Reflection

In reviewing literature, most research on learning materials mainly focus on storage them in learning repositories and delivery them through standards format. The popular standards format is learning object which is used to describe learning contents in order to exchange, share and reuse (G.Sampson & Karampiperis, 2004; IEEE, 2002; Rehak & Mason, 2003; Wetterling & Collis, 2003; Wiley, 2002).

In this course, I get another thought about learning objects--- interactive representations in learning objects. And visual information could be presented in a small screen space (Churchill & Hedberg, 2006).

Generally, teachers would like to design learning objects with text format through Power Point rather than Flash with interactive feathers. In some situations, interactive representations are worthy of being done, although it is time-consuming. “An education in decoding and creating imagery - to move from simply receptive to active - will not only be beneficial, but necessary"(Adrian).

In this course module, I learn some methods to design and produce more interactive learning materials / contents (learning objects). As a teacher, it is very important not only to use instructional design (ID) but also produce learning objects by ourselves.

By the way, when browsing our classmates’blogs, I get many interesting learning objects in different areas. It will be better if there is a place to save all classmates projects in a screen. Sometimes, some classmates’blogs are not available because of the Blog service interrupt temporarily.

More detail descriptions of our group final project, please access:
http://huqingchun.blogspot.com/2007/05/publishing-final-project.html

Reference
Adrian. Introduction of The Polemics of Visual Thinking. Retrieved May 15, 2007, from http://pages.slc.edu/~ebj/minds/student_pages/adrian/index.html

Churchill, D., & Hedberg, J. (2006). Learning object design considerations for small-screen handheld devices. Computers & Education, In Press, Corrected Proof.

G.Sampson, D., & Karampiperis, P. (2004). Reusable learning objects: Design metadata management systems supporting interoperable learning object repositories. In R. McGreal (Ed.), Online education using learning objects (pp. 207-221). London ; New York: RoutledgeFalmer.

IEEE. (2002). Learning Technology Standards Committee.IEEE Standard for Learning Object Metadata. IEEE Standard 1484.12.1. Retrieved May 20, 2007, from http://ltsc.ieee.org/wg12/files/LOM_1484_12_1_v1_Final_Draft.pdf

Rehak, D. R., & Mason, R. (2003). keeping the learning in learning object. In A. Littlejohn (Ed.), Reusing online resources : a sustainable approach to e-learning (pp. 20-34). London ; Sterling, Va.: Kogan Page.

Wetterling, J., & Collis, B. (2003). Sharing and reuse of learning resources across a transnational network. In A. Littlejohn (Ed.), Reusing online resources : a sustainable approach to e-learning (pp. 182-194). London ; Sterling, Va.: Kogan Page.

Wiley, D. A. (2002). Connecting learning objects to instructional design theory: A definition, a metaphor, and a taxonomy. In D. A. Wiley (Ed.), The Instructional Use of Learning Objects (pp. 6). Bloomington, Indina: Agency for Instructional Technology and Association for Educational Communications & Technology

Final project

This is the final project. Please, welcome to have a look. The above picture is one of scenes of this project.
★URL of our group's final project:
http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/qhu/spring-tree-final.swf
http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/qhu/spring-tree-final.fla

★The aim of this learning object is to facilitate children to learning English words through a rhythm.

★General Descriptive Data of this Learning object:

Educational Level: Children in Kindergarten
Language of content: English
Subject area: English learning
Relationships to Other Courses: No Prerequisite courses
Descriptive keywords: spring, tree, bush, bee, grass, bird
Instructional Content: Text, Images, Sound, Animation
Rights: No Restrictions on Use
Life Cycle: Version 1.0

★Main functions in this learning objetc:
1. Click the words in blue, the picture will pop up with the sound of words.
2. Listen to sentences when clicking yellow buttons.
3. Animation with "stop" & "play" button and background sound in the last scene.
4. Different scenes are browsed by previous and next button.

★My work in this group project:
1. Produced and edited parts of the storyboard.
2. Recorded and edited the English words voice files and produced some ports of animation.
During our design process, one main problem we encounter was how to record the sound for English words. We searched for solutions on the internet until we found a software named AD Sound Recorder to be used to record sound.

Po Yee and I often discuss our design through e-mail and work together to finish and polish our project. From the initial storyboard to the final project, I enjoyed the design process with her.

Thank Dr. Daniel Churchill a lot and other classmates. They gave us some useful comments and suggestions towards our project.

Ask for suggestions

In our group final project, we need pronunciations of some english words. Please, where could we find such files?

Thanks a lot.

Supporting online communities through open-source

Elgg website is http://elgg.org/, an open-source social software.

Today, I find Elgg. As a teacher, what the Elgg provides is just I hope to employ in my classroom. I teach programming course (C, Visual Basic). In the curriculum reform in undergraduate in my university, programming course is compulsory to undergraduate students. So the students' number is large. In general, in a class, the number of students is about 150-200 who come from different faculties. Because of so many students in one class, it is very difficult to have a good communication not only among students and teachers, but also among students peers. So it is a good way to consider to set up online learning community to assist students learning.

Elgg is an open-source social software programme which support online communities. Some feathers of Elgg:
---Personal and Community Blogs
---Tagging
---Private and Public Communities
---Fine-grained Access Control
---Learner-defined Spaces
---Personal and Community File Storage
---Podcasting
---Social Networking

Perhaps, it is a good try to use this platform.

With the emergence of online learning community, it should be a challenge and hard work for digital learning content management in online learning community. Because many learners need directing to "useful stuff", and it is (sometimes) inefficient for them to have to search for it.

Final project

Our group final project is for kids to learn a rhythm. Although our recording equipment and effect are not enough good, we record the sound for english words by ourselves. In design for kids, it will be better to put interesting animation and sound. When I am doing this learning objects, it is a happy journey to design. Indeed, producing learning objects are time-consuming. Digital learning materials should be shared and exchanged.

A rhythm for kids.

Welcome your comments.

A prototype of assignment

Please, click here.
In the final product, we will add some buttons for users.

Online class

Today is online class. Yesterday, I had a try to do a spring animation, for one classmate asked me whether I could do a Flash file to show spring in Physics. She just played a joke, for my english name is Spring. Then I had a try. I dis this design by myself.
Firstlly,I thought how to present the spring's animation. I designed a movie. After finished, this movie was in the library.
Secondly, I designed two layers. one layer was as the first page. Another layer was the place for animation. A button was put on the first page. When user press the button, the animation will play.
Although it is a simple animation, I have learned more.
At the beginning, I am confused about Frame, Key Frame. During this doing by myself, I make a clear understand. Learning in doing is indeed effective.