E-Learning

Developer Center Article

Jeffrey Bardzell
www.phireworx.com

Thanks to the evolution of sophisticated technologies and easy-to-use authoring tools, the web has become a key medium for educators. But with the emergence of new modes of delivery arise new issues about how best to use them in the classroom. It's one thing to know how to build a web page, import a graphic, and add a bulleted list or a few hyperlinks; it's another to develop a quality learning environment online.

A series of best practices for general instruction have been emerging for years, which educators can use as guidelines for the development of online learning. This article provides an overview of seven key best practices that are often found among high-quality learning environments.

These features are not presented as a prescriptive model. Rather, the claims have emerged from research and experience. The features are defined using examples, along with information about how Macromedia software might be used to develop or support each one.

Feature 1: Learning is social
The social dimension of learning is one of the hardest to define or replicate. Influential Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky argued that humans learn most naturally in social contexts. His theory states that social learning precedes internal learning. Many argue that social interaction encourages the more subtle and often more useful informal learning. Studies of early online learners found that many users felt learning was too formal and lacked a social dimension. There are many ways to improve the social dimension of your learning environment. These methods include e-mail, online forums, newsgroups, distribution lists, chat interfaces, live web cam video, and so on. Activities could include collective brainstorming, team projects, and role-playing scenarios.

How can Macromedia's web development and multimedia authoring software help?
The new Macromedia Flash Communication Server MX, used in conjunction with Macromedia Flash MX, simplifies the creation of several different types of rich online communication, including video conferencing, live chat, presentations, and shared whiteboards. Using the ubiquitous Macromedia Flash Player and a series of pre-built, customizable components, developers can create and deploy these communities with a fraction of the effort and expense required just a few months ago.

In addition, Macromedia web and multimedia authoring tools can be indirectly beneficial. For instance, imagine students role-playing a courtroom drama, arguing over a given set of facts. Those facts must be presented to the students somehow, such as through interactive newspaper clips or a multimedia presentation of available evidence. Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver would be natural choices to create the environments that wrap around the actual communications applications.


Feature 2: The learning environment interface should meet standards for usability and accessibility
Usability has gotten increasing coverage in recent years. This is because studies, such as those by Jakob Nielsen, have demonstrated that there is a direct correlation between usability and sales at e-commerce sites. But the larger field of human-computer interaction (HCI) has been around much longer. This field, which might be described as a blending of cognitive science and computer science, studies the capabilities of human cognition and how it interacts with computers and their interfaces. One could presume that there is a strong correlation between usability/accessibility and successful online learning, however that might be defined.

How can Macromedia's web development and multimedia authoring software help?
New to Macromedia Flash MX and Dreamweaver MX is information and tools that support the creation of sites and assets that are accessible to those with visual and aural disabilities. It is now possible to make very complex, interactive multimedia content accessible to learners with disabilities.

Usability, on the other hand, is a design skill—rather like applied HCI. Just as a word processor cannot make its user write well, Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver, Director, and Authorware cannot make its users create usable multimedia. However, all of these programs certainly have sufficient tools to create usable assets, and the documentation on HCI, usability, and accessibility is plentiful.


Feature 3: Learning outcomes should be diverse and well defined
Learning environments should be built on a framework of well-articulated, diverse learning outcomes. This component of the learning environment is squarely in the province of the instructional designers and content experts. Ideally it should be set in place before serious learningware development occurs.

How can Macromedia's web development and multimedia authoring software help?
Because this planning takes place prior to development, Macromedia software will generally have only an indirect impact in this area. For example, the ease with which elements can be prototyped could shape the identification of learning outcomes. Likewise, the creation of scripts and storyboards could take place in a program like Macromedia FreeHand (which works quite well with Macromedia Flash). Doing so would integrate the authoring tools in the earliest stages of design, which would help shape the look and feel of the application—while the content itself is still under development.


Feature 4: Learning content should be contained in high-quality, modular chunks
At the center of online learning is the content itself. Because the web is a multimedia format, and people learn in various ways, there is a strong consensus that formal learning content should be presented in media-rich, high-quality learningware. To facilitate the broader flexibility of online curricula, most experts advocate breaking content into smaller chunks, so that they can be combined in unique ways for each learner. One popular strategy right now is to use "reusable learning objects" (RLOs), a concept borrowed from computer programming, in which objects are used and reused with appropriate adaptations for their context.

How can Macromedia's web development and multimedia authoring software help?
Here is where Macromedia's web development and multimedia authoring software shines. Macromedia Flash, Authorware, and Director movies are excellent self-contained learningware assets. Macromedia Dreamweaver MX, in addition to its ability to create DHTML web pages containing all sorts of multimedia content, can now be used to connect websites to databases in order to create a truly dynamic experience. Each program contains extensive features, support, and documentation. In addition, all of the programs in the Macromedia family are well integrated with related programs (especially Macromedia Flash and Dreamweaver). Each program also works well with many common file standards, from XML to RTF. Given each program's power, the learning curve is quite reasonable.



Feature 5: Online learning should be an active, not passive, experience
Two important facts converge to make this recommendation a key part of any model for online learning. The first has nothing to do with online learning per se: Ever since John Dewey introduced the principle of learning by doing, this concept has been a core principle of effective pedagogy. Microsoft PowerPoint presentations or Word documents saved in HTML format don't allow learners to do anything except sit in front of their screens and click through text.

The second converging fact is that early efforts at e-learning suffered a high rate of attrition because many learners complained that the content was boring and disengaging. To activate students so that they engage with content better, learningware should contain multimedia interactions, such as simulations, explorations, games, and drag-and-drop exercises. Animations, video, and audio round out some of the stalwarts of rich media. When you map learning content to the appropriate rich media, you get impressive results.

How can Macromedia's web development and multimedia authoring software help?
Macromedia's stable of software is fully capable of creating everything from the simplest to the most sophisticated learning media, from text and graphics to audio, video, animation, and simulation. Macromedia Flash is a wiz with animations, having started as an animation tool. Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, FreeHand, Authorware, Director, and ColdFusion can be used to improve interactivity in media-rich multimedia content.



Feature 6: An online learning environment should facilitate the addition of new content
Recent books that discuss the emerging field of knowledge management (KM) emphasize the creation of systems that facilitate the sharing of knowledge. Too often, companies train employees only to see them change jobs or careers and take their knowledge with them. Knowledge management attempts to prevent this brain drain by creating a shared knowledge space to which all community members contribute.

Workflow management—which ensures that new content can be added, existing content can be corrected, etc.—is a critical part of the learning environment as a system. It is especially important for online learning because teams of experts, instructional designers, and technical developers often collaborate on a single course. This is in stark contrast to the classroom, where the instructor handles all three roles. Because knowledge changes and courses evolve, there must be a system in place that allows the experts, or faculty, to update content without requiring a computer science degree. Likewise, the system should enable learners to benefit from each other's expertise; the model of transmission should not be simple and one-way.

How can Macromedia's web development and multimedia authoring software help?
This question has diverse answers, depending on the team putting together the environment. In the case of a single professor working with a small IT department on a couple of online classes, empowering the professor in the use of Macromedia authoring tools—including training, support, and documentation—is a good start. Macromedia Dreamweaver contains both site management and collaboration tools that facilitate updating and adding content. Macromedia Flash files can be structured in an object-oriented way, allowing code and assets (such as custom dialog boxes and movie architecture) to be reused, especially by those with lower technology skills. Most Macromedia programs use a common visual environment that many faculty and trainers are eager to use, provided that they receive technical support and are not expected to accomplish advanced technical feats.

In more ambitious projects, IT departments can use the dynamic site (middleware) tools included in Macromedia Dreamweaver MX to create a custom learning management system. Again, the concept of separating content from formatting is key. Faculty and non-technical experts can work in word processors, Excel spreadsheets, and simple databases. Their word-processed content can be converted to XML or RTF formats. Along with database and spreadsheet content, these elements can be imported into Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver, and other learningware on the fly.


Feature 7: Learner assessment and course evaluation should be integrated and ongoing
Without the benefit of feedback from a classroom instructor's manner, tone of voice, and commentary—even from the boredom experienced by listening to the "easy" questions that other classmates ask—students in e-learning programs need tangible means of gauging their progress. Otherwise they wonder whether they are comprehending the key concepts from the assigned reading material.

Sitting in front of computers, e-learners lack many of the subtler mechanisms whereby they can gauge their learning, unless feedback mechanisms are built in. These mechanisms can take a variety of forms, from quick self-assessment quizzes (with long, explanatory answers) to simple bulleted lists that state "You should know that...." Interactive exercises are a good way to provide feedback. For example, after a long textual explanation, a well-designed simulation could both reinforce knowledge and communicate to learners how well they mastered the reading. I have found that quizzes taken "for fun" can often be just that—fun. One corporation actually encoded its corporate knowledge as a quiz in the form of a "Jeopardy!"-style answer-and-question format.

How can Macromedia's web development and multimedia authoring software help?
Macromedia Dreamweaver (either using middleware or one of its free extensions, such as CourseBuilder or LearningSites) and Authorware both have built-in tracking mechanisms. It is possible to track student performance from Macromedia Flash, but at this point it is somewhat more complex than it is in the other two programs. Performance tracking allows systems to provide constant, ongoing feedback about what students have done, how long it took, and how many errors they made. Dreamweaver MX, Macromedia Flash, and Authorware are all capable of creating interactive assets. Creating quizzes, drag-and-drop exercises, simulations, simple games, etc. are all well within these toolsets' capabilities.

One particularly interesting example of feedback is breaking up course chunks into curricular paths that students can work through. This way, students who succeed in a pre-assessment module may accelerate through certain chunks, while struggling students may work through additional chunks on a given topic that the system inserts. Student feedback is used constructively to optimize learning, rather than simply to reward or punish. Such a system requires some sophistication, but it would be wholly possible using Dreamweaver MX's middleware solutions, especially if data tracked from Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver, and/or Authorware were integrated into the system.


Building learning environments with Macromedia software
Online learning is a complex endeavor and, obviously, technology is not the whole solution. Quality learning environments require thoughtful planning, clear articulation of learning goals, design and usability skills, and other human components that no software can replace. But with those requirements in place, Macromedia's web development and multimedia authoring software contains excellent tools that allow anyone, from a single instructor to a veteran team of educators, to create high-quality e-learning content.






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About the author
Jeffrey Bardzell is author of Macromedia MX eLearning: Advanced Training From the Source, Special Edition Using Fireworks MX, and Fireworks 4 Expert Edge, coauthored with Lisa Lopuck. Jeffrey is a Contributing Author to Fireworks MX Magic as well as Contributor and Technical Editor to the Flash 5 Bible and the Dreamweaver and Flash Bible; a co-founder of Phireworx (www.phireworx.com), a site devoted to Macromedia Fireworks extensibility. He was also a Flash Instructor at eHandsOn. A Ph.D. Candidate at Indiana University, Jeffrey has taught literature and technology for over ten years. He has also worked as an Education Policy Analyst for the State of Indiana. His education and academic publications cover such topics as early literacy instruction, school finance reform, and epic poetry.







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