“reflective summary”

This semester I have worked with Susan Smith, Head of Information Technology, and Kevin Gilbertson, Webmaster, of the Z. Smith Reynolds Library, to create learning objects to support our LIB100, Accessing Information in the 21st Century, course.

This class is worth one credit hour and is an elective for Wake Forest University students. Our goal was to create quick and fun modules that could be used to illustrate simple library research concepts. 

The three we chose to focus on were broadening and narrowing a topic, truncation, and Boolean searching.  We chose to do this by making a game where one could move cards around from broadest to narrowest, use a “Family Feud” style game to illustrate truncation, and make a slot machine to demonstrate varying attributes of different Boolean terms.

Along the way, we planned for me to meet several objectives.  These were:

1. Spend time reading articles, books, and appropriate websites dealing with online pedagogy and distance education.
2. Learn to use specfific software that will incorporate proper online pedagogy.  Software may include: Camptasia, Demobuilder, and/or Captivate.
3. Output up to 5 learning objects to enhance the Z. Smith Reynolds LIB100 information literacy program.
4. Work with Z. Smith Reynolds reference librarians and LIB100 course instructors to ensure the learning objects are appropriate for their use.
5. Hold a small focus group to test Learning Objects.

I did read Susan’s book, Web-Based Instruction: A Guide for Librarians, as well as a number of articles and websites.  Though I don’t have the grasp of the subject that I would if I had taken coursework in the topic I did learn many principles that were useful in designing our learning objects.   

I was already familiar with Camptasia and Demobuilder, so I focused on learning Captivate for the first half of the practicum.  I feel fairly comfortable working in Captivate and am amazed at the power the program offers.  It is clearly designed to develop online learning experiences, and I particularly appreciate the branching and feedback options.

As powerful as Captivate is, though, there are some drawbacks.  Boolean Slots (the game I made using Captivate) grew to over 100 slides which impacts loading speed of the game as well as de-bugging time for me.  Every time I had to make a single change I’d have to go through the program, slide by slide, to make the change universally.  Around this time Kevin gave me a copy of Flash.

I used Flash to make Truncation Feud and the Narrowing and Broadening Your Topic games.  From the beginning I was impressed with the power Flash offers and I am now considering buying a student copy for myself.  I would not say that I became as familiar with Flash as I did with Captivate because Flash is much more complex.  I was able to get Flash to interact with the user’s mouse behavior and with the user’s text, but it was a battle each time I had to learn something new.  I am not a programmer, so I had to find information in the “help” section of the program, discussion boards, and Z. Smith Reynolds library books.  This being said, I picked up what I learned fairly quickly, and if I could devote a week or two to learning it, I think I would feel comfortable with the software.  

I was able to complete three learning objects (described below) for this practicum.  These were the original five that Susan, Kevin, and I discussed and they all ended up fairly close to what we originally described. 

The two goals that I don’t feel I met in the spirit of the objectives were to work with reference librarians and to hold focus groups.  We never had an opportunity to set up a meeting with the reference librarians.  By the time a learning object was in form enough to show people, it was too late in the semester.  I did, however, show a few of them to a few librarians when I was able to chat with them for a few minutes.  The feedback was mostly positive, but I did get the feeling that we would need to really market the learning objects to them.  We would also need to explain exactly how they could fit into their classes. 

I didn’t get to hold focus groups in the spirit of the objectives, either, for the same reasons.  However, along the way I would show the games to anyone who would look at them.  I got some very good feedback from a Wake Forest University Faculty member as well as from friends and family.

I am hoping to be able to work on these two objectives in the way we originally intended in the time between semesters.  It’s much quieter in the library then, so we can get time with librarians more easily and the students who are working are often happy to do something rather than just sit at a quiet desk. 

This practicum was extremely useful for me.  Though technology is one of my hobbies, I haven’t officially participated in this aspect of technology in a library before.  I have learned that I’m a pretty quick learner when it comes to simple code, but that I do need to devote blocks of time to researching.  I’ve learned that I really like pedagogy and would like to have spent more time focusing on that.  

last hours of the practicum

Tonight I put in two hours to look over drafts and improve timing for all three learning objects (now online).  They all work on my machine, and the timing is much better than it was yesterday.

I haven’t done focus groups with students or librarians.  I’ll talk with Susan about that.  However, I have booked all 90 hours, and feel good about what I’ve learned in the process.  The “reflective summary” will follow this post.

It’s nice to do a practicum at my place of work.  Even though I’m finished with the UNCG part of the project, I can keep working on them if we feel they’ll be useful to support the LIB100 program.  Hopefully we can do some follow up after this semester is over (we’re all quite busy right now grading papers, doing an environmental scan, and still doing our “day” jobs).

Truncation Feud

Today I finished learning what I needed about text, and put together a skeleton of the Truncation Feud game.  I spent a few hours trying to figure out how to get an image (big, red, “X”s) to show up if the player gets an answer wrong, but no matter what strategy I tried, I couldn’t get the image to display.  I eventually settled on small, red, “X”s to show up on the screen permanently throughout a player’s game.

The timing isn’t finalized–by any means–but it’s a skeleton.  At this point all three Learning Objects (Boolean Slots, Broadening & Narrowing, and Truncation Feud) are in draft phase.  I’m also at almost 90 hours.  My plan is to get up early tomorrow to do a dry run-through of each of the games.  Hopefully the corrections won’t take too much time.  I’m a little worried about getting feedback from students and library staff by the end of the practicum, but I know I can get it after the fact if I need to.

I’ll check in again after making updates.

working with text

I didn’t invest as much time in the practicum on Saturday as I had planned.  Part of this was that it was somewhat of an ordeal to even get the powercord back from my office.  I didn’t realize that WFU would be hosting a triathlon that morning!  It wasn’t a big deal, though, I was able to find parking out of the way of the athletes, and I took the quick walk to the library to reclaim the missing equipment.

I spent most of the time working in Flash to learn how to work with text (static, dynamic, and input).  It’s okay working with static text, or even user entered text that just sits on the screen.  Making the text interactive is another thing.  Luckily, I was able to find out how to take user-entered text and have it output depending on what the user said.

The discussion boards found on Friday were helpful.  It was also helpful to talk with John about programming principles.

The goal was to create an environment where the user could enter in an answer; if it’s wrong, they could get feedback, and if it’s right, the  correct block shows the text they entered.  Once I figured out the principles associated with text, it was easy to apply them to the game.

I didn’t invest as much time in the practicum on Saturday as I had planned.  Part of this was that it was somewhat of an ordeal to even get the powercord back from my office.  I didn’t realize that WFU would be hosting a triathlon that morning!  It wasn’t a big deal, though, I was able to find parking out of the way of the athletes, and I took the quick walk to the library to reclaim the missing equipment.

I spent most of the time working in Flash to learn how to work with text (static, dynamic, and input).  It’s okay working with static text, or even user entered text that just sits on the screen.  Making the text interactive is another thing.  Luckily, I was able to find out how to take user-entered text and have it output depending on what the user said.

The goal was to create an environment where the user could enter in an answer; if it’s wrong, they could get feedback, and if it’s right, the  correct block shows the text they entered.  Once I figured out the principles associated with text, it was easy to apply them to the game.

12/1: time without the ThinkPad

Friday was a pretty hectic day, and I forgot to bring my powercord home for the ThinkPad!  It was nice, though, to have one evening where I wasn’t totally devoted to Learning Objects.  I spent about 45 minutes working on the ThinkPad until I didn’t feel safe running on such low batteries, then I used my personal laptop to read a little about how to use ActionScript 2 to work with user-entered text.

I suspected, at the time, that this would be challenging.  I had no idea that the “Truncation Feud” game would be as challenging as it was.  Luckily, I found several discussion boards that discussed different problems and solutions people had for various text issues, and it was very good research to have for working in Flash once I had power again.

If I were to do Friday over again, though, I would have brought home the powercord!

truncation feud

So, I have rough drafts of the first two games ready, but not much feedback.  I figured it’d be good to look at them with “fresh” eyes, so I took the night to set up the framework for the Truncation Feud game.  I haven’t actually finished that, but I have worked in Flash to include everything up to the first game (this is where I’ll need to know how to do some fancier programming).

It was a good review of some of the more basic features in Flash, and I’m getting much more comfortable with it.  I can definitely see the power in the software and the potential for some really cool applications.

The plan for tomorrow: try to figure out how to do the programming for dynamic text!