lost in space

Now that I finally am going to work in designing e-learning courses one of my responsibilities will be to disseminate information from SME’s. So the topic of working with SME’s has become a lot more important to me since landing a job. Melanie Sisley who has written to the online learning news and reviews e-letter has talked about her experience with working with SMEs. She states that one of her biggest hurdles is the SME’s lack of time. One tip she has given to overcome this is to invite the SME to be involved with the project planning of the course. This way the SME can work out with you times that they will be available and they know exactly when they need to be available. If they are still having problems with timing Melanie has suggested speaking with SME superiors. 

I think this an idealistic way of trying to avoid timing problems with SMEs. I can only imagine how work creeps up and unexpected changes happen left right and centre which creates a lot of headaches for the people trying to create content. I will take all these suggestions into account though and I guess I will find out soon enough if they actually work. Two points that were made by Melanie are notable; they are that SME’s often under estimate their involvement in developing course content and that when consulting with SME’s she asks them to “explain it to her as if she were 5 years old” in order to get the crucial details.  I’ll definitely take those points away with me.   

That’s right I believe you all must know what I am talking about. Contrast, Repetition, Alignment and Proximity. All these elements need to go into designing web pages, which essentially translates into out e-learning project considering that they somewhat a web page.

Contrast runs into things such as contrasting colours, headings and other elements on a web page. The important thing to remember about contrasting colours is what I have written in my previous blog regarding complementary colours. By using the colour wheel as a guide we can determine what would create good contrast. Headings and text style and colour should be considered too. An example is that used in the Liverpool FC website, the colours used are green and red; funnily enough they are complementary colours.

Repetition is concerned with giving and retaining the same “look” throughout your web page. Keeping the same look includes keeping all the tabs, text and headings in the same place on each page. This ultimately helps the learner use the page effectively.

Alignment refers to where on the page the text, headings and pictures are going to sit on your web page. This creates uniformity and structure. Most people would get pretty annoyed trying to keep track of where everything is on a page so having this structure helps a lot.

And lastly, proximity. Essentially proximity is concerned with keeping related items on a page together in order to keep uniformity. With unrelated items all over the place on your page will create confusion. For example, imagine that you’re creating an e learning course within the finance industry and the subject is already dry and boring, don’t make it harder on your learners by making a course that isn’t CRAP.

Here are some interesting things concerning colours and e learning.

Firstly there are a couple of questions to consider when thinking about the colours you will use in any online course.

• What message are you trying to communicate?
• What audience are you trying to communicate with?
• What is the best way to visually communicate that message?
• What are the elements and tools necessary to produce the visual image?

Further considerations to this include: 

• Culture of the organisation
• Corporate colours
• Fashion
• Your message
• Mood of the message

 Taking all of these questions into account should give you a good idea of what colours you would use for texts, headings and backgrounds in your course.

 A word on colour now (I’m learning new things all the time), primary colours are red, blue and yellow. Primary colours are so called due to the fact that artists are unable to make these colours by mixing others together. Secondary colours are green, violet and orange. This is because these colours are made from a combination of the primary colours. They are called true colours, as they have not had black or white added to them. That was some really interesting stuff for me to find out.

Complimentary colours are what I am interested in as these have the most striking effect when combined. If you are looking for your message to be conveyed it would be advised to use these colours. They are colours that are opposite on the colour wheel. For example green and red, blue and orange.

 Anologous colours are those that are just a few shades away from each other. You would use these to follow a theme. It is really important to consider all of the above when designing web pages and courses.     

I have been thinking lately about modelling in social learning theory and the hotel game that I described in my previous post. I stated that it was not as serious when you only destroy an animated kitchen or get an animated cashier shot by an animated robber.

The same goes for real life, years ago I completed a first aid course and I wonder if after that training would I feel competent enough to give CPR to a real person as opposed to a plastic dummy. I am struggling with how first aid courses could make the training more lifelike but I am putting it out there that this is something to consider. Can we induce heart attacks?? hmmm, ok I’ve gone too far. I would really like to see what number of participants in these courses could effectively give first aid. Anyway my point was with something that serious we need to make it life like. Anyone with me?

This post is going to be purely for my understanding, something for me to refer back to every so often so it is going to be written in  a note taking way.  Multi media to me is the use of different media’s such as text, pictures, movies etc. Having multi sensory elements on a page seems to work well for me, I always like to hear narrated films but then again I can’t generalise for everyone as I well know some people are aural learners and some are visual so with multi media all bases are covered. 

I came across the heuristic rules of multimedia from the class notes and to sum it all up using video in conjunction with text is a big no no. In fact using text seems to be frowned upon all together. I can understand that, when I think about foreign movies with subtitles, you miss out on a lot of the action that is happening on screen because you are reading.  

This is interesting, next time you watch a movie turn on the English subtitles, I guarantee you will go mad within 10 minutes. So I guess this is a pretty valid principle from my point of view. 

Keeping the page simple is another principle that is suggested, so not to clog the page with lots of text and make sure that it is all relevant too!Another thing that I wanted to define for myself for future reference was Linear Multimedia: Video etc where you just sit back and watch, you are just a vase to be filled with knowledge 

Non Linear multimedia: When you can dictate where you want to go, what you want to see next etc. Hyper media: Is the links that join this non linear multimedia. 

That’s all folks!   

My theory and storyboard for my assignment is posted on the e-learning design assignment 2 page that you will find in the pages directory.

After writing so much about the three main theories behind e-learning instructional design, which are behaviourist, cognitive and constructivist, we as a class have stumbled upon social learning theory. Social learning theory includes concepts such as modelling, imitation and observational learning. Now the way that designers have created e-courses with this theory is that there will be a scenario where you as the learner will choose the behaviour. Your choice will have either a positive or negative effect on the scenario.

I think for all of you kinaesthetic learners out there follow this link to find out what I’m talking about. This is a game designed for people in the hotel industry.

 My elearning class was taking about this specific course where you can get shot by a guy holding up your liquor store or you could set fire to your hotel kitchen. The big problem is that considering the platform uses cartoon type characters and scenarios it is actually fun creating mayhem. Great for entertainment but not good for learning especially when one of the concepts is modelling. What type of behaviour would be the outcome of such a game? Im not sure I would want to go to that hotel.

One of the criticisms is that because it is not real life characters or situation where the effects can be disasterous. The learner treats the course as merely a game. Here in Australia there has been a campaign used by rail corp to stop people from acting in a dangerous way on the trains by having a photo of real life victims (often limbless) with a blurb about their story below. I believe that this is a little more effective in getting the message across. Maybe real life case studies could accompany that game to show what has happened in the past when people have acted in an unsafe way.    

In the latest online learning news and reviews e-zine there was an interesting article in regard to working with subject matter experts (SME) and how to provide incentives for them to want to help you. This is of particular interest to me as I had the experience of working in a department that needed to deal with SME’s in order to create e learning programs. There was talk in the organisation about how the SME’s we were working with are not normally on time with material or information and they normally don’t really co-operate. If there was only a way to make SME’s want to help instructional writers.

Well Matthew Bray Nimeth had this to offer and I will only put the points in that I believe are really important.

1. By talking with the SME find out what, if anything, is hindering them working with you and try to find a solution or “clear the roadblocks” as Nimeth puts it.

1. Always offer your assistance if they are having problems, make sure they have direct contact with you at all times

1. Provide SME’s with previous work completed by SME’s. I always find it helpful if I am having trouble getting started on something to see an example that outlines what would be expected.

1. Always work to your project management schedule and give the SME a written form that shows when they expect the deliverable and include them on project updates, including their names at certain dates they are expected to complete work and always give credit to the SME.

1.  Make sure you make the experience positive with the SME and re-affirm that all problems will be worked through.

1. Providing a positive environment is good too. Make sure you have muffins or pastries (maybe even chocolate) and coffee or tea in order to make the SME comfortable. Providing SME’s a computer and a nice office to work in for an hour or two will get them away from their normal environment and hopefully promote more inspiration and motivation.

All of these are very good points and I can definitely see the benefit in helping out your SME. Helping them will invariable end up helping you.

You tube has some clips that show what is possible in terms of education in second life. Click here to view one clip in particular posted by an author known as xxArete2xx. The clip shows in brief detail how educators could apply the tools that second life provides to a variety of different subjects from arts to business.

One key point that the author made was that the key is NOT to replicate what’s easily done in real life but to use the blank canvas and the tools that have been provided and use our imagination when considering educational possibilities. The real potential of education in virtual worlds is still waiting to be released and this area is promising to be extremely revolutionary and interesting in the future.

It seems as if an Irish IBM student has come up with a brilliant idea to help the blind enter the virtual world. By creating a program that relies on audio and sonar! Crazy huh? This has allowed people with visual impairments to participate. Not everyone who participates uses the virtual world for educational purposes but this does give the visually impaired the option to participate if they would like.

 All this technology has been applied into active worlds and not second life but I predict that as time goes on this will change. Furthermore second life has given participants the option to create a blind avatar, complete with Stevie Wonder glasses! Click here for the complete article