Category Archives: Assignment 3: Content Module

Digital Story Link

Content Module Link

Reflection on the digital story has been added to both the e-portfolio site and to the Week 11 thread of discussion forum. More reflections will be added (shortly) with regards to the content module. And look at that, here they are:

Assignment #3: LMS Content Module

In the course outline it reads that this assignment will be assessed on the following items: 

• Your content module should cover approximately a week or two of your course.

Content added since the “intro” version makes it a three week coverage. If you add the “intro” piece it becomes four weeks. With the pattern I had set of introduction, practice, reflection, repeat it could not have been accomplished in less time unless it became traumatizing for the student(s).

• A splash page with a customized GUI with at least four (4) navigational components – for Moodle;

Initially I had no idea what this sentence meant, what a goo-ey was, or how I was going to have at least (4) of them. However, the more I looked at example pages, or how-to videos, the more I had a sense of what I liked the look of and what I didn’t. The first presentation (what the viewer sees when they open my Moodle site) fits within the viewer pane, and starts with colour-coded navigational components that reflect the pattern of activity for the module and the course. The eye/brain see in one view, the extent of what they need to see at that time. This is what Mayer’s calls spatial contiguity (Bates, 2014). I liked/used the idea of having a reinforcing message/additional information come up when the cursor hovered over the “button.”

• One  complete learning module with subject-specific content largely based on HTML pages;

Subject:

I know in my flight path, I had thought this Moodle course assignment would be directed toward elementary aged-students. The more the content and medium shaped itself in my mind, it made more sense to create a course that would help students, by training teachers to be more effective. The course focus is for teachers to learn to model comprehension strategies for their students.

Internal structure:

The structure of the course follows a pattern of instruction, practice, reflection, and try again with a different strategy. I have purposely colour-coded the steps in the pattern to be consistent throughout the course, likening it to the routines set up at the beginning of the year in a typical classroom. Making some things predictable, enables students to focus on learning and not having to re-figure out where things are or where they should go. Gibbs and Simpson (2005) write that student tasks, should focus their time and effort on the most important aspects of the course.

With that in mind I also hyperlinked the assignments to the place where they would be handed in, hyperlinked required reading to be within the page where it gets assigned, and tried to make everything one would need on a specific page available from that page. The less one has to travel the less likely they are to become lost.

Each colour coded block starts with a “roadmap.” This roadmap is framed the same way each occurrence having an overview, content, resources, and assignments/due dates.

I did not opt for badges within the LMS as the focus was on practicing a skill rather than progression through the material. However, students can see if they have completed a particular piece with the presence of a checked box.

With consistent colour coding and patterning, I limited the viewing pane to just the navigational components for each module. I liked how it limited the visual field to just the essentials and reinforced the cyclical nature of the course. With the mind of tidying up and seamlessly incorporating our earlier work from the introductory module into the content module I created a page titled pre-flight checklist. As well, I embedded the digital story into the end of what would be the introductory module.

• Embed your digital story. Specifically, while addressing the work you have done on your digital story, reflect on:

*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?

I found this “digital story” requirement for the course to be very vague. I looked through the variety of interpretations of this assignment in the example Moodle pages and felt even more uncertain of its purpose/direction. Had I watched the March 12 video-conference recording earlier, this element would not have looked different than it does. I decided to make the digital story to support the theme of the LMS which I was creating for this term project. There are many ways to tell a story. As a librarian, I can show you a few. There are many reasons why stories are used. I chose to interpret this story as a journey that engages for the purpose of conveying some form of message. It made the most sense to use this digital story opportunity to focus on:

• the audience – who were they? what would their main concerns be?
• state a problem they may be experiencing – ‘doesn’t it make you crazy when . . . ‘
• inform of some kind of solution or expertise,
• clearly show the benefits of that solution,
• invoke some kind of action from them – sign up now or act now

Having the list from Mayer’s (2009) that was in the Bates (2014) article was very helpful to refer to.

I wanted to keep it short. Most people don’t have time for epics, no matter how creative they are.

I wanted to keep it on topic. Keeping the content focused will help the viewer be convinced that the content is useful (or not) for them.

I also wanted it to be succinct. Conveying the essentials is both bait and net.  It communicates the message that, “You could have more of these helpful tidbits if you signed up for this course.”

To create this digital story I used the tool PowToon. I have never used anything like PowToon. Creating a “storyline” with animations, music, pictures, and text is very complicated. The more streamlined it looks, the more effort went into the product. To me it was important to choose people characters as opposed to icons. It also made sense to limit the message to a specific need a teacher would have. Unless it is directly helpful to them, or related to the age level they teach most teachers do not have time for “extra,” and are pretty surgical about limiting their intake. Knowing this, it made sense to focus the message.

Production elements such as timing the text and movements of the characters is a trial and error process. Choosing music that doesn’t detract from the overall theme is time consuming. Selecting size of image or word that won’t over-power or weaken the message is daunting. Using these forms of media to convey what scores of pages of text could not has, as Siemens (2003) writes, “it’s own strengths and weaknesses. The plethora of options available presents a challenge and an opportunity.”

• One additional general discussion forum topic;

This element is satisfied in a couple of different ways within this course. First, I have included a chat forum after the first assignment for students to debrief or talk about how the implementation went. Secondly, is through the feedback that each student will give each other from assessing their strategy implementations. As part of the “cycle,” students are required to reflect on whether they achieved the objectives they have set out by viewing their own (and on another student’s) video upload. The focus is not on their “performance,” but on how their goals matched their ends.

• One group discussion forum for (at least) 2 groups;

This element was satisfied through forming two groups: the fiction-text and non-fiction-text groups, to discuss the features/drawbacks of each. We all have types of text of which we are more fond. The purpose of this was to have a discussion forum, with content that was directly related to the overall purposes of the LMS.

• A reflection upon your experience completing this assignment. Be sure to cite relevant literature.

Good course design requires a need for that course, solid content, and the skillful adjudication of various learning elements and mediums to the objectives for the course. Merely piling on more, shiny, new, and amazing technology litters the journey with minefields jeopardizing what could potentially be accomplished. By applying the SECTIONS framework to guide media and technology selection at the beginning of a project, instructional development teams can approach decision-making in an organized manner while placing a high priority on learning outcomes Boyes, Dowie, & Rumzan (2005). Reflecting on this schema, gave me a sort of threshing floor. Whatever elements were being considered could be evaluated and either left behind as “chaff” or used as a kernel of design/content.

Good course design needs to include making a course appealing and applicable to many different students. There are different ways of creating adaptive content. It can be accomplished by tagging learning components and making them smart, by offering personalized learning paths based on the outcome of previous activities (Spiro 2014). I tried to incorporate this with the cyclical nature of the course structure. Students would be practicing a skill which they had defined the objectives to, and would be adjusting with each new module. Appeal isn’t just reflected by the number of students, but to the diversity of them as well.

Good course design needs to provide forums for feedback. In the “Good Readers” course, the feedback elements focus on students’ performance, on their learning and on actions under the students’ control, rather than on the students themselves and on their characteristics. This echoes condition five from Gibbs and Simpson (2005).

Anderson (2008) also reflects this sentiment in a slightly different way by noting, students also need opportunities to reflect upon their own thinking in order to develop automacy, which is a useful and necessary skill for expert thinking. At the risk of repetition, this again is why students of Good Readers are groomed to try the task, evaluate and try again.

Porto (2015) notes that social media can enhance sharing and collaboration, and in many situations enhances the ease of managing the learning experience. I thought about inserting one into the course (I have three Twitter accounts), but it seemed to be more me just wanting to add it because it would “look” good rather than “be” a good choice. For a different situation it may be just the thing.

As was noted, some of these requirements were straightforward, while others were more challenging. The challenge was to keep the vision one had for their course in clear focus while navigating pedagogical elements, design requirements, and the balance between being educational and technological. The ability to practice these challenges throughout the process in making the LMS, first in small steps, later in larger ones, calls to mind Anderson’s (2008) admonition that the opportunity for reflection offers a student’s the capacity to transfer their knowledge to unfamiliar contexts and to develop new knowledge structures. The content module was indeed a transfer of knowledge to an unfamiliar context. Challenging but rewarding.

References

Anderson, T. (2008). Teaching in an online learning context. In Anderson, T. & Elloumi, F. Theory and practice of online learning. Athabasca University. Retrieved from http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/14_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)

Boyes, J., Dowie, S., & Rumzan, I. (2005). Using the SECTIONS framework to evaluate flash media. Using the SECTIONS framework to evaluate flash media, 2(1). Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.186.6505&rep=rep1&type=pdf

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

Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multimedia learning (2nd ed). New York: Cambridge University Press.

Porto, S. (2015). The uncertain future of Learning Management Systems. The Evolllution: Illuminating the Lifelong Learning Movement. Retrieved from http://www.evolllution.com/opinions/uncertain-future-learning-management-systems/

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

https://youtu.be/KyWGPi55BAs

For my digital story I created a montage that shows some of the historically significant visual effects scenes and processes throughout the history of cinema. I felt like this story would be a good way to get students creatively motivated about the subject matter of using After Effects. Even though students will start off with very basic concepts, they will eventually get better and more professional. My goal was to show them that we all have to start somewhere and even films 100 years ago used visual effects that we would laugh at today.

The Digital Story

My intention with creating the digital story was to provide an introduction and establish a learning context for the content module on Scratch programming. With the high interest that students have with regards to video games, the opportunity to design and create original animations and games will provide support to students in terms of integrating the creative and imaginative use of technology into their learning experiences. In order to create the digital story, I selected Videoscribe as the tool to be utilized, and I developed a digital story aimed at Grade 5 and Grade 6 students that would get them thinking about programming and the ways in which it can benefit and support their learning across different curriculum areas. Essentially, I had hoped that by engaging in the modules on Scratch 2.0, the students would come to view programming as a new learning tool that could help develop essential skills through authentic learning situations. Through their involvement in the design process of computer programming, students can utilize technologies, such as Scratch 2.0, that are designed to be flexible, customizable, and adaptive to learner needs, while supporting them in planning for and achieving their own personal goals.

The fact that Videoscribe is a digital animation tool was an important consideration, and I believe that the Grade 5 and Grade 6 students, as the target audience, would be interested and engaged in the animated digital story being told. By creating a scenario and characters that the students could identify with, I wanted my class to consider the importance of advocating for their own learning and striving to be creative and imaginative with their tasks and assignments. By creating a digital story that was almost entirely visual and auditory, I feel that the message would be more accessible to all students, regardless of their reading levels, as the use of text was kept to a minimum. In the areas of the digital story where text was used, I intended for the narration to match and essentially read the text on screen to the students, thereby supporting all learners in the class. The information in the digital story was kept simple and easy to follow while including opportunities for the students to stop and reflect, with limited distractions from an overabundance of visuals or quick transitions. Videoscribe allowed me to maintain a narrative pace that would keep the students engaged without becoming bored, and I aimed to keep the video to less than 5 minutes in duration as a means of maintaining student interest.

According to Coates (2005), an important aspect for consideration is the ability of a given technology to be adaptable to the needs of diverse academic cultures and communities. As a digital tool, Videoscribe was appropriate for creating a digital story intended for an audience of Grade 5 and Grade 6 students, and I believe that it would be a suitable tool for use with students at any grade level, as well as for use in post-secondary institutions or within the professional world. Due to its user friendly toolset, Videoscribe could be utilized by the students in my class to create their own digital stories. The application allows for use at a simplistic level, with opportunities for more advanced techniques and approaches to be applied as the students learn more and become increasingly confident in its usage. Ultimately, another reason why I choose to use Videoscribe to create the digital story for the content module was to provide an example of how the application could be utilized, with an eye on having the students approach this as another learning tool to support and help demonstrate their own learning and understanding in different curriculum areas.

Assignment #3 – Moodle LMS

Marc Prensky (2010) argues that students are incredibly eager to create, but don’t get nearly enough opportunities to do so within their time in the classroom. Access to technology has given students the capacity to design and create far beyond the scope of student projects in the past, and one of the goals in creating my content module within Moodle was to further provide opportunities for students to make their learning meaningful and relevant. To help facilitate the integration of creative learning through technology into classroom and educational settings, I hope that we can approach the notion of technologies for learners by creating opportunities for students to plan and design their own games through various programming and design options.

Although I had some limited previous experience in working with Moodle, I found developing the introductory module to be challenging. At times, I felt limited by my abilities with creating in Moodle, as it was difficult to develop my ideas into the course while maintaining an organization and ease of use that would be suitable for students in Grade 5 and Grade 6. My ideas sometimes seemed too large and beyond the scope of my Moodle abilities, and I often had to settle for what I was able to create, rather than what I had hoped to create. One significant learning piece that I will take away from this experience is that the amount of time required to create and develop the module content far exceeded what I had initially planned for it to be. When working with Moodle for Assignment #3, I felt that I had established a reasonable starting point for the online course, and I found that I was able to add details more readily into the content. In accordance with the feedback that I received on Assignment #2, I went back into the introductory components and added additional information that the students would require as they started to work within the online course. By adding these new details to the course introduction and goals, I believe that the progression of the course flows more logically and will more effectively support the students in understanding the organization and expectations.

Bates’ SECTIONS framework (2014) states that assessment should also be influenced by the knowledge and skills that students need in a digital age, which means focusing as much on assessing skills as knowledge of content. In turn, this encourages the development of authentic skills that require understanding of content, knowledge management, problem solving, collaborative learning, evaluation, creativity and practical outcomes. Through the inclusion of relevant and practical project work in the Scratch 2.0 course, students will have opportunities to demonstrate a high level of skill and imagination. For Assignment #3, I have developed the first three weeks of content for my students, and I tried to maintain a balance between guiding the students through the course content while still providing authentic opportunities for students to create, experiment, and problem solve. I used Canva.com to help create the GUI for my Moodle course, and I aimed to implement a design that allowed for ease of use with Grade 5 and Grade 6 students. Visually, the organization of the course is (I hope) simple for the students to navigate, while maintaining a learning flow that will both engage and challenge them at an appropriate level.

Anderson (2008) discusses the ways through which the affordances of the web can be leveraged to enhance generalized learning contexts, and the importance of the roles that collaboration and reflection play in creating these contexts. The Scratch 2.0 course is centered around student collaboration and communication, as the students are required sign up for groups early on in the course, and these groups will work collaboratively in discussions, problem solving tasks, and designing and planning a final project. Prensky (2010) states that “it is important for teachers to understand that what today’s students want to create, and can create, is not the stuff of the past, not the same old homework essays, science projects, and construction paper assignments that have been used for ages and were the basis of their teachers’ education.” Through the collaboration and exchange of ideas within the course, students will have opportunities to design and create according to their collective interests and goals.

As I had mentioned previously in my reflection for Assignment #2, Anderson’s (2008) ideas around the overlapping attributes of learning offer insight into how online and blended or flipped learning environments can move us away from the constraints of didactic content and traditional learning models. The Scratch 2.0 course is intended for students to complete outside of classroom time, as the focus of the learning during school hours will focus on the discussion and collaborative support around the content reviewed within each module. In this way, we can benefit from more active, collaborative classroom learning through more meaningful, engaging conversations and interactions. This removes the lecture component from classroom practice and shifts the emphasis onto the students to learn and engage with the content at home.

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.

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

Coates, H., James, R., & Baldwin, G. (2005). A critical examination of the effects of learning management systems on university teaching and learning. Tertiary Education and Management, 11,(1), 19-36.

Prensky, M. (2010). Teaching Digital Natives: Partnering for Real Learning.  Thousand Oaks: Corwin Publishing.

Here is my digital story:

Here is my digital story:

Content module link + reflection to come in a couple of weeks!

UPDATE: Addition of Content Module & Reflection

Link to Simple Machines for Science 5 Content Module

Assignment Reflection

This assignment was a natural progression from the development of our Introductory Modules, helping us to build upon the knowledge we’ve already gained throughout ETEC 565A. Throughout this reflection, I’ll refer to each part of the assignment criteria and write an overview of the creation process and subsequent learning associated with it.

Purpose, Rationale, & Audience (Introduction – not part of assignment criteria)

This content module was developed with a Grade 5 student audience in mind, with me acting as the instructor for the course. The content in Module 1 of Simple Machines for Science 5 aims to contain a balance between text, images, and multimedia components (Bates, 2014; Siemens, 2003) that provide a weekly amount of science work that could be comparable to a typical in-classroom or blended classroom experience. I also tried to decrease reading assignments to large and difficult-to-read websites as Grade 5 students can present with widely varying reading levels; anything from a Grade 2 to a Grade 8 reading level can be present in a regular Grade 5 classroom, and online environments can be less forgiving in terms of literary support.  These considerations led to the selection of appropriately consumable multimedia resources and assigned discussion topics for Grade 5 students across the 2 weeks embedded in Module 1.

I developed the “Parent Portal” during our Introductory Module assignment. However, it is worth mentioning here, as parent support is pivotal in supporting the learning of younger students, particularly in environments like online courses which can feel initially less structured. Within the course Moodle environment, the Parent Portal acts as a space for parents to turn to as they support their child with their online studies, from weekly discussions to more formal assessments.

Splash Page with Customized GUI

Interestingly, I felt that this was a component that I wanted to integrate when I develop my Introductory Module. When first experiencing an online course, these design components are extremely important and set an overall perceived expectation for the user (Bates, 2014; Norman, 1999). This was a challenge because I developed it as I first was learning how to use Moodle. I developed each of my icons in my GUI through the use of Canva.com which is a webtool I’m extremely familiar with. However, once I inserted the image designs into Moodle, I had issues with everything from spacing to image resizing which I had to solve by some backend HTML editing. There were many portions of the assignment where I found myself glad that I knew enough HTML to make these changes – this was one of them. I developed the GUI to navigate to all the different modules that would be included in my complete course shell as well as important pages, such as the one that points to assignment overviews, the Parent Portal, and weekly instructor announcements.

Complete Learning Module with Subject-Specific Pages

Because of the groundwork laid in my prior work on that assignment, I found the development of the content module much easier. I already had such a strong framework for how I wanted to play out the course content and I was more familiar with developing content within the Moodle environment as well. The overall course schedule of activities for Simple Machines in Science 5 was an immense help in beginning to set up the structures of my first content module. This was my springboard for the development of the content and activities that would follow. In fact, many of my resources and “interactivities” (interactive online games, challenges, or activities) were already chosen as I created this schedule. However, some of the online interactivities that I had originally planned had broken links – the content had disappeared! – and I had to change what I was originally going to do. This is something to take heed of in the development online courses or learning experiences: some of the resources you’re depending on may not be there for you in the future. As Hobbs & Jensen (2009) state, online multimedia such as this can be “notoriously unstable, here one day and gone the next” (p.6).

The content that I developed was intended to provide scaffolding for future assignments, complete with integrated media and graphics to grab the attention of young Grade 5 students (Bates, 2014). This module was a general introduction to the subject of simple machines, providing a broad overview of the different categories of simple machines as well as corresponding terminology that we would run into throughout the course. This approach intended to give students an understanding of the overall course content while also giving them a space to refer back to whenever they might misunderstand a term or course concept in the future.

Online courses can easily become text-heavy, especially when presenting content that will be scaffolded throughout the course such as vocabulary. The inclusion of embedded media and interactivities in my course was purposeful as to prevent the “overused and abused” nature of text in media (Siemens, 2003, para. 6), especially for the betterment of experience for young students. Videos supplemented text materials, sending a congruent message about course content. Interactive games, challenges, and activities allowed students to become more involved with the content, or test and/or apply their current knowledge. As I stated earlier, these components were browsed and selected as I created my course outline in the Introductory Module assignment, but I made small tweaks as necessary to improve the flow of the modular topic.

Digital Story

The development of my digital story came before I actually started to work seriously on my content module although I had no idea how it was going to fit it in yet. After some thought about what kind of digital story I would be creating, I made the decision of which module I was going to develop! My idea was to show how simple machines were so prevalent in our lives that I could use all 6 major categories of simple machines before I even left my house in the morning.

When I was choosing a technology, I was drawn to VideoScribe because of its engaging graphics and visuals, feeling that they would be especially appealing to a young audience. Secondly, having used VideoScribe once before, I knew that I could include both graphics and text elements, with complete control over how and where they appeared on the canvas. This allowed me to adhere to Boyes, Dowie, & Rumzan’s (2005) assertion that: “Novices in a subject area might have difficulty attending to relevant cues within animations, so text labels and supporting contextual information is critical in designing educational resources” (p.3).

I hadn’t used VideoScribe for over 2.5 years and I had previously used the iOS app, not the OSX app; I used the latter for the development of my digital story. I found that there are still many images that were unavailable in their free image library and I had to find Creative Commons media that matched my theme and content. I decided to pair VideoScribe with Camtasia 2 so that I had a more robust video editing experience and more control over the final content, including the addition of Creative Commons audio tracks.

From a pedagogical perspective, VideoScribe is engaging for young students because of the visuals, graphics, and fonts that would be appealing to their age category. The gradual build-in canvas feature makes the story seem more like a progression of events than if all of the elements existed in the frame from the beginning of the media production. I was giving a lot of general information about simple machines in a short period of time. By using different slides in Videoscribe, the content appeared more gradually making the information easier to manage. This directly helps students to scaffold and organize knowledge as they prepare to apply their understandings to interactivities featured later in the learning module.

This story actually fits seamlessly into the blended Simple Machines 5 course that I will be teaching next year. I can probably use it for some time to come, as the knowledge content within it is highly unlikely to change. This is a great story to share both at the beginning and at the end of a simple machines unit. In the beginning, it could be used as a hook – getting students to look around and try to identify everyday objects that could be classified as simple machines, even though we haven’t studied them in depth individually yet. Then, at the end of the unit, once we have taken a closer look at each machine type, they can review the “machines in your environment” activity, looking at their old data, identifying new simple machines in their environments, and ultimately drawing new conclusions from the reflection and review (Moon, 2001).

Discussion Forums – Individual and Group

Before I read that small group discussions were going to be a piece of criteria for the content module assignment, I already had planned to include them because of Garrison, Anderson, & Archer’s (1999) writings on the topic. Other than stumbling through the Moodle set-up of the small group discussion forum itself, the rest of this section was very simple and flowed easily with the modular requirements and outcomes. I decided to use a case study adapted from Breau, Dykeman-Gaudet, Jones, & Johnston’s (n.d.) Simple Machines Unit Plan that I found online. Case study analysis helps students to see alternative perspectives that they may not have otherwise considered (Kolodner, 1992). The small group setting would promote more intimate and focused conversations as students worked through the problem at hand (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 1999).

Assessment (not included in criteria, but I want to address this)

I chose to develop content for the topic introduction module, which meant that it was primarily overview materials and scaffolded knowledge for the entirety of the course. As such, no major assessments were included in this module, although students would be getting started on their first assignment by the end of the third week of the course (the end of the content module I developed). Instead, as an instructor, I would use these weeks to closely monitor and moderate discussions, provoking students to engage in further thought and questioning on the topic of simple machines. According to the course schedule, the students would participate in a half-point quiz a few weeks following the module I developed, which was the quiz I created for our Introductory Module assignment in ETEC 565A.

On a different assessment thread – the assessment of my own work – my ETEC 565A colleague, Randy, and I exchanged feedback on our content module development. We did the same on our introductory module and it was a huge help to have another set of eyes and some formative feedback as development of the assignment continued. Even when considering little things like links or buttons that were not working, or grammatical errors, peer feedback goes a long way to supporting a polished assignment product and provides further peer-to-peer social presence in my ETEC 565A experience (Garrison, Anderson, & Archer, 1999).

Conclusion

Overall, this assignment was less frustrating to complete than the Introductory Module because I had already established my overall design components for the course and I was familiar with the Moodle environment. The content was the only thing that had to be developed and there was less finicky, technical work to be done. Because the content was outlined through the creation of my course schedule and unit plan that I created for Assignment 2, I had a rough outline of Assignment 3 ready-made for myself. I worked to appropriately sequence and develop online modular content that would be balanced in text, imagery, and multimedia, and would promote student interactivity and engagement with the topic. I worked to include pedagogically-sound and engaging activities for students to interact with on a weekly basis. Overall, this assignment was fun to develop and has provided some groundwork for my actual teaching of the content in the upcoming school year.

Reflection References

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

Boyes, J., Dowie, S., & Rumzan, I. (2005). Using the SECTIONS Framework to Evaluate Flash Media. Using the SECTIONS framework to evaluate flash media, 2(1). Retrieved from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.186.6505&rep=rep1&type=pdf

Breau, L., Dykeman-Gaudet, D., Jones, C., & Johnston, J. (n.d.). Science Unit Plan – Grade 5, Simple Machines. Retrieved from https://elementarysciencestu.wikispaces.com/file/view/Science+unit+plan.pdf

Garrison, D. R., Anderson, T., & Archer, W. (1999). Critical inquiry in a text-based environment: Computer conferencing in higher education. The Internet and Higher Education, 2(2-3), 87-105. Retrieved from http://www.anitacrawley.net/Articles/GarrisonAndersonArcher2000.pdf  

Hobbs, R. & Jensen, A. (2009). The past, present, and future of media literacy education. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 1, 1-11. http://jmle.org/index.php/JMLE/issue/view/1  

Kolodner, J. (1992). An Introduction to Case-Based Reasoning. Artificial Intelligence Review, 6(1), 3-34. Retrieved from http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jorkin/generals/papers/Kolodner_case_based_reasoning.pdf

Moon, J. (2001). Reflection in higher education learning. Working Paper 4. York, UK.: The Higher Education Academy.

Norman, D.A. 1999. Affordance, conventions, and design. Interactions, 6(3), 38-43. Retrieved from http://www.jnd.org/dn.mss/affordance_conv.html

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