you can get very good resources on Digital Storytelling from this website.

Educational uses of Digital Storytelling
http://www.coe.uh.edu/digital-storytelling/

Through this pedagogy of Digital Storytelling, I believe that the teacher needs to surrender a great deal of control during lesson time and this promotes student-centered teaching & learning which is essential in today’s context. In addition, part of what makes writing/storytelling/movie-making with technology so rewarding for students is that they are in the director's chair and hence, the ownership of learning lies in their hands.

Online Assessments

From the readings, there are many advantages & disadvantages about Online Assessments. I find it very compelling to use it because of its ease of automatic marking, ease of creating individualised tests & the immediate feedback given to students. The design of self assessment materials needs to take into account the diversity of the students' learning styles so that opportunities presented ensure maximum paricipation by them. In this way, it will help to identify both their level of understanding and those areas that they might need to concentrate on. Thus, we are helping their academic development and their self-esteem. It is important to know the ways in which the students will want to learn and our need to be flexible in accommodating their preferred learning strategies in the years to come. Below is a convenient online assessment tool recommended by Danam which I found very useful :

Formsite

Has anyone implemented a school-wide online assessment?

Storyboarding Multimedia

From the article “Storyboarding Multimedia” by Adrian Mallon, 1995, it states the importance of storyboarding in multimedia production in providing everyone with “a common point of reference, to verify and validate structural and content elements”. I can’t agree more with this as I’ve tried to storyboard the first part of my second assignment using mind/concept maps with the software Inspiration. This software is user-friendly, fun and puts your creativity into use. There are many schools using the kids version known as Kidspiration to engage the students in creating mind/concept maps for essay writing and reinforcement of Science concept skills. Please access the free 30-day trial of this software via the following link :

http://www.inspiration.com/

Did you find it useful? Are there any other methods in using this software in the teaching of other subjects?

As for the final part of the assignment in which we need to combine three different types of media into the Learning Object, the storyboard will be used to draft out what needs to be written, what types of graphics to be produced, how best to apply the transitions and other computer effects. I am eager to see how this present design tool can contribute to the many stages of the developmental process of my Learning Object.

The first part of my Learning Object.

Click on the link here to access my learning object.

Audioblogging & Podcasting in Education

The word "Podcasting" is derived from a combination of "iPod" & "broadcasting". Online audio programs such as talk shows or hosted music programs in digital format are downloaded for listening at any time. Podcasting also refers to the method of distributing multimedia files such as music videos or audio programs over the Internet through the use of RSS feeds. It is pertinent to note that a podcast can be created with any digital device and not necessarily with an ipod.
As for audioblogging, it is an extension of blogging where bloggers substitute the bulk of the text posts with voice recordings. In this way, audioblogs open up a new dimension to the blogging platform. For more information on Audioblogging & Podcasting in Education, please read the article I've posted. As for practical applications of blogs & podcasting in schools, you can refer to the link below to my school's website :-

Hougang Primary School

Learning Objects

I found from the web the following definition of Learning Object as "A self-contained piece of learning material with an associated learning objective, which could be of any size and in a range of media. Learning objects are capable of re-use by being combined together with other objects for different learning purposes." This definition is very clear and concise. It also supports the definition from our reading "Learning objects need instructional design theory". From that article, I have learnt about using learning objects in a principled way to support learning which includes combination & granularity in instructional design terms. Combination means taking individual learning objects and combining them in such a way that made instructional sense or the need to "sequence" the learning objects. Another factor is considering "granularity" or "how big should a learning object be?" For instructional designers, it is important to consider not only combination & granularity but also the scope & sequence. I have found the following website to be extremely helpful in giving examples of learning objects. Please feel free to explore :
Ministry of Education, Singapore - edu.MALL
Are there any other interesting websites that illustrate good instructional use & design of Learning Objects? Care to share?

My Podcast Blog

Welcome

Virtual Learning Networks

On reflecting what is said in the article "Designing Hypertext Multimedia Educational Software", it is paramount to have a design plan in creating hyperlinked educational multimedia. It is also timely to remind ourselves that gone are the days when we just need to be proficient in recalling facts but to apply new knowledge to different contexts or learning environments. As educators, we need to strengthen the problem-solving skills of the pupils using hypertext computer systems to create these flexible learning environments. Are there any such sites available? Care to share?

This Virtual Learning Network website has a link to Hot Potatoes which enables me to create interactive multiple choice, short answer, jumbled-sentence, crossword, matching/ordering & gap-fill exercises for the World Wide Web.

If you are looking for fresh ideas or resources in teaching the English Language, perhaps the following link might help : Classroom Resource Centre

Hope you will find the above useful.

Interactive Images for Multimedia

On reflection from the article "A short analysis of Verbal and Visual Elements in the English of World Wide Web Pages", I am more aware of the terminologies used relating to the main features of Web design. Most importantly, the ingredients to creating an interactive type of communicative exchanges through Web pages. In addition, I have found the following link to be very useful in providing us with interactive images for our assignments and lesson plans. Do let me know if it was useful.

http://www.windows.ucar.edu/tour/link=/multimedia_gallery/multimedia_gallery.html
http://www.tasi.ac.uk/advice/using/using_capturing.html

There is also this following article entitled "The preferences of young children for images used in dynamic graphical interfaces in computer-assisted English vocabulary learning" doi:10.1016/j.displa.2005.06.002 which serves as a very useful background knowledge for language teachers to consider using dynamic interactive images during their delivery of lessons.

Instructional Design - An introduction

Summarising what I have read, Instructional Design is the whole process of analysing learning needs and goals with a development of a delivery system to meet these needs. From the following link,

http://www.gdrc.org/info-design/instruct/instruct.html

it is very useful to know the taxonomies of Instructional Design which acts as a framework for us in developing the delivery system. In addition, factors that affect learning in all of us must be considered so that the delivery system can be as effective and efficient as possible. Personally, I find this website very useful in planning my lessons and resources as I introduce different forms of multimedia to my pupils.

My baby step to the world of multimedia!

Hi everyone,

it's so interesting to have started creating my own blog. It's like a baby beginning to crawl. As I progress this journey of multimedia web for education, it is important to reflect and remember the triumphs & difficulties in using the different technologies. To be continued....inspiration lost for the moment:)