=*=Maddie’s E-Learning Experiences=*=

YAY ELD is now finally all done, even tho their are still a few hitches with the educational technologies but i hope its all good now.

Well i guess its finally over. Today is our last ELD class and i cant believe this semester has gone so quickly. Everyone was going awol over the final assessment that is due on friday. Im not that concerned as i have pretty much all of my information and what im going to talk about. Im going to try my best to get it done on friday even though i have to work on thursday and friday. I think im going to use a cognitive approach to my learning theories and for my storyboard. Im still a bit confused about the content for the storyboard but ill figure it out.

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<br>Image by <a href=”http://www.flamingtext.com/” >FlamingText.com</a>

Arghhh assessment 2 part 2 is tomorrow!!!!!

 I think that I should be fine I have been reviewing the information we were given last week. I have also researched some aspects of visual design as well just by typing “visual design aspects” into google. I have also been looking and analysing specific websites to adjust myself to the conditions i will be subjected to tomorrow.  I now know what websites are effective and ineffective when it comes to the visual design.

Majority of this class was spent looking at websites for next weeks assessment. Mark highlighted to us the following aspects that would be looked at and analysed:

• What is the purpose of the website, does it communicate its message across effectively, are the colours appropriate, are there many graphics or big chunks of text, is it easy to read and does it involve interactivity.

THE DESIGN EVALUATION

1. Describe the screen layout
2. Visual Heirarchy (Evaluate the use of contrast to draw attention to key elements)
3. Placement of Graphics (Evaluate in terms of multimedia principles,alignment and proximity principles)
4. Style of graphics

COGNITIVE LOAD- too much attention all at once. Overloaded pages with text, graphics and colours

VISUAL DESIGN

VISUAL HEIRARCHY- The size of the image/s, a common mistake is that images lesse the focus of the actual content, Movement of pictures can be annoying, Placement of graphics, consisttency, page dimensions, page length

COLOUR- Contrast between colours, businesses love blue, colour schemes, Colour associations (For Ex. Red is often associated with emotion, danger, blood etc), Is it harsh on the eyes, Use of colours to be selected enhance or detract from the content

TEXT- Text is elovated and is bigger for importance, big chunks of text are often overlooked.

MULTIMEDIA DESIGN PRINCIPLES
Important things are often put in the foreground and less important things in the background.

STYLE OF GRAPHICS-

• Choice of graphics
• Are they appropriate/relevant
• Multimedia coherence principle
• Are static pictures best
• Animations
• Should the graphic be animated
• Is it best to use a video
• Interface design

WEBSITES LOOKED AT:

BBC WEBSITE- Bold font, bright colours

AFR (Australian Financial Review)-Text is dominant

SMH- Big graphic in the left hand corner grabs attention,

CNN-no big headlines, pictures and statistics, eyes are drawn to the colour red

CIRQUE DU SOLIEL- Entertainment focused, Highly visual, colour scheme is appropriate, bright colours, moving graphics, pictures distract the eyes

McDONALDS- Highly visual and highly effective- Simple graphics, 3D graphics, very interactive, simple and easy to use, graphical interface, no big chunks of text, text is a medium size

There are 4 basic principles of design:

C-Contrast- Avoid elements of the page that are similar. Make elements different. The main purpose of contrast is to create interest, aid in the organisation of information and support visual heirarchy. An example of contrast is using colour

R-RRRRepetition- Repeating visual elements throughout such as colour and shape. It develops organisation and strengthens unity. The main purpose is to unify, add interest and create consistency. For Example, Navigation, colour identifiers.

A-Alignment- Nothing should be placed randomly on your page. Every element should have some visual connection with another element on the page. This creates a clean and sophisticated look. The main purpose is to unify and organise your page design and be conscious of where you place your elements

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P-Proximity- Items that relate to each other should be close together. Items in close proximity become one visual unit rather than several separate, unrelated units. The purpose of this is to reduce clutter and confusion, organise information (reduce your cognitive load) and make logical information remembered.

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UNDERSTANDING COLOUR

From Colour Matters explore how computers generate colours and what this can mean to your multimedia images.

The site colour matters is very bright and colourful. It uses colours in many different ways and makes the website very interesting and intriguing. I looked at one particular article that tested whether or not you were colour blind. I luckily am not colour blind and could read the numbers between the cards that were shown

From the website i was able to determine a number of steps that talk about how computers generate colours. For example

1.The Computer Hardware on the Motherboard- Acts as the brain. Some computers can see some colours other computers cant

2.Graphic Cards and Videoboards- Helps your computer see colours more effectively and easily

3. Your Computer Monitor- Depends how well the computer displays the colour

4. The Web Browser- Whether your using Google or Ninemsn etc depends how you will see colours differently.

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF COLOUR

Colours have the ability to provoke psychological reaction. Some objects are certain colours due to our emotions or feelings towards the object

SELECTING COLOURS

There are many factors that influence how we select colours. For example Fashion, The Mass Market. The Environment and Culture all determine what colours we decide to pick and choose. There are many aspects that need to be considered when selecting colours:

*Corporate Colours

*Fashion

*Your Message

*Mood of message

Today in class Mark went over assessment 2 part 1 and 2 with us. We were told that we needed to choose a particular competency and answer the questions of the assessment on that competency.

I took the following notes for this assessment:

THEORIES OF LEARNING

Behaviourism- (conditioning, practice and feedback) Study behaviour and learning from a scientific approach. Behaviourism is observable and measurable. They explain human behaviour in terms of cause and effect. Therefore learning is a modification of behaviour by application of stimuli, shaping of repsonses and the provision of reinforcement. Learning is demonstrated in the response of the behaviour of the learner. By modifying the stimuli you can shape responses. Practice feedback as a form of reinforcement.

Classical Conditioning- (Pavlov and his Dogs) Classical conditioning can also be demonstrated by our ability to generalise our responses to stimuli. Eg. A househjold drill may cause a reaction for a persona who has had an experience with a dentist drill.

Operant Conditioning- (Skinner) Skinner argued that people learn to behave in ways that help them obtain things they want or avoid things they dont want. Carrot and stick theory- reinforce behaviour through punishment and rewards.Reinforcement is issued to increase the desired behaviour

KEY PRINCIPLES

• The learner must respond actively
• The query of repetition of responses is important in acquiring a skill
• Reinforcement is vtial to obtain repetition of requried and correct behaviour
• Generalisation suggests that practice is important in varied situations
• Immediate feedback of results is strongly motivated
• Shaping behaviour by the reinforcement of appropriate responses is essential in learning new skills
• Transfer of skills
• Behaviour- provide feedback straight after a performance and just before the next performance opportunity.

Cognitivism- emphasises the role of experience, the development of meaning and the use of problem solving and insight as the sources of learning

Meaningfulness- Our brains look for patterns and completion. We associate something with something else. Everyone has their own meaning based on their own experiences

Insight- Into new perspectives and problem solving

Advance Organisers- provides documents that will bridge the gap between the learner and the context

Storyboard- More self directed, students decide if they fail the quiz to move on or repeat the module. Different to behaviourism.

Humanism- (Developed from Cognitivists) It focuses on personal worth, dignity, self esteem, creativity and emphasises the individuals.

Constructivism- (Bruner 1996) Learning by discovery. We learn more gradually through discovery learning, Information should be organised so that it can be rearranged and reassembled into content to create new insights. Storyboard modules can be undertaken in any order.

KEY PRINCIPLES OF BRUNERS THEORY

• Readiness- Instruction must be concerned with the experiences and content that make the learner willing and able to learn
• Instruction must be structured so that it can be easily grasped by the learners (spiral organisation)
• Instruction  should be designed to facilitate

Part 2 of the assessment is an Evaluation of Visual Design. The whole point of the assessment is to come up with an evaluation of the visual design components from 3 existing e-learning courses. And an explanation of how the screen design effectively addresses the principles of visual design.

Yesterday in class Mark asked us to answer three questions on learning.

1. What is Learning? Learning is the knowledge and skills we take in from information or facts.

How does learning occur? Learning occurs through creating and meaning. It has a lot to do with our mental schema. We teach ourselves a new skills or thing then practice these things or skills. By reinforcing these skills we learn and remember new things.

1.  What factors influence learning? The factors that influence learning include things such as the content, age, learning styles, attitudes, motivations, facilitations, feedback and reinforcements.

Today we saw two presentations and they were on Synchronous and Asynchronous communication and Virtual Worlds. The S&A group had quite a lot of problems getting their technology up and running to present to the class. They had two people in the classroom with the rest of the class whilst two other people were outside in another room with a laptop. This was to show the class what synchronous and asynchronous is and how it works.

 The virtual worlds presentation was quite good but dragged on a little longer than i expected. They talked about applications such as SecondLife and much more. I was a little bit disappointed that they didnt mention gaming virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft (which is a major known gaming virtual world) and stuck to unknown virtual worlds. I think that this presentation would have benefited more from using examples the class knew.

And

Bandura (1977) combines behaviourist reinforcment with cognitive processes for understanding the behaviour of others.

Bandura emphasises the importance of observing  the behaviours ,attitudes, emotions and modelling. There are 2 main elements to learning

1. Experience- enables us to learn the consequences of our actions
2. Expectations-are formed by our experiences

How could you apply Bandura’s Social Learning Theory in an e-Learning context?

You could apply Banduras Social Learning Theory in an e-Learning context by showing demonstrations and models to the class and then having the class undertake those actions of the demonstrations/models. For example The Second Life class in which we had a facilitator show us around and tell us where to go. Videologs and podcasts can motivate us and teach us how to learn new skills and information