For my digital story, I chose to use Scrapblog to present my Tour of Western Europe. Scrapblog is a site that intermingles scrapbooking with blogging. The result is a site where users can create albums using scrapbooking collage elements such as stickers, frames, backgrounds, and themes. This was a fun project to do but took longer than I expected for two reasons: 1) I have never used Scrapblog before and 2) it took forever to upload my 1-2mb photos to their website. The second reason could have been avoided if I performed automated resizing on the images in Photoshop to make the files smaller. However, it was probably a good thing that I attempted my time consuming task in order to understand how slow things may go for a non-Photoshop-type user. The perfectionist in me also had too much fun with layouts, often wanting to make sure photos were lined up well and that “nice looking” fonts went with the images.

Last summer, I placed the majority of my vacation photos from Europe on Picasa, a tool suggested in CogDogTools. While many of my photos in Picasa have captions, they are more like short descriptions than stories. Picasa also enables geotagging which places the location of the photo and the photographer at the time the photo was taken. For my story, I felt this was not necessary although it would have been a nice touch. In Scrapblog, rather than placing captions alone, I did my best to make mini stories to accompany each page of compiled pictures since the photographs themselves could tell stories of their own. Privacy is also another concern of mine so even though Scrapblog has my name on it, the album itself mostly contains imagery of landscapes, structures and artwork and only one photo of myself at the end wearing black, with sunglasses on, camera in hand, and hair tied up – how incognito. The one feature I do like about Scrapblog is that the link to my album can remain relatively private and I can choose who I would like to share it with. For the purposes of this assignment, the link remains public.

As I was creating my Scrapblog, I was fascinated by the amount of scrapbooking elements available yet at the same time, I began to think how the use of such elements by other users would mean that my scrapbook would not be completely original. There would be no way for me to upload my own “trinket” images. Nevertheless, Scrapblog allows users to drag, drop, crop, adjust, and edit their own photographs and images. Best of all, users can have their very own scrapbook, card or calendar printed out and shipped. Other features I like about Scrapblog are its Flash video capabilities, much like one would find with YouTube. Users can pause the presentation, see which slide the presentation is on and navigate to the previous or next pages at their own speed. The selection of music is adequate as well, but is not a necessary addition. Visual transitions are also available to the user to make the change from page to page more appealing. For educational purposes, I think Scrapblog would make a good digital storytelling tool for kids and teenagers.

Initially, I found it difficult to participate because I could not log into the wiki when I had the time to post earlier in the week. Not being able to log into the wiki sort of caused me to miss out on earlier discussion, which I could see as being a hindrance to using wikis for group collaboration in its initial stages. Apart from threaded discussion, the wiki was organized in a more linear fashion where I could click on a person’s name and follow one path of discussion related to a particular individual’s post. So while each post contributed to a larger discussion, they each contained their own “module” of information. Wikis seem to be more effective for collaboration in that way.

In our discussion, I found the ideas relatively easy to follow because the posts were brief, concise and individualized. I think if we had each posted by topic (e.g. use of Facebook, Twitter, bookmarking, etc.) instead of by individual student sightings, the discussions may have been more difficult to reply to and discussion may fizzle more quickly. Another advantage of group collaboration in a wiki is that users can create their own pages if the activity requires it. However, a disadvantage to this is that instead of having information contained all on one page, students would have to navigate to individual pages. One challenge to posting in a wiki is that without knowing the code that is different from HTML, it may take slightly longer to post.

In the past, I have designed websites and taken into consideration many of the design issues and elements brought up in the toolkit that are very significant in for development and construction of a site. While webpagesthatsuck.com provides examples of the eyesores and poor usability websites that exist in the realm of cyberspace, it also reminded me of the Smashing Magazine website – a great resource for tutorials on web design, templates and other design-related issues.

I think the storyboarding exercise that suggests making a drawing of the initial structure is another helpful thing to do with web design. It really helps outline the vision and, more importantly, organize where different elements such as navigation, content and imagery will appear on the page. This is actually something I am trying to create for a work project at the moment, especially since the storyboard can also act as a proposal to present at meetings and help other users understand the functionality of the web site. As well, it also helps determine whether or not the site can work within an existing site/structure (in the event that it has to) or if the site itself can go into a different or new site.

To further understand how storyboarding works from an information architecture standpoint, there is a tutorial at Web Monkey that shows a layout grid and how various elements could be spaced out. More advanced web development elements to consider is the 960 grid which uses a 960 px width for a more flexible framework that can adjust to different browsers and platforms. The grid itself is defined by either 12 or 16 columns that help separate different elements of the storyboard layout.

Overall, web design can be a very complicated and often, time-consuming process with many variables to consider. However, taking into consideration most, if not all, design elements can really help save time and costs.

The following proposal has been developed for a mock situation and non-existent company called Mocke Health Corporation.

Executive Summary

Mocke Health Corporation is seeking an online training solution to support over 3000 employees in 26 locations worldwide. To meet Mocke’s needs for a stable and secure online learning management system (LMS) that can be globally accessed, the proposed LMS for use is WebCT Vista. From an operational standpoint, WebCT Vista provides adequate technical support and secure server hosting that a large corporation like Mocke requires. Consequently, from an educational perspective, WebCT Vista offers a system that includes features such as asynchronous and synchronous communication (i.e., discussion forums, live chat, email to other users or trainers), assessments, feedback, content placement, and file uploads/downloads.

Background

For over 30 years, Mocke Health Corporation specializes in providing products and services to healthcare professionals worldwide. As Mocke Health continues to expand its offerings, the company is in need of an online learning system that can accommodate over 3000 employees who work in departments relating to corporate development, health services, research and development, and sales.  The learning management system must also be available to a wide variety of clients including healthcare professionals and their colleagues.

LMS Selection: Why WebCT Vista?

According to Bates and Poole (2000), the SECTIONS framework helps facilitate the organizational decision for choosing suitable learning technology. The following uses the SECTIONS framework to consider the implementation of WebCT Vista:

•    Students and Organizational Issues: The individuals using Vista are mainly employees located in various parts of the world including the Americas, Asia, Europe and Australia. Therefore, it is important that the users have an LMS that is conveniently accessible from various locations, even if they are employees on a business trip who would like to login to their online course at any time of day during the week or have materials readily available. Vista offers secure access that is available any day of the week at any time. Additionally, students are not expected to have advanced technical skills to use the LMS and can work on the courses at their own pace.
•    Ease of use and Speed: As mentioned in the previous section, even novice students can use Vista for their courses. They are not expected to be experts in using the technology. The same holds true for trainers and course developers. Vista supports trainers, instructors and students with orientation sessions to help them get acquainted with the system. As well, the interface design is relatively easy to navigate and content, if organized in a meaningful manner, can prove useful for the users. Vista’s most important feature in terms of Mocke’s needs is its reliability. As a commercially available LMS used by other institutions and organizations, Vista servers are reliable with few technical-related issues (Bates & Poole, ). While version upgrades may affect costs and time, Mocke has a strong IT department that can provide adequate technical and professional support to its employees.
•    Costs: The approximate cost to Mocke for the use of Vista would include licensing, training plus hosting in the first year. Costs for this would initially run at around $20,000. While some training is available for free, the costs of additional significant training have been included in the start-up costs. These costs are expected to be slightly lower in subsequent years since training will not likely be necessary and can be performed by existing Mocke staff in the future. Future costs would be more focused on licensing and hosting. The advantage to hosting with Blackboard, the company that runs WebCT Vista, is cost-effectiveness. Having Blackboard as a server host, at least in the first year, would remove responsibility that the IT department has towards network outages and data security (Blackboard, 2009). The estimated cost for placing and delivering materials online would be around $50,000 in a two-year time period. Because most materials are already electronically distributed, this would save time and costs. The return on investment can be measured by 1) the effectiveness of the courses in the first year and 2) whether the courses have had an impact on employee performance (Accenture, 2008).
•    Teaching and Learning: Vista accommodates a variety of learning styles and can support different types of media. Learners can be assessed in discussion forums and through quizzes and assignments. Each trainer or course developer can customize the course as appropriate for the subject matter. In conjunction with the National Educational Technology Standards set by the International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE, 2008), teachers should “engage in professional growth and leadership” by helping improve student learning as well as developing leadership and technology skills (p. 1). Using Vista as an LMS can help teachers and instructors do this.
•    Interaction and Interactivity: The Vista LMS maximizes the opportunities for interaction and interactivity since it allows learners to globally access the courses and have discussions with one another. Synchronous communication platforms such as live chat can prove advantageous.
•    Novelty: Vista has been compared with other LMS platforms and proves to be the best solution for Mocke. Upon consultation with other employees and directors of Mocke, Vista is a solution that will provide significant return on investment in the long-run.

References

Accenture. (2006). Return on learning, part 3: Measuring the return on investment in training. Retrieved June 7, 2009 from http://www.accenture.com/Global/Research_and_Insights/Outlook/By_Subject/Human_Resource_Mgmt/ReturnLearningPart3.htm

Bates, A. W. & Poole, G. (2003). A framework for selecting and using technology. In Effective teaching with technology in higher education: Foundations for success. New York: Wiley, John & Sons. Retrieved June 6, 2009 from UBC WebCT Vista: ETEC 565A.

Blackboard. (2009). Blackboard managed hosting. Retrieved June 7, 2009 from http://www.blackboard.com

International Society for Technology in Education. (2008). National educational technology standards and performance indicators for teachers. Retrieved June 7, 2009 from http://www.iste.org/Content/NavigationMenu/NETS/ForTeachers/2008Standards/NETS_T_Standards_Final.pdf