Aug
2
Kwikwetlem Project
Posted by: Thomas Kritikos | August 2, 2009 | Comments Off on Kwikwetlem Project
A) What might be three (3) important questions Raj could ask himself when deciding which multimedia to include?
1. Will providing students with specific multimedia artifacts (audio, visual, text) within their educational program improve student learning? How will this be measured?
2. What are the expectations that Raj will communicate to his students about the quantity and quality of the work that he expects from them.
3. Will developing the self-directed, online learning module on the Kwikwetlem First Nation web-site, overwhelm the site with Raj’s media artifacts to the point where the technology doesn’t permit students to engage with the material in a timely manner. Students may then find the learning process uninspiring because of the inadequate technical infrastructure.
B) Do you think Raj can deliver this in a month? Explain your answer.
I don’t think that Raj can complete his site in the one-month (40 hours of build time) time frame that he spoke of. I think that with his classroom obligations, his marking schedule, and his intention to work on the site on weekends, may prove to be too ambitious of a time-line for him. Personally, I think he will not have the endurance to accomplish this activity with all the other things that he is doing as a teacher. I also think he may want to revise his one hour a day lesson schedule for his project. I think this schedule may be to piece meal in nature. He needs to allocate more overall time for a project of this eloquence. He may want to also consider integrating other curricular areas within his project, such as Language Arts, Social Studies and Fine Arts learning outcomes.
4. Suggest how Raj could approach developing his website?
I think that Raj should look at all the possible multimedia that he will be using to populate his web-site, and evaluate whether or not it will best support student learning with respect to his goals for his project. As Siemens (2003) stated, “not all media is created equal”. Raj needs to accomplish the media evaluating task prior to building his site. Raj should then decide if his site will be used to display another media application such as Prezi, Animoto or Tikatok. Or will his site be the traditional web-page format. I feel a traditional web format may be too boring for students. They would be more energized and motivated to actively engage with the material if they were introduced to this content through an exciting format such as Animoto. After Raj has decided the format for his online module, he needs to begin looking at which media will best support his various learning outcomes for students. He needs to group all relevant media around individual learning outcomes for optimal learning. After this, he needs to build his module by enhancing the content through the use of the relevant media. He needs to be able to provide students with links from outcome to outcome through this media story-telling approach. Students need to be able to collaborate and share their ideas and opinions with their peers. Students need to be able to offer and receive feedback from their teacher and peers somewhere embedded on the site. It is only through this hands on approach by students, working collaboratively to actively engage with the media provided, will their learning improve on the topic that Raj has set up for them.
5. Offer an alternative to the website, one that will use some of Multimedia already collected.
Raj could utilize the Prezi application to develop a time line rich with pictures and other media. He could then have students create their own Prezi presentation with the outcome of transforming their knowledge on the topic. Or, students could work in collaborative learning groups to populate Raj’s Prezi. Students again, would be transforming their knowledge by enhancing the initial Prezi by adding their own learning content to it.
Siemens, G. (2003). Evaluating Media Characteristics: Using multimedia to achieve learning outcomes. Elearnspace. http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/mediacharacteristics.htm (accessed July 25, 2009).