Chapter 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |......| 12 | 13 | 14 | 15
Chapter 1
(08/31)
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I started reading the textbook of "Multimedia for Learning: Methods and Development" by Alessi and Trollip from today. I went over the first chapter this afternoon. It mainly provided a brief overview of the history of instructional design, process of instruction, and the methods for facilitating learning with technology. The development of computer and software did not impress me a lot, but the debate whether using computer is better than traditional teaching is an interesting topic. I remember I read Russell's(1999) "No Significant Difference Phenomenon" study, who summarized many studies of the outcomes of comparing distance education and classroom teaching. I even wrote a Chinese paper to talk about this issue. My point is computer/technology does not necessarily make instruction better or worse, it depends on many other factors, instructional design, for instance, is a vital one. However, computer and media did offer a lot of more opportunities for enhancing teaching and learning. From reading this chapter, I have also known eight methods for facilitating learning, including tutorials, hypermedia, drills, simulations, games, tools and open ended learning environments, tests, and web-based learning. The style of using many references and research citations fit my flavor very much, I enjoy reading this academic and research based book, and every sentence has its supports. But some words need to be replaced, such as educational computing. We rarely use this word right now. In general, this chapter of introduction open a broad roadmap for its readers, and encourage them to go ahead to explore.
Russell, T. (1999). The no significant difference phenomenon. North Carolina State University .
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Chapter 2
(09/04)
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This chapter discusses the topic on learning principles and approaches, three major paradigms such as behaviorist, cognitivist and constructionist psychology are explained. These three paradigms, each have its research foundations and its principles for teaching and learning. Behaviorism focus on external behaviors and propose using positive reinforcement to lead to learning result; Cognitivism focus on many psychological elements and process such perception, attention, memory, comprehension, motivation, locus of control, metacognition, transfer of learning. Constructivism proposes the knowledge is not from outside but people construction in their mind, it emphasizes discovery learning, construction, situated learning, cooperative and collaborative learning, reflection, etc. These principles brings different and conflicting philosophical perspectives, thoughts, and suggestions for instructional design, but in real word, majority of educator or designers just merge them into "one integrated approach" (p. 17). The authors of this book also suggest to adapt "an eclectic approach"(p. 41) rather than label their project with any of one paradigm. I found this chapter is really inspiring and provoking, and inviting me to think about the various questions in education. Probably, because learning is such a intrinsically complicate phenomenon, no one single principle could explain it. That leads to many paradigms proposed to interpret. The instructional design is also a complex process, not one or some principles could make it out. Here I like the conclusion the authors proposed at the end of this chapter, and would like to use it to end up this summary:
Instructional design is a series of compromises - a process of balancing multiple, worthwhile, but competing, goals, including achievement and motivation, time, and money, learner and instructor satisfaction, initial learning and transfer of learning, and many more (p. 41).
Alessi, S. M & Trollip, S. R. (2001). Multimedia for learning: Methods and Development. Boston : Allyn and Bacon.
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Chapter 3
(09/07)
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This chapter discusses the general procedure and features of learning software design, including introduction, learner control, information presentation, providing help, and ending a program. Each part, there are many factors and suggestions are explained for a better design. For example, in the introduction component, title page, directions and user identification are further analyzed; in information presentation, how to present text, graphics and animation, video, sound files are discussed. I found this chapter is very useful for my program design. It could serve as a manual for the design process. I have not read such kind of content before, and found lots of suggestions are very informative and relevant. How much control you want to give your learner/user is also an interesting topic, it impact the program you design. For my field of adult education, most learners are adults. They usually have a tight schedule and many social responsibilities, and probably like the straight forward format, don't like the fancy and colorful staff. Making the information relevant and neat, providing them more choices could be critical for my project design. The limitation of this chapter, through my reading, is that it focuses on information presentation very much, not on the interaction. I think that maybe the features of computer program for education in the early period. Nowadays, interaction is another vital feature in all the instructional design, as warned by Dr Choi in our second meeting. Wish I could find more content in the following chapters.
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Chapter 12
(09/14) |
This chapter provides an overview to the instructional design and development. In particular, Alessi and Trollip explain their three stages model: planning, design and development. I like their model map(p. 410) very much, and think it is very comprehensive and applicable. This chapter concentrates to the first stage-planning. The authors introduce this topic from the perspective of standard-based evaluation. They discuss the evaluation from many aspects such as subject matter, auxiliary information, affective considerations, interface, navigation, pedagogy, invisible features, robustness, supplementary materials. Each aspects have some sub-areas and topics. For example, in the aspect of subject matter, the content structure, accuracy, language style, reading level and cultural bias, terms and jargon all need to be paid attention for evaluate the content. Since my dissertation is about cultural issues in online learning, I read carefully about the cultural bias. I agree with the author's point of "dealing with culturally oriented materials is a matter of compromise."(p. 420) and it is almost impossible to eliminate all ethnic or cultural references.
Through reading this chapter, I understand the making the standards is so important for a scientific and reasonable process of instructional design. Especially for the team project, making the standards and evaluation form first can ensure the quality of the products and save both time and efforts.
Alessi, S. M & Trollip, S. R. (2001). Multimedia for learning: Methods and Development. Boston : Allyn and Bacon.
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Continuing to previous chapter talking about standards, this chapter discusses the many issues about the planning process of an instructional design. The topics such as defining the scope, identifying learners’ characteristics, establishing the constraints, budgeting, producing a prototype, etc, have been explained and offered concrete examples. From reading this chapter, I understood there are so many things need to be considered during the planning stage. However, people always underestimated the importance of this stage and the result is the waste of time, effort and money, even leading the failure of the design. The last part talking about the designing of the prototype was especially useful for me, since I was thinking about the prototype of my project of designing an online degree program orientation. I always want a draft of what my project should look like, but have no idea from where to construct this picture. This part provides some substantial instructions. Even I did not have many experience of instructional design, I do believe what the authors said at the conclusion sentences, "...the time spent at the beginning of a project preparing and planning will be repaid many fold later one."(p. 480)
Alessi, S. M & Trollip, S. R. (2001). Multimedia for learning: Methods and Development. Boston : Allyn and Bacon.
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Chapter 14
(09/25)
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This chapter focuses on the design phase, which the authors believe "It is where most critical thinking, decision making, and creation take place"(p. 524). A series of topics have been discussed related to design, such as considering the audience, developing initial content ideas, task and concept analysis, preliminary program description, prototype and flowchart, on-going evaluation, and so on. Those topics could be a very useful for a group design, like the team project in EDIT6210. Since my project is relatively simple, I found many topics were not relevant to my design. So I just read them through by brief.
The two parts I found extremely useful for my project are the task analysis and the flowchart design. Since my client provide me only some loosely structure information rather than a well developed course material, I need a lot of time to collect, summarize and synthesis those information. The task analysis chart (and the example of Making Bread) suggested me a good way to organize the information. The flowchart, also provide me with the detailed examples to design the whole instructional process. I will reference these examples to make mine soon. However, I found these flowcharts using computer programming and the game as examples, which is not very similar to my case. Thus, my flowchart probably will focus on the content rather than the any specific skills.
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Chapter 15
(09/28) |
This chapter covers the topics on development stage of a design. Several steps such as prepare text, write program code, create graphics, produce audio and video, assemble the pieces, prepare support materials, alpha and beta test, final revision and validation, have been discussed, and suggestions on each topics have been made. I found the content of this chapter is not very useful for my project. It is probably because I am still in the stage of design, and my project is a simple one, so that I don't need to develop so many support materials and do so many test. But the steps of development the authors presented help me to check my task list and the skills I have. The three major technologies I need include video clips, Captivate and Dreamweaver. I still need to learn how to make video which I have learned some basic in EDIT 6190. For the Captivate software, I almost know nothing but I need it to make my WebCT tutorial. Dr Choi once said he would present a seminar on this software, I hope he can do it soon.
The step of preparing the text also gave me some good suggestions, such as using Word processor to edit the text, paying attention to the front, colors, and sizes, formatting the text, etc. As an English as a second language user, I probably need pay more attention to the grammar and spelling.
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Chapter 4
(10/05)
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I chose chapter 4 among the others to read in this week. Since this chapter talks about design of the tutorial, my orientation project is something like a tutorial. I thought I might get some suggestions from this chapter. In general, this chapter discuss every elements of a tutorial design, such as the objectives, pretesting, types of questions, judgement of responses, feedback and helps, etc.
As to the objectives, according to the author, whether behaviorial or not, can enhance learning and satisfaction. But it is alway omitted becasue of the designer's oversight. I will remember create a objectives page at the begining of the project.
As to the pretest, I agree with the authors, building a pretest into a tutorial may not be appropriate. It serves to "determine learner readiness and need for a program are worthwhile." A good suggestion is to seperate ths part from the tutorial. Since people usually use pretest and posttest to measure the learning effects, I would like to use two single independent tests(same content) to serve this purpose.
As to the time to present the questions, the tutorial usually put them on the learning process and right after the materials presentation, which can see students' learning effects inmmiderately. However, I think this arrangement can break the continues of the instrcution. In my project, I would set a Quiz session which help learners to test how well they learn. The 10 questions will be presented one after another. When students select the wrong answer, I would feedback them the right answer directly. Since they are all adults, and will become impatient if you ask them try again and again.
The other parts, for example, the help is important but oftem missed by the designer. For the adult students, we need give them more control to the learning process rather than let them follow your rule.
Besides chapter 4, I also go through briefly chapter 7 on simulations and chapter 11 on web-based learning. Both are informative and helpful to my project design.
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