Liveblogging eLearningDevCon 2009, Day 2

Written by: Mahdi Gharavi

Back up and running here in beautiful, mountainous, and cloudy Salt Lake City, Utah. Ready to go for our second day of eLearningDevCon.

Thanks for joining us! Again, some info about the company:

Conference URL: http://www.elearndevcon.com/

Twitter handle: @elearningdevcon

Twitter hashtag: #devcon09

Conference Sponsor: http://www.rapidintake.com/

Today’s first session:

Panel: The Future of Mobile Learning

Moderated by Bob Sanregret

Bob served as CEO of HotLava Mobile, which has since merged with OutStart. He is now VP of Mobile at OutStart.

Panel Members: Jason Bickle of AMX, Nick Floro of SealWorks, and Art Paton of Motorola.

The key to mobile learning (mLearning): Just get something up. No need for flashy multimedia. Just do something.

• Key subsets of mLearning: Supplemental, Ad hoc.
• In some environments, students are not physically meeting with one another anymore for class assignments. They are meeting via mobile services.
• In 2003, for the first time in history, the number wireless subscribers passed the number of wired subscribers (then, 1 billion; up to 4.1 billion today).
• All learning (mobile included, of course) must be trackable. If you can’t track, you cannot justify the investment.
• Most successful mobile learning applications: Simple graphics, and Text.
• Format for apps: XHTML, and WAP. 95% of phones run Java (JAR) files, but not on iPhones out-of-the-box.
• There are over 375 mobile device configurations. Never launch without first launching a pilot program to discover issues.
• For any course that can be on both eLearning and mLearning platforms, simplify content delivery. It will greatly increase the reach.
• Revisiting content in mLearning: Storyboard standard content, and minimize it as much as possible. Then test it on different devices to find out what works, and what doesn’t.
  • The last few years taught us: Not all instructor-led training can be eLearning.
  • Now we learn: Not all instructor-led training or eLearning can be mLearning.
  • mLearning should enhance instructor led and e-Learning; not (necessarily) replace them.

On to the next session of the day:

Cognitive Learning

with Curtis Morley

Learnability v. Usability – Nothing is usable, until it is learnable.

Curtis is presenting on concepts of learning that bring new interactive methods to teaching, powered by eCANDLE with support from facilitator Agilix. Emphasis is on using talking heads, but they talk out of the box. The talking head moves around the screen, interacts with the screen, captions, even physically places graphics onto the screen.

As the learning is delivered, the user is presented with options as to which path to take, which topic to learn and when. This engages the user and lets her appreciate the learning more–fueled by her ownership of the material and its delivery. The progression of the learning also makes use of machine-learning, as the system includes retention of what paths were taken, which topics already covered.

The impact? They took the content of a 3-hour conference presentation and wrapped it into this method. The material was shortened to fit into 10 minutes (including all different paths). The result of the 10-minute module was significantly better retention and comprehension than the 3-hour presentation.

Cognitive learning: Let your learners hear it, see it, do it.

As the learners were given the material, they were given assessments. In turn, these assessments interacted with the learning modules, to inform them which topics within the modules need to be repeated for the learners, and which do not.

Next session…

Emotional Foundation for Developing Higher Order Thinking in E-learning

with Peter Chan, Thad Scott, and Ryan Dean

Dr. Chan is the founder of the Instructional Design and Development program at Brigham Young University – Hawaii, “which trains students to apply instructional theories and advanced technology in designing effective and efficient instructions in various settings.” (from bio at eLearningDevCon)

Higher Order Thinking (H.O.T.) – Thinking that requires the higher cognitive abilities of the brain: Synthesis, Evaluation, Analysis. (see Blooms taxonomy here and here).

“The significant problems we have cannot be solved with the same level of thinking we were using when we created them.” -Albert Einstein

To start from the basics and work from the ground up: An instructional framework of H.O.T.:

• Emotional State has a direct impact on learning.
  • Primary emotions are our reactive emotions (fear, anger, etc) that we share with animals.
  • Secondary emotions (found in humans, not animals) are what regulate and control our primary emotions.

With these two points in mind, how can we facilitate a positive emotional state for the learner?…

Factors affecting learner emotions in an online environment:

1. Learner’s own psychological status
   1. How does learner feel about course? Do they feel it is relevant to them? Use stories, cases, allegories to establish relevancy.
   2. Do they know how to be successful in the course? State the course structure clearly, and provide study skills. Promote the learner’s metacognition.
2. Interpersonal connection
   1. Increased connectivity leads to positive emotions.
   2. Can the learners connect and share with other learners for support?
   3. Do they know the instructor/content creator?
3. Learning environment
   1. Can learners choose their environment?
   2. Is the instructional environment easy to use and stimulating?
4. Customizability
   1. How much control do the users have over the control of the content?
   2. Can they skip information they already know? Does the system provide a pre-assessment?
   3. Does the system remember the learner (their name, their settings, etc.)?
5. Support
   1. Academic support: does the system solicit feedback from the learner?
   2. Is there technical support provided?

Collectively, a Positive Affective environment can lead to Higher Order Thinking.

Case study: Peacebuilding innitiative headed by the Arbinger Institute and students & faculty at BYU-Hawaii: “A Single Idea that Changes Everything”

–

Interactive Video

with Curtis Morley

Second session of the day with Curtis. In his first session (“Cognitive Learning,” above) he demoed videos with highly innovative interactivity.

To begin this session, Curtis is showing us a demo you as well can view at Direct Pointe Solution Overview, all designed in Adobe Flash.

The most important part about all interactive video is not the production, but the pre-production, mainly, the script.

Most of the videos shot are brought in using Adobe Premiere, but for editing purposes, all video was brought into Adobe After Effects. Using After Effects, green screens were very easily removed. And After Effects was a better option than Final Cut Pro and the like, thanks to After Effect’s simplicity in setting cue-points, which can then be easily called by the Action Script code in Flash.

–

Well, that brought our day to a wrap. I hope the post has been useful for you. Join in, share with us your thoughts, and leave a comment. Until tomorrow,

-Padawan

Posted on June 18th, 2009 in Community, News, Our Culture.

• Tweet
• 0
• Comments (4)