Category Archives: Assignment 3: Content Module

Reflections on assignment 3

Looking back on assignment 3, I experienced many challenges. Some were due to my unfamiliarity with Moodle, some due to technical difficulties and others due to my inexperience in developing a course/curriculum. Overall, I felt that assignment 3 was labor intensive but definitely worthwhile. I learned a lot about Moodle, but it also helped to develop my ideas of what is important in a course, layout, activities and my overall pedagogical approach.

I chose Moodle as my LMS because Univeristy of Alberta, where I work, uses Moodle as it’s LMS for online courses. I thought that perhaps my experience might become useful if parts of the medical curriculum move to this platform, though there is no plan for this in the near future. On reflection,I would have ideally liked to do more research into the two programs and chosen the best one based on Bate’s SECTIONS criteria (2014). This would have been a more logical approach as I would have chosen one that is easy to use, fits with my pedagogical approach and curriculum. However, at the time, I hadn’t considered all aspects of my course, such as assessment, learning activities, layout of my course, ease of use, accessibility, etc. Also I did not know enough about each LMS and did not have the time to make all of the above pedagogical considerations prior to making my choice thus made it based on practicality. Despite this, I found that I was able to work within the affordances of Moodle to create my module and the skeleton of my course.

The readings around assessment really struck me during this course and helped to shape my Moodle course. As stated by Gibbs & Simpson, the greatest influence on student learning is assessment (2005). Keeping this in mind, I designed my course to incorparate frequent assignments which would be graded. Additionally, I made many of these assignments team-based, ue to this reading, I structured many of the learning activities to be group based. This is based on the observation that students are more engaged in group projects and it generates discussion, reflection, and confrontation of ideas (Gibbs & Simpson, 2005) . These are all important aspects of the learning process.

I certainly ran into some technical difficulties which hindered my progress in creating my module in Moodle. I found a work around, but to this moment, I’m not sure why I was unable to save my book chapter. However, I found I was able to persevere and find a solution (after a good night’s sleep). This shows flexibility, adaptability and perseverance, which are all qualities I wanted to work on.

For my digital story, I used Adobe Slate. This program was mentioned by Natasha during the first half of our course. At that moment, not knowing much about the digital story assignment, I decided to play around with Adobe Slate. This was very valuable, as I was able to see sample projects and play around with it. I found it very easy to use and intuitive. I’ve always enjoyed reading and love graphic novels. My own preferences may have played a role in choosing Adobe slate for my project. I had previously used iMovie, PowToons, and PowerPoint so I am fairly familiar with their affordances. I have been interested in trying Videoscribe, but had not come across an opportunity to use it. Considering my digital story, which was a patient perspective story on a difficult diagnosis, I thought Adobe Slate was my best choice based on Bate’s ideas about selecting media.　He states that there are three elements that need to be considered; content, content structure and skills (2014).

Considering the content I wanted to deliver, which was the patient perspective of a difficult diagnosis, I felt tht text would be optimal. Video would also be a great digital medium, however given limitations in my time and skill, I did not feel that I could evoke the type of emotions I intended with video.

Considering the content structure of text, I felt that Adobe Slate was also the optimal choice. Text enables linear sequencing, and in the telling of this story, this structured format was important (Bates, 2004). The ability to display pictures with text also adds richness to the readers experience. These images represent the same emotions and situations in a differnt way from text, giving students further exploration into the story. I also think that it leaves the students with a deeper understanding and lasting impression of the story because the situation is represented in both text and images. Adobe Slate also gives students the ability to move at their own pace which is important for reflection.

Bates also mentions that text is useful for developing higher learning outcomes such as analysis, critical thinking and evaluation (2014). In terms of this digital story, I wanted to achieve reflection and critical thinking so Adobe Slate also succeeds in achieving this end.

In addtion, Adobe Slate was easy to use, can be embedded into webpages, shared, free, compatible with differnt operating systems, mobile friendly and secure (or at least as secure as most other available programs).

Once again, I feel that this was a valuable assignment from which I have learned a significant amount. I am positive that it will help with my academic goals during my career.

References

• Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in digital age. Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/
• Gibbs, G., & Simpson, C. (2005). Conditions under which assessment supports students` learning. Learning and Teaching in Higher Education, 1(1), 3-31. Retrieved from http://www.open.ac.uk/fast/pdfs/Gibbs%20and%20Simpson%202004-05.pdf

Overall Experience

Reflecting back on the completion of this content module I have a better understanding of why the assessment strategies needed to be completed earlier on in the ETEC 565A course. I found myself reverting back to the learning objectives that I established for my Concussion College course frequently. My thought process throughout the development of this content module consistently asked “how will they be using this information when working directly with patients?” Establishing clear learning objectives for the pain management module was essential in order for me to choose the appropriate content to include.

In considering my own practice as a physiotherapist, I do identify mutual goals when working with patients early on in their therapy sessions. As I mentioned in my introductory module reflection I have not had prior experience creating an online course. Perhaps, I felt there was a different approach to that needed to be taken when teaching or guiding patients in an online learning environment. I was mistaken in this regard since the same approach of establishing end goals relates to how content should be designed in an online space. I had to avoid getting immersed in the capabilities of the technology at the expense of achieving the learning objectives. Moving forward, I will continue to use the backward course design approach when creating technology based online education programs.

I started off by considering how the content should be delivered in this module then realized the target audience would likely be individuals who have completed their high school diploma with possibly some post-secondary education. Reflecting back on professional development training courses that I have taken recently I noticed that content can be presented in text form and does not need to be overloaded with videos and distracting images. The more important aspect of the module became the design of the activities. Whenever I was uncertain if the activity was suitable I considered how I want the students to think differently at the end of the module.

Overall, the experience was extremely valuable to work through the creation of developing effective online content. Greater consideration needed to put on how content would differ or remain the same since the medium of delivery is not the typical face to face format.

Design

The design of the pain management module is very similar to the welcome page in terms of simplicity and clean appearance. I did not want students to be distracted by seeing all of the modules’ contents all at once as soon as they entered the section. Having created a graphical user interface in the introductory module assignment I found it much easier to create for the content module. The greater familiarity with the Moodle LMS for this exercise allowed me to focus less on the technical requirements and more on the pedagogical foundations.

Activities

The activities that I included in the content module focused on both formative and summative assessment. Having the students take The Pain Truth Test at the beginning of the module and reflecting on their answers later on in the module promotes the use of active learning techniques (Chickering 1996). Taking this tests also provides insight into the prerequisite knowledge and misconceptions that students may have so that content that follows may help to modify their understanding (Anderson 2008). The assigned group discussion also promoted students to share their own knowledge and identify unique characteristics of different categories of pain collaboratively.

It was critical that we were advised to carefully consider how our digital story would later fit into our course content. This affected the entire design and storyline that was ultimately created. Powtoon was the right tool for this task because it provided the flexibility to incorporate ‘user-paced segments’ described by Bates (2014) as I was able to use 20 second audio recordings for each slide which made the content more manageable for the learners. There are a number of other online tools that I could have used to record my voice to create a digital story; however, I chose to use one that I found to be more user friendly and flexible compared to others. I was able to upload as many images as I wanted for my story without having to upgrade my subscription service. Being able to do this helped to decide that this was the tool for me to use for my digital story. I wanted to use images that appeared to be standard images that people would recognize based on basic visual literacy skills. From a pedagogical perspective, I wanted viewers to think that the character Matt was just another stock character so that the emphasis would be more on my voice than the images. This approach aligns with how patients should be trained as healthcare professionals such that attentive listening skills should developed earlier on. Only at the end of the digital story is an actual picture of Matt revealed to demonstrate to viewers that even though they may think he is just another stock image that he is a unique individual with a personal story. This story would work within the course that I have developed as a multimedia case study for students to interact with in order to provide recommendations to Matt to help him through his symptoms and issues. The requirement of this task to submit an audio message is purposeful as I wanted students to practice providing verbal advice and hear their own voices. Student listening to classmates messages can learn from the approaches taken by their peers. The story depicts a very common clinical presentation of patients following a concussion which learners need to be prepared to deal with. The knowledge acquired from the other modules will assist learners to gain a better understanding of how to approach concussion patients.

Another aspect that I considered was to determine how many activities and how they would be spaced out within the module. I knew that the audio message response to the digital story would require the most time and planning so that was due towards the end of the week for the module. The other activities were simpler and less involved so they could be placed closer together. I used our own ETEC 565A outline of assignments and tasks as a guide to determine how the activities should be spaced out for a learning module.

References

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in digital age http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)

Chickering, A. W., & Ehrmann, S., C. (1996). Implementing the seven principles: Technology as lever. American Association for Higher Education Bulletin, 49(2), 3-6. Retrieved from http://www.aahea.org/articles/sevenprinciples.htm

My Digital Story

It is the first time for me using Moodle to create a course. It is a great experience as I am building a lighter version of an LMS. I found the UX of Moodle very challenging and it is sometime difficult to predict/image the outcomes of your design. In this course I used the below steps to evaluate the media I intend to use within my course (Siemens, 2003):

1.Outcomes: The learning outcomes within my content module are clearly stated in the introduction of the unit. Yet I need to use those outcomes to select the media that better represent the different outcomes. I used video to give short explanation to the term Entrepreneurship. Videos are a very effective delivery mechanize yet it should not be abused. Videos need to be short when used in education in order not to lose the attention of the viewer. Moreover, I used a PDF journal covering most of the important details of entrepreneurship as an industry and an environment to give a deep understanding of the entrepreneur, the environment & eco system, and the challenges along with real-life examples. I also used the digital story to connect with my learners and share my own experience while highlighting the “Lean” methodology that will be introduced in the next unit.

2.Rate my outcomes: In this unit the aim is to establish both the cognitive & affective domains (Bloom, Engelhart, Furst, Hill, and Krathwohl, 1956). The activities did not involve the learner with a practical experience of entrepreneurship yet the learner improved analytical skills in what can be a successful startup. Furthermore, learners felt the emotions found within an entrepreneur journey for success. The challenges and the different cased shared with learners throughout the media allowed for those feeling to mature.

3.Media characteristics: Text is used for deep learning. The format is in PDF to allow for offline reading. Videos are used to deliver short explanations. Digital storytelling allowed me to connect and share a personal story with my learner. I used my own voice in the digital story to make it more personal. Discussion groups as tools helped learners to engage in peer-to-peer learning.

4.Media selection: I selected media using a criteria of time, cost, and message effectiveness. Go Animate as a tool for my digital story gave me a free trial and excellent delivery method. Moodle as a platform costs learners only the bandwidth to access the website. All content used is under Creative Common making it free to share.
I believe Moodle as a platform is excellent because it is robust yet it needs some work on the UI & UX. As a first user to the system I found it difficult to understand even though I am sure Moodle is pre-setup to me via a professional administrator. Which means there is even more complexity to installing a Moodle environment.

More about the digital story part

Go Animate is a tool using flash with predesigned objects and themes to simplify the process of creating a full digital story. The tool allows the designer to include different audio & video files to the digital story. This was the first time I use this tool and I was not sure if it is the right tool to deliver the story. Yet I believe it is an excellent tool that saves time and effort. As a tool Go Animate is as good as the content and the design instructed by the author. Go Animate runs on any browser which makes it easy to access. Yet using Flash may be a limitation as Flash support is not available and will become an obsolete technology soon.
I selected Go Animate because it allows for both visual and audio delivery of the digital story, which accommodate for different learning styles (Valley, 2011). The fact that the digital story is recorded this allows the learner to pause, rewind, and forward. This also allows the learner to watch the digital story on her/his own time. Telling a story is a good way to deliver a message, yet it is even better to bring your learners closer to you and to open-up and share their own experiences and concerns. The fact that an online course is a culture on its own means that all learners are new to this culture and need a motivation to start sharing and collaborating together (Benedikt, 1991).

I started building the digital story with a learner-centric design (Anderson, 2008a). The learner is a startup company or a person trying to build one. The digital story offered a simple and effective way to share my experience with my learners and to illustrate how the method I am offering in my course was applied by me during my carrier. This modeling approach requires the educator to fully understand the learner and to have a learner-centric design. The digital story explained how the LeanStartupMachine tool is used. This makes the design Knowledge-centric. Furthermore, The LeanStartupMachine methodology was applied to an existing company throughout the digital story. This delivers the message that this tool can be applied at any point of time a new product or idea is proposed.

The Go Animate digital story offers a modeling approach for the educator to share her/his own experience with learners. The digital story allowed me to engage with the content “teacher content” and to share the content with the learner “learner content” and opened a possibility for learners to communicate with me “learner teacher” (Anderson, 2003). I also opened discussion within the same unit in order to achieve a hybrid approach for synchronous and asynchronous communication (Richardson, 2000).

My digital story explains my journey as an entrepreneur which relates to the learners as they consider themselves entrepreneurs and wish to succeed in a specific domain. The digital story is a fun and engaging method and it is a powerful teaching tool offering personal narratives, music & audio, images & animations that create unique snapshots intro the learner’s experience (Matthews, 2014).

References
Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

Anderson, T. (2008b). Teaching in an online learning context. In Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F.Theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca University. Retrieved fromhttp://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/14_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

Anderson, T. (2003). Getting the mix right: An updated and theoretical rational for interaction. International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, 4(2). Retrieved August 27, 2007, from http://www. irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/149/230

Bloom, B.S. (Ed.). Engelhart, M.D., Furst, E.J., Hill, W.H., Krathwohl, D.R. (1956).Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook I: The Cognitive Domain. New 

Benedikt, M. (1991). Cyberspace: Some proposals. In M. Benedikt (Ed.), Cyberspace: First steps (pp. 119–224). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Matthews, J. (2014). Voices from the heart: The use of digital storytelling in education. Community Practitioner, 87(1), 28.

Richardson, J. (2000). Researching student learning: Approaches to studying in campus-based and distance education. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.

Valley, K. (2011). Learning styles and courseware design. Research in Learning Technology,5(2)
Siemens, G. (2003). Evaluating media characteristics: Using multimedia to achieve learning outcomes. Elearnspace. Retrieved fromhttp://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/mediacharacteristics.htmUBC Copyright requirements. Retrieved from http://copyright.ubc.ca/requirements/

My digital story intends to provoke students in a two-fold way. I hope that students will be able to perspective take, an important part of being an historian. Secondly, I hope that my students will see how even though children of Mesopotamia lived thousands of years before them that they are similarities (and differences) between those ancient youths and themselves. I hope that they can appreciate that the more we see history as less foreign and far away from ourselves the easier it is to understand what life may have been like at that time. Hodges (2013) emphasizes the importance of historical perspective for children of this age group (12 -13-year-olds). She states that a historical perspective helps students to consolidate the information that they are taking in. Further, she states “bringing historical contexts into clearer focus can help individuals see the way they are positioned in relation to those contexts and also see that those positions, like the course of a river, may be constantly shifting” (p. 185).

With these objectives in mind, I set about creating a short story in Videoscribe. The video has three parts – the story, some provoking questions and then ‘the twist’.  I hope that students will ask themselves many questions throughout the video. Even if the questions which they come up with are simply trying to figure out how the story fits into what they are studying or why this story is presented with this unit. It is a purposefully simple and vague story which is revealed as being a ‘true’ story recorded on a cuneiform clay tablet from Mesopotamia. But without this information being given at the beginning, the setting of the story could easily be anywhere at anytime.

I think that Videoscribe works well for the telling of this story. I was able to utilize the animation functions of the video creator, and both images and text are made more interesting with the transitions and visual effects. Videoscribe allowed me to set-up the story in such a way that I could tell the story without a specific setting while still making the plot obvious to the potential student audience. In this way, I was also able to take a primary source and transform it, through narrative into something that students would be more familiar with, by momentarily stripping the historical context and then putting in back in during the surprise twist at the end.

This story is created to begin the content module. It is trying to draw students ‘nearer’ to the history – having the students relate to the character in the story before telling them that it is a young Mesopotamian boy intends to make the content of the module seem less distant from their modern lives. Everhart and Harris (2002) speak of the strength of using primary sources and creative writing successfully in a middle school history classroom. Furthermore in their research, they note the trend of students to connect their historical understanding to their lives, when they state “the students tended to interpret the artifacts from the vantage point of their personal experiences and contemporary time frame” (p.53).  

Overall, my experience creating my digital story as a starting point for my content module was highly successful. As I described on Connect in my video reflection, I had initially planned to use a website called Interlude Treehouse. I abandoned this website after trying to engage in video production for three days but realizing that learning to use the video creation tool was too cumbersome and time-consuming when I could instead go back to using something I was more familiar with.

References

Everhart, N., & Harris, F. J. (2002). Using Primary Sources and Creative Writing to Teach Middle School History. Knowledge Quest, 31(2), 52-54.

Hodges, G. C. (06/01/2013). Changing english: Reading within families: Taking a historical perspective University of London, Institute of Education. doi:10.1080/1358684X.2013.788292

Sumerian School Days [Text and Object]. (2016). Children and Youth in History. Retrieved 10 March 2016, from https://chnm.gmu.edu/cyh/primary-sources/408

Here is the digital story that will be intergrated in my Content module for an online Grade 7 English class.  In this module students have an opportunity to inquire about, synthesize, and respond to the role websites play in their lives. In this digital story, they will learn how to differenciate facts and opinions.  The activities in the module will help you to become more media literate around the online content with which they interact.

Reflexion on Content Module – Véronique Brunet

Introduction

When I first began thinking about this assignment, I couldn’t help it but reflect on the group discussion we had in week 3 regarding Benoit’s decision in using either Blackboard or Moodle.  Part of the task was to estimate how much time Benoit would need to develop his online version of the course.

Although I had access to some course content from teaching this course myself, face-to-face and from the Educational resource bank of Ontario (Online resources for teachers provided and validated by the ministry of Education), this assignment helped me realize the effort and attention that is required in transitioning content from a face-to-face teaching to an online learning course.  The initial design process was similar to what I am used to in the classroom, a backward design approach (Wiggins, G. & McTighe, J, 1998, 2011).  After identifying learning goals for the module (Ontario Ministry of Education, 2008) I developed assessment strategies that would help me better assess student learning in order to provide valuable descriptive feedback. Then, when I began to develop content for the module, I realized that this step had to be far more rigorous than with face-to-face instruction since there is no teacher to adapt or make up for missing information in the course.

The Choice of LMS

Looking at Bates SECTIONS model, I chose Connect as an LMS for my content module. The first element I considered was time, as we had to do in week 3 of this course with Benoit’s decision.  Since I am already familiar with connect and with this type of LMS (I work in D2L daily), it would be timesaving to opt for this platform for design.  I also had in mind student demographics and ease of use.  The platform is accessible to anywhere with Internet access and fairly easy to use if a course is well designed.  It is also a secure environment for students to access.

Assessment

Since it is an online course, technology had to be an important part of the assessment strategies (ISTE, 2008). Many factors had to be taken into account when choosing which tools to use for assessment. I wanted to integrate technology seamlessly into the learning process in an authentic way to increase student engagement (Nel, C., Dreyer, C., & Carstens, W. A. M., 2010), therefore, my choice of tools were the discussion forum and the Wiki in Connect and My Site for blogging in O365. In order to support students that may not be familiar with those tools, I provided them with support documents and links placed where the tools (Discussion forum, Wiki, My Site) are used for the first time in the Module.

The discussion forum is used throughout the module and the course.  It is meant for students to collaborate and share ideas on different topics related to what they read and learn in the course.  It is meant to create a sense of community within students which can have a positive impact on student learning as literacy educator Frank Smith (1998) explains, children “ learn from the company they keep”. Wiki is also a tool that will be beneficial to allow students to co-create documents without having to go to an external tool.

Since it is a language course, students will be doing reading and writing and I wanted them to be able to do it in an authentic collaborative context. Almost 90% of 12 to 17-year-old teenagers use text messaging applications on their phone or post in social media (Lenhart et Al., 2008) and do not think of this type of communication as real writing. Therefore, I opted for the blog as a means for students in the course to publish their writing assignments, as well as for peer-to-peer assessment. With Bates (2004) model in mind, I opted for My Site in O365 for its ease of use for students but also because students will be able to keep everything they publish beyond the end of the course, as opposed to the blog in Connect.  My Site will also allow students to share posts with external users. Our board provides all of our students and staff with the cloud-based suite O365 which includes My Site, therefore, Grade 7 students will be familiar with its applications and functionalities.

I found it challenging to create a course that could be used for a Grade 7 online course in Ontario and that corresponded to all criteria for this assignment.  The assessment and evaluation process is very specific in Ontario (Ontario ministry of Education, 2008).  There is no breakdown of grades (like it is in post-secondary institutions or primary and secondary schools in other provinces).  In Ontario, teachers are expected to assess students’ learning through a wide range of methods (observations, conversations, productions).  Teachers cannot calculate an average (like 30% for assignments 1 and 20% for assessment 2 etc.).  The mode (so the most frequent grade) and teacher’s professional judgment are to be used to give students’ final grade.  Students are evaluated with grade levels (1 to 4) as per the evaluation criteria (that are co-constructed with students and added to the evaluation rubric).

Content and Presentation

I developed this content module with a group of Grade 7 students in mind.  These students are French speaking and are registered in an English course.  In Ontario, students can follow the English second language curriculum from grade 4 to grade 6.  When they get to grade 7, they have to follow the regular English language curriculum which can be challenging for students in most areas of our school board.

One of the things I found challenging when creating the content module was deciding what to include in terms of introductory information at the beginning of the module. Unlike a face-to-face class setting, where students are able to ask questions for clarification immediately, in an online setting one must anticipate what might be more difficult for the students. Therefore, it seemed necessary to decide which type of information may be required to provide students with sufficient background information prior to their independent or collaborative learning activities, such as readings, blogging and discussions. Bates (2014) states that it is important make relevant core information easily available to students when designing a course. For this reason, I included a brief introduction at the beginning of the module and of each activity.  To differentiate for students that are still struggling with language, I included a written and a video introduction. This allowed me to give an overview of the important content and tasks students have to accomplish and present the different tools that will be used.

In his article, Bates (2014) discusses the importance of student learning preferences. I wanted to include instructional material using video, text, images, interactive learning activities and the digital story as a means to provide a “range of options for students learning” (Bates, 2014).

According to Chow et al. (2012), high school students tend to scan online material when seeking information. Therefore, I paid close attention to how much text I included in each of the topics’ overview, making sure that only relevant material was being presented in order to avoid overwhelming students with too much information.

Reflection: A Digital Story

Creating a digital story was an interesting assignment. What I liked most about it was how it focused on creativity and allowed me to experiment with a variety of technologies. The effectiveness of a digital story depends on the actual story is to be told and how its author wants to present it (Boase, n.d.) trying to tell and how you present it.

I found it difficult to find a topic for my digital story in a language course.  I absolutely wanted to avoid creating something that would be strictly descriptive or instructional, the story had to mean something and have a purpose in the module. Once I decided on my storyline, I then had to choose the proper tool to create it.

My goal was to create a story that would be interesting and appropriate for the students’ age group and that would have them reflect on the importance of differentiating facts and opinions in their everyday life and in what they read and see on the Internet.

Why was this the right tool for you to use to tell your story, from a pedagogical perspective? How did you purposefully select this for your storytelling tool, in pedagogical terms?

Deciding which tool to use to create my story was a learning experience on its own because it forced me to try various software and programs in searching for the right one. Using Bates’ SECTIONS (2014) proved to extremely useful once again in helping me to organize my ideas and rationalize my choice to use GoAnimate for Schools for the most part of this project. Here is a rational of my analysis using Bates model:

• Student: When considering the audience, I wanted to find a tool that would enable me to create something that was appropriate and engaging for a young teenager. I wanted my digital story to be told from a teenager’s perspective, so, it also needed to incorporate either cartoons or animation. Furthermore, students will have to create a digital story themselves in another module, so, GoAnimate for Schools was easy to use enough for students to use it in their own digital story later.
• Ease of use: In order to tell my story, I needed a program that would allow me to animate cartoons easily, without too much animation experience, add voices, create a setting and add sound effects and music. This was easily achieved in GoAnimate as sounds could be quickly uploaded and a good variety of images for cartoons and settings were provided with GoAnimate. Adding items was as easy as a simple click and drag to where I wanted them in the timeline. I was also able to edit the duration of each scene. One downside to GoAnimate is that the automated voices, Voxal Voice Changer.  Using the free version of this software, I was able to record my own voice and modify it to adapt to the characters in my story.  Then I could import the recordings in GoAnimate. GoAnimate is pretty straight forward to use.  I had created one animation with it before and never had to consult any tutorials.Overall, when considering the ease of use, Go Animate was intuitive and did not require a lot of time to learn how to use it.
• Cost: GoAnimate For Schools is a Web-based program. A 14-day trial period is available.  A single teacher can purchase a yearly subscription for 59$.  Class subscriptions are also available so students can create and share their animated videos.  My school already had a subscription to GoAnimate for schools, which made it a very affordable option for this assignment.

How would this story work within a course that you teach (or would like to teach) based on pedagogical arguments?

I think this story would work within the course for various reasons. Students are bombarded with information on the web, on social networks, on television.  It is essential that they develop the ability to think critically about the information in front of them.  In this first module, students are learning about Internet and media literacy.  It is important that they are able to discern fact from an opinion in order to understand an author or a person’s perspective on a subject so they are able to think about it critically. The digital story will provide students with a different learning opportunity that would enable them to visually create meaning (Dreon et al., 2011) and engage with the content early on in the course. I believe this video could be useful in facilitating the learning process by providing students with visual aids with which they can create links between what they see and what they’ve read in a text.

By using this story, it would provide students with a different approach to learn some of the material and in turn, could help accommodate the varying learning styles or preferences (Bates, 2014). Furthermore, using media that engage more senses can help students make meaning from the experience and can facilitate the construction of new knowledge, making the lesson more memorable.

Conclusion

Overall, I found this assignment to be extremely useful in applying some of the knowledge acquired in this course. The assignment’s criteria (like the digital story) not a guided me in the project and encouraged me to step outside my comfort zone and experiment with new technologies.  I enjoyed the creativity this assignment allowed me while still being a valuable learning experience.

References

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a Digital Age (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework). Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage

Boase, C. (n.d.). Digital storytelling for reflection and engagement: a study of the uses and potential of digital storytelling [PDF Document]. Retrieved from https://gjamissen.files.wordpress.com/2013/05/boase_assessment.pdf

Chow, A. S., Smith, K. M., & Sun, K. (2012). Youth as Design Partners: Age-Appropriate Websites for Middle and High School Students. Educational Technology & Society, 35(3), 402-422.

Dreon, O., Kerper, R. M., & Landis, J. (2011). Digital Storytelling: A Tool for Teaching and Learning in the YouTube Generation. Middle School Journal, 42(5). Retrieved from http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ934075.pdf

International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE). (2008). Standards for teachers. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/standards/standards-for-teachers

Lenhart, A., Arafeh, S., Smith, A., & Macgill, A. R. (2008). Writing, technology and teens. Washington, DC: Pew Internet & American Life Project.

Nel, C., Dreyer, C., & Carstens, W. A. M. (2010).Educational technologies: A classification and evaluation. Tydskrif vir letterkunde, 35(4), 238-258. Retrieved from http://www.ajol.info/index.php/tvl/article/download/53794/42346

Ontario Ministry of Education. (2008). Growing success: Assessment, evaluation and reporting: Improving student learning. Toronto.

Smith, F. (1998). The book of learning and forgetting. New York: Teachers College Press.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (1998). Understanding by design. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Merrill/Prentice-Hall.

Wiggins, G., & McTighe, J. (2011). Understanding by design guide to creating high quality units. Alexandria, VA: Association for supervision and curriculum development.

Content Module

The process of creating my Moodle course has been an interesting one. I started off feeling very overwhelmed. This was partially due to my lack of experience with Moodle, but was primarily due to the fact that we have no multi-week online friendly programs at the Firm. I was able to come up with a concept for assignment two but did not have to fully implement it until assignment three. I decided to combine five separate sessions that we run for our summer law students into one comprehensive onboarding program. We have discussed revamping our onboarding program in the past so I believe this will resonate with my colleagues and may have the possibility of future implementation.

The biggest challenge in designing my Risk Management Module was re-structuring the content. The materials from the live ninety-minute session consist of the Firm policies and a group activity. I figured the Firm policies would make great “readings” for the week. I didn’t want to provide a long write-up on each policy because students would then have no need to read the policies. In place of the in-class activity, I incorporated a small group discussion. The Firm has a culture of collaboration so it was important that I designed something where our students could interact with each other. Since it is the first module a small group discussion seemed like a good way to ease them into the program.

Much like my introductory module, I included navigation arrows on each page to make my course more user friendly. As Bates (2014) states in the SECTIONS model, ease of use is very important in program design. If students have to fumble through using the technology they will not reap the full benefits of the content. Further, navigation arrows incorporate Spiros concept of curation by directing student in the order in which they should review the content (2014). I tried to keep the module clean and concise. Having done most of my trial and error for assignment two, I found it quite easy to aesthetically design my Risk Management Module. The one item that confused me was setting up a group discussion forum. However, after watching a YouTube video I was able to figure it out (groups versus groupings was throwing me off).

Digital Story

Once I understood the nature of the digital story, I knew I wanted to discuss the role of professional development in the summer law student program. I wanted my digital story to accomplish two goals: (1) to explain why professional development matters, and (2) to provide an overview of the summer law student learning program. The main driver behind my platform decisions was the content of my digital story. My content was all plain text from either speaking notes or PowerPoint presentations we have developed. I referred to the Siemens article on evaluating media characteristics to help me determine what media to incorporate. He explained that visual graphics and diagrams help enrich learning material and audio makes the learning experience more personal (Siemens, 2003). For that reason I thought PowToon would be a good platform to use. I have used it a few times before and the graphic and audio package are both extensive and easy to use. I considered using VideoScribe but I thought it was a bit too casual and that my content would not be easy to “scribe”.

I do not see my digital story being incorporated into any of our professional development courses. Instead, I see it being part of the onboarding process for summer students, articling students, and junior associates (with slight revisions being made for each audience). The Firm has dedicated significant time and resources to the professional development of these groups. I think it is important they understand why and get an idea of what to expect. For that reason, I incorporated my digital story into my Introduction Module. I think it is a good way to set the tone for the rest of the course and the summer term at large. Going forward, I would love to include interview style clips with prior students and associates to make the story more relatable.

Overall, I really enjoyed the process of creating this course and think it will help me develop eLearning content for the Firm in the future.

References

Bates, T. (2014). Chapter 8: SECTION Framework. Teaching in digital age. Retrieved from: http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Siemens, G. (2003). Evaluating media characteristics: Using multimedia to achieve learning outcomes. Elearnspace. Retrieved from: http://www.elearnspace.org/Articles/mediacharacteristics.htm

Spiro, K. (2014). 5 elearning trends leading to the end of the Learning Management Systems. Retrieved from: http://elearningindustry.com/5-elearning-trends-leading-to-the-end-of-the-learning-management-system

My content module formed around my digital story. I did not decide on which module I would focus on for the content module until I was preparing to create my digital story. For the digital story, I immediately knew I wanted to talk about brainstorming and outlining because it had personal significance. With that decision made, I decided to develop the content for the second week of my course: brainstorming and topic selection.

For my digital story, I chose to use VideoScribe. I feel this was the right tool because, as a teacher, the ease of use appealed to me—it was accessible in China and developing a digital story using VideoScribe did not cost me a significant amount of time (until it came to uploading). Pedagogically, the main reason I thought VideoScribe would work best to tell my story because it allowed me to incorporate both visual and audio. With my students in mind, I was reminded of Bates’ (2014) point about modality: “[p]eople learn better from graphics and narration than from animation and on-screen text.” Additionally, providing images along with narration would give important contextual clues to those students who may not understand every word. Being able to record the narration myself was helpful in two ways: first, I could control the pacing, and seconding, as per Bates’ (2014) suggestion for voice, “[p]eople learn better when the narration in multimedia lessons is spoken in a friendly human voice rather than a machine voice.” Therefore, I believe VideoScribe was appropriate for my particular context.

While I am pleased with how the digital story was created, I now feel slightly skeptical about how effective it will prove to be within the confines of a course, but I also see how it could be useful. My main concern, as the digital story shares my personal experience with the topic, is that it may colour the students’ perspectives, potentially preventing them from thinking critically about the topic. To mitigate this in my content module, I did add an optional discussion topic where students could discuss their opinion. The best case scenario of using my digital story is that it does provide my “personal spin”, a strength of audio media outlined in Bates’ (2014) chapter on pedagogy. I also believe the digital story could strengthen the sense of community in the course as the students would see me in a different light—not just a giver of information, but someone who has been affected by the content. As my digital story does not specifically outline how I brainstormed, it may serve as a tool to promote curiosity on the topic. Ciampa (2013) classifies curiosity as a type of intrinsic motivation and, as my digital story is an audio-visual piece, it would stimulate both sensory and cognitive curiosity (p.84). With this in mind, I purposefully placed my digital story before the students were asked to independently explore different methods of brainstorming by viewing two infographics. I did this with the intent that, if the students were curious about brainstorming, they would be more likely to complete the task.

Thinking of my content module as a whole, three main themes dominated my choices: student motivation, using a learner-centred approach, and ensuring the content was appropriate for the target audience. My initial focus was to design a module that students would be motivated to complete. Ciampa (2013) outlines in his discussion of control as intrinsic motivation, that, when students are given control over their learning, they become more motivated (p.84). As my students are accustomed to a “stand and deliver” approach to teaching, I wanted to put the students in control of their learning. To do this, I leaned toward a learner-centred approach. As Anderson (2008a), summarizing Brandford and colleagues, notes, a learned-centred approach “includes awareness of the unique cognitive structures and understandings that learners bring to the learning context. Thus, a teacher makes efforts to gain an understanding of students’ prerequisite knowledge, including any misconceptions that the learner starts within their construction of new knowledge” (p.47). However, with no face-to-face interaction, I knew I would be lacking in this knowledge. Therefore, I had to make many assumptions on how best to fill in the gaps while delivering a lesson the students would be able to follow without face-to-face interaction with the teacher.

In making these assumptions, I initially fell into a trap Bates (2014) cautions against catering to learning styles and completely ignored Anderson’s (2008a) declaration that “a learner-centred context is not one in which the whims and peculiarities of each individual learner are slavishly catered to (p. 47). I wondered how I could meet the learning needs of every student and attempted to cover each style. I was soon overwhelmed, so I decided I would provide a range of media—including videos, infographics, text, tables, and flowcharts, but not put too much emphasis hitting every learning style. Using a wide range of media does have drawbacks. For instance, Bates (2014) acknowledges the importance of being aware of student preferences, but he also asserts that, if adding stimulating features, their educational value should be worth the strain on bandwidth. In choosing to create videos, for example, I thought the strain on bandwidth would be worthwhile. In Bates’ (2014) SECTIONS model under teaching and media selection, he considers segmenting, multimedia, and voice as having particular strengths. For my students, using short videos would help divide the content into digestible chunks, would add variety, and would serve as a way for students to connect with their instructor. While Bates (2014) does indicate that there is no discernible benefit to adding the speaker’s image to an audio presentation, I thought it would be important for the students to put a face to the voice as a way to build community, so I did use my webcam to record a mini-lecture. There is also a significant text component to my lesson, which I am not thrilled about. However, I was hesitant to create too many videos as the students become grow weary of them. Also, videos of a teacher talking are dangerously close to the “stand and deliver” model I was trying to avoid.

If I were to summarize my experience developing my content module I would say it was like being lost in the dark. I had no student feedback to draw from, so I had to blindly add and arrange components in a way that I thought would work. I feel cautiously optimistic that I made sound decisions, but I won’t know for sure until I receive feedback. Then, the revision process can begin.

References

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from: http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. (Chapters 7 & 8). Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/

Ciamp, K. (2013) Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82-96.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=AUTE4Yy9lKM

This digital story is an example of an activity (that is a part of a larger set of activities) connected to identity and the power of story that participants would undertake in one of the modules of the pro-d course for the First Peoples Principles of Learning. I used myself as an example/model for this activity. My reflection will be included in  Assignment #3.

This assignment combined multiple relevant teaching elements. Blending an online learning environment with strong pedagogical strategies to complete an entire module of learning was new to me. As an elementary generalist, we typically would use some of these elements but do not typically develop fully LMS directed courses. For my project, students would undertake many of the course components while under my supervision and facilitation. When moving towards a more constructivist design of teacher where learning is more personalized, finding time to manage all the student’s needs can be overwhelming. Have an LMS module in a blended learning classroom would allow students to have a set direction and instruction without having the need for content delivery by the teacher. Students can gain and explore content through the activities. The teacher can then monitor progress within the class as well as online. Work is recorded and shared with classmates and the teacher. Interventions can happen as just-int-time learning opportunities. Assessment becomes more visible and a record of learning is housed within the project.

There are multiple challenges to using this platform within my teaching context. Primarily, access to technology can be a significant barrier. Although BYOD is becoming more common, we continue to rely on school based technology. In order to run a module like this, large amounts of computer time are required and may not always be available. Secondly, students require significant skills to work independently. They must follow this module in sequential order or the project will not be successful. Management tools such as the order established and the check boxes for completion are designed to help students manage their progress. Thirdly, a reasonable amount of technological skills are required for students to navigate the LMS and complete the assignments. Fourth, setting up the module is considerably time consuming as is the review of all student work housed within the module. This is beneficial if one teaches the same grade or similar content in following years or for multiple classes. The LMS is easily adaptable for future use and scalable for no additional cost, but the time commitment is significant.

In terms of course development, I worked towards adherence to the belief that effective learning is community-centred, knowledge-centred, learner-centred, and assessment-centred (Anderson, 2008). Though developing lessons to assess and then build background knowledge accessible to each student, I was able to create a learner centered environment. Information was presented through video, audio, text (variety of reading levels) and with a variety of scaffolds such as graphic organizers. Assessment occurred through multiple types, including a quiz with immediate feedback, written discussions, project rubric and self and peer assessment opportunities. Students worked collaboratively and at some points created curriculum together and at other times took on a specialized role within their group. Students were given a purpose of sharing their project with others in the school as a way to promote healthy living and a homework assignment to introduce yoga to their families.

The digital story was for me like many new learning platforms, exciting to learn but frustrating as well. I had never used VideoScribe. I wanted to use the opportunity to learn a new platform and potential form of delivery. To assess my choice I applied the SECTIONS framework (Bates, 2014).

Students at the grade 5 range are a demographic that respond well to video learning and animations in particular. VideoScibe animations would likely appeal to them as it uses digital representations ‘drawn’ as if by magic. Using visuals along with audio overlay and musical enhancements, appeals to a wide range of students. The students can access the video and replay in order to review or repeat content. In terms of access, students can view the video on personal devices or it could be displayed with a projector as a whole group. Very little technical knowledge is required.

Ease of Use- This program worked differently than other digital story telling programs I have used before. Although some video tutorials were available, they tended to be quite lengthly and difficult to isolate the one element I was trying to learn. It became an investment of several hours to watch all of the videos I needed to feel confident. I tried ‘playing’ with the software on my own, however this only lead to high levels of frustration. If I was going to teach this to the students I would want to develop my own tutorials. Once I got the hang of the program, it was more simplistic in its options than I thought. Adding voiceover could not be done in sections, but rather as one large recording. Matching the pictures to the audio was straight forward and generally accurate, however, the music overlay was an all or nothing. It had to over all the track with an option to loop or not at all. I found this very limiting.

Cost- Part of the allure of this program was the trial version is free for 1 week. This provided me with an opportunity to test out its capabilities without being held to a subscription. With options to pay monthly or yearly, flexibility was built in. They do offer educational pricing by application so I am unsure of the accessibility of cost to a school.

Teaching- In designing my video, I worked to align with Talbert’s key design principles (Bates, 2014):

Keep it Simple: focus on one idea at a time.

Keep it Short: keep videos to a length 5-6 minutes max. to maximize attention.

Keep it Real: model the decision making and problem solving processes of expert learners.

Keep it Good: be intentional about planning the video. Strive to produce the best video and audio quality possible.

Using Videoscribe allows one picture to be drawn at a time which isolates and slows down the presentation of information. Each visual need to be chosen to represent a concept and the program builds these together for effect. Some animation programs use a computer to read an entered script, while Videoscribe requires you to record a human voice, much more pleasing for the listener (Bates, 2014).

Interaction- In terms of interaction with a recorded digital story, limited interaction occurs. Students view this information but are not required to respond inherently with the content. How the digital story is used creates the interactions. After watching this video and other information sources, students are required to demonstrate their learning. This learning is evident individually during the building background stage and collaboratively when students are asked to apply this information into their final projects.

Organization- My current employer has not included Videoscribe on the approved Web Tools list. This restriction would allow me to create a digital story on my own as a teaching tool and share it Youtube for example, however I would not be able to teach this program with my students. Other programs such as Scribjab have received approval so an application could be made after due diligence on the safety and security of information was cleared.

Networking- This, as with most digital storytelling platforms, has limited networking capabilities. The file can be easily saved and converted into a video file shareable on Youtube. The video can then be used to share using discussions, blogs, social media, etc.

Security and Privacy- Videoscribe has a detailed security and privacy policy. Additionally it is one of the more secure options as it does not use personal photos or identifiable student features. The only identifiable features would be the voice over which is would be difficult for recognition. Other digital story software often incorporates  student photos which if stored off-site are typically not used in our school setting. The files you do create on Videoscribe remain associated with your login even after your free trial is over. If you decide to purchase at a later date, your creations from the trial period are again available to you.

Although the SECTIONS framework had some limitations, it was helpful in weighing out potential options for digital storytelling.

Overall this project provided opportunities for learning many technological skills alongside solid pedagogical considerations. This LMS could be readily used with students to achieve a variety of curricular outcomes in ways that appeal to students in a digital age.

Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds.), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf

Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in digital age http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/ (Chapter 8 on SECTIONS framework)