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March 1, 2002
Turning Your Projects Into Recruiting Tools
By C. Michael Sturgeon
As the Systems/Multimedia Librarian of Lee University, I have found great difficulty recruiting instructors into the practice of using technology for the purpose of teaching. Because of this, I am constantly introducing myself to new instructors in hope that they either have seen, or will see, the value of using technology for teaching purposes.
The idea of teaching with technology, from my perspective, is primarily to ensure that information is embedded in the minds of our students, and second, to make it possible for students to have materials other than paper handouts in their hands outside of class. From observation alone, I have seen over the years how the average student's attention span has continued to decline. However, if students are challenged and have something before them that is mentally stimulating, the attention span appears to lengthen. This is not something that I have tested by observing selected subjects; merely observing students' habits reveals this trend. One of my many goals is to create teaching materials that use technology that will give the students the desire to learn. As you will see in this article, the project I present here has accomplished exactly that. But I can also see from where I stand that this is only the tip of the proverbial iceberg.
Obtaining the Project
When a professor in the school of education approached me with a problem, I found myself willing to do anything necessary to ensure that he would ultimately use technology to train education majors. This instructor had asked the multimedia department to import some videos into a computer and then place them into PowerPointý. He wanted to use these videos to train students to work with children with special needs, as portrayed in the videos. The idea was to cut the videos into small clips that would appear on a PowerPoint slide, which would include comments about the behavior observed. Having used Adobe Premiereý for video editing in the Multimedia Department, I offered my services to assist in this project. The project is called LUDIC, which stands for the Lee University Developmental Inclusion Center, a center on our campus that works with children with learning disabilities, specifically autism.
The project was now in my hands. From this experience I learned that when one finds it difficult to get others involved, one should (1) be persistent and (2) present a showcase of successful projects. These actions will likely send the message that anything can be possible when the instructor is willing to put some effort into the project. The instructor saw one single outcome; I could see many possible paths to the solution. With caution, I made a variety of suggestions, which eventually became parts of the project. I wanted to work on and be successful with the functionality and design of the project both for the purpose at hand as well as to show what could be possible.
Designing the CD
It seemed that, from what was requested, the project did not offer a lot of design potential. In the back of my mind, however, I knew there had to be a better way to design a training CD than what the instructor had in mind. With PowerPoint, the final product would be linear, and a linear CD would be quite cumbersome for this particular project. For example, if Lee University students wanted to return to specific video clips located on certain slides, they would have to go through every slide, in order, before they found what they desired.
With that in mind, I observed the graphical possibilities with text when using PowerPoint, as well as the ways in which PowerPoint lacked the functionality we desired. At this point we had to decide which direction to take in order to ensure that the functions we wanted the end user to have were possible. We decided on the interface design and the functionality needed from our perspective, which pressured us to choose the application that best suited our needs. We decided that Macromedia Directorý was the best software for this project.
With Director, all the needed text could be placed on one page, with the video clip, so the scrollable text box we would have had to use in PowerPoint was no longer an issue. Also, with this project I wanted students to be able to run the CD from any computer, whether or not it had PowerPoint installed. This problem was also easily accommodated with Director.
Decision Making
If you take on a project with any similarity to this one, make your decisions for or against a particular software interface based on your analysis of the type of material presented, plus how the average users apply themselves to learning via computer-based training (CBT). College students are not that far removed from most high school students when it comes to self-discipline; for some, it simply does not exist. Technology can give students the motivation necessary for learning concepts that are not easily understood by merely reading about them.
I reached the conclusion that the design of the LUDIC project needed to be user-friendly and, at the same time, powerful. It is common for instructional designers to find this area very tricky. In order for a CBT project to be powerful it usually has to be complex, and complexity typically leaves the concept of user-friendly out of the picture. So, how did this project turn out to be user-friendly and powerful concurrently?
The process of individually trimming videos was complex in process, but simple in the fact that we were working with small video clips; the complexity was in producing a functional, yet user-friendly interface. With Director, the process of producing this interface was complex, but again, from an educator's viewpoint, the concept was simple because we knew what the students needed to see in the video. The layout we decided to use was nonlinear, which offers users the opportunity to easily return to certain videos for viewing without having to run through others. This was powerful in the sense that the interface would be flexible enough for the Lee students to use without assistance. Once we knew the desired outcome, we found we had a job before us that we had never handled before. However, we found that the willingness to take on complicated projects as we did, helps increase faculty involvement in technology-based instruction.
Final Product
After long hours of planning with faculty members who worked with the children being filmed, the final product became a total of eight interactive CD-ROMs.
These CDs are simply placed into any computer's CD drive. The first thing the user sees is the Lee University Developmental Inclusion Center banner. The user clicks "Start", which introduces them to a child of either autism or another disorder that requires special attention. The program lists the child's diagnosis along with other vital information, allowing the student to become familiar with specifics. Various types of behaviors are available for the student to view on video clips. These clips show the children interacting with teachers. Lee University students can learn from the video clips how to react to certain behaviors. They also have the opportunity to learn more from the written text that appears on each screen with the videos.
Lee University is currently using these CDs for training in the Developmental Inclusion Center, and we can foresee more advanced work in the near future.
This is one of many project types that can be excellent showcases for drawing faculty into using technology as teaching tools. Keep in mind, however, that you have to obtain your first project in order to create your showcase.
E-mail: C. Michael Sturgeon
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