Imogen's random week 6 branch-off…

[imogenbertin]

I haven’t done any of the activities this week due to work/family pressures apart from watch a recording of the wonderful Gilly Salmon. Even though I do think assessment is the key. I’m not going to go into this at all – I have read about Carpe Diem before and it seems very appropriate and rational.
No, in fact I spent week six doing the JISC Instructional Design for eLearning course though, which took up 6 hours! Not really sure how much I learned from it. I actually cannot remember anything I learned from it without looking at my notes…
In the main the course and the recording of Gilly’s session got me thinking about whether webinars are worth the time you spend on them given difficulties of access due to broadband speed and the use of Java. I would love to have been able to download the recording of Gilly’s webinar to look at offline (because I’m travelling this weekend). And the JISC webinar didn’t really work too well on my “Bogband” 2Mb broadband…
Lots of slow screen redraws which prevented the activities being very useful (we were supposed to brainstorm a brief e-tivity in small groups in break-out rooms but half the participants didn’t have microphones for “talk” so we were doing it on chat with PowerPoint screen sharing).
I think webinars HAVE to be converted to audio/video recordings that can be downloaded and replayed otherwise you lose a lot of the cohort due to the technology issues. It’s a pain but it has to be done.
I was also horrified to discover Articulate is Flash/Windows only… Articulate Engage does look quite good for quick preparation of e-tivities/animations etc., but otherwise I won’t be using it! And Simon recommended the eLearning Heroes community on Articulate at community.articulate.com
Both Gilly’s webinar and the JISC course made me realise that I need to learn how to “storyboard” more formally – storyboardthat.com. And I should look up Webquest (thanks Elizabeth for mentioning that previously). Simon was very keen on the use of comics/Mangas which I think work brilliantly anyway. Also important to review Wally Woods “22 panels” that show all classic comic panel designs.
Simon’s top tips were:

Clarity – define all acronyms

Do not cram screens

Assume nothing about learners

Find opportunities for doing

Keep 20 mins to 20 mins.

A 20 min segment needs about 20 pages of supporting materials

Review supporting documentation – don’t just slap in what you have. Is it fit for purpose?

 

I liked the PEET model

– Present content delivery

– Exemplify case studies, stories, discussions

– Explore – problem solving, scenarios

– Test – formative summative testing

 

Simon also mentioned thinking about how to keep any branching within e-tivities simple. So the branches may actually all have the same outcome – alternatives that come back to the same place.

 

Finally, and I liked this one… Give the minimum information required to carry out the activity.

[imogenbertin]

And I have given up trying to sort out the beastly formatting on this forum. Life is just too short. Sorry.

[Niall Watts]

Tools update: Articulate Storyline can publish to HTML 5 as can Adobe Captivate 6.1

[Author]

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