Some issues needed to pay attention in the planning process, I think they are: who are the learners, what is the essential content, what teaching strategies and media should be used, what is the learning environment and planning to teach on the WWW. The sections of who are the learners and what teaching strategies and media should be used are the two parts I like mostly.
If I am designing an online course, getting to know the target audience will be the first step because all the following steps such as design the content, choosing the media and teaching strategies and others are all based on what kind of learners I am going to teaching. This is also called learner-centered. Then how to know these learners I am going to teach? According to the author, educators need to analyze the four areas about learners:
Analyze the general abilities of the class: allow instructors to observe how students relate to the content of the lesson.
Analyze the potential of learner interactivity: students may benefit from all kinds of activities that cannot be countered in traditional classrooms
Understand learner characteristics: which can lead to the high effectiveness of teaching and learning.
Help learners understand the context of the learning experience: there are three types of context: orienting context, instructional context, and transfer context.
In my future online class designing, I first need to think about the learner side and the content I am going to teach and then I will choose an appropriate media which match the curriculum and content. I think the media which I choose to deliver the instruction is not the most important, the most important things for online course designing are how to design the content according to the learners and how to choose one media that match the contents. I will keep these principles in my mind.
The attributes of media, teaching models and learning performance can help instructors a lot to understand the implications when I may need to pick one specific delivery or presentation medium in the future. The methods that used in constructivist teaching are very holistic, collaborative, and also motivate to learners. The instructors are looked as a coach or a guilder in the process of teaching and learning in the constructivism theory. However, there is not a stable standard of the using of technology in different constructivist environments. The interaction is thought very important in the Social and radical constructivists’ opinions. But the information processing and interactive constructivists may think the information, facts, and contact involved in the teaching and learning are the most important elements.
The activities that represent this learning theory are various, such as:
• Proposing the real problems that existed in the world.
• Following the instructors or other experts in a certain area and apply their theories to solve problems and learn from the experiences.
• Working within an authentic problem context that reflects as much as possible the problem’s real context and characteristics.
Among all these activities, I think the “Importing the real problems in the world into education” is the best and I also would like to use it into my education process in the future.
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Saturday, February 9, 2008
THREE SUPER WBI WEBSITES EVALUATION III
Site: UW CSE142 online
Subject: Procedural programming, basic control structures, file processing, arrays and defining objects.
URL: http://www.online.cs.washington.edu/
This course site contains three links on the home page: CSE142, faculty information and other course online. The majority part is under the CSE142 section which includes course materials, schedule, lecture active, and lecture list four subsections. All the information includes hand out materials, course schedule, classroom assessment tools, quizzes, homework, homework solutions, exams and resources, are all here. The next section offers students lecture schedule and handout in both PDF and PPT format. From the lecture archive section, students can get the lecture in web, videos, and audios format. This section is also allowing students to download all the materials online. If learners want to check the lecture schedule, they can go to the lecture list section which is also the last section. It offers students the titles of all the lectures and the length of each lecture. This website uses a tree model to design the web pages and the offering of lecture in videos give feeling as they are facing to the instructors physically. Furthermore, the information offered in this site including the lectures, schedules, and other materials with details is very useful to learners to keep up with the learning pace. Another strength aspect of this website is the consistent of navigation menu which will guild learner through all the pages contained in this site.
There is an obvious weakness of this website is that the layout is not very clear. Same information is offered be different sections. For example, learners can download the lecture in PPT format form both the lecture archive and lecture schedule section which may cause learners to check both link and download twice. Another weakness is the file size is too big to download some times. All the lectures that can be both downloaded or viewed online, however, they are either too slow to download or to slow to watch online. I think the first, the download materials should me zipped and cut off several pieces before upload them. Second the video for online watch should be made into streaming format. Another suggestion is that combine the lecture archive and lecture list two sections together which will make the navigation more clearly. Also, it will be better if the designer can create a link only for learners to download the course materials for offline using. The same thing if composing another separate link for online viewing will make the layout of this website more clearly. The last thing I want to mention is that the font size is kind of big to users and looks uncomfortable. Especially, in the course materials section, font can be smaller and also make the page smaller. Do not need that much space between each topic. I do not think that is a good idea that using tables to display the contents. It will be matter if the designer can just all links right below each lecture titles.
Generally speaking, this is a good website that offers students enough information for this course. Multimedia technologies such as audio and video are also used in this websites. It contains all the important components for a course website. The consistent of navigation menu give users a clear and easy guideline and help them view through the whole site. This website will help the people who cannot attend the on-campus study and it also will benefit the students who have the difficulties with algebra studying. It is a good example of course web site.
Subject: Procedural programming, basic control structures, file processing, arrays and defining objects.
URL: http://www.online.cs.washington.edu/
This course site contains three links on the home page: CSE142, faculty information and other course online. The majority part is under the CSE142 section which includes course materials, schedule, lecture active, and lecture list four subsections. All the information includes hand out materials, course schedule, classroom assessment tools, quizzes, homework, homework solutions, exams and resources, are all here. The next section offers students lecture schedule and handout in both PDF and PPT format. From the lecture archive section, students can get the lecture in web, videos, and audios format. This section is also allowing students to download all the materials online. If learners want to check the lecture schedule, they can go to the lecture list section which is also the last section. It offers students the titles of all the lectures and the length of each lecture. This website uses a tree model to design the web pages and the offering of lecture in videos give feeling as they are facing to the instructors physically. Furthermore, the information offered in this site including the lectures, schedules, and other materials with details is very useful to learners to keep up with the learning pace. Another strength aspect of this website is the consistent of navigation menu which will guild learner through all the pages contained in this site.
There is an obvious weakness of this website is that the layout is not very clear. Same information is offered be different sections. For example, learners can download the lecture in PPT format form both the lecture archive and lecture schedule section which may cause learners to check both link and download twice. Another weakness is the file size is too big to download some times. All the lectures that can be both downloaded or viewed online, however, they are either too slow to download or to slow to watch online. I think the first, the download materials should me zipped and cut off several pieces before upload them. Second the video for online watch should be made into streaming format. Another suggestion is that combine the lecture archive and lecture list two sections together which will make the navigation more clearly. Also, it will be better if the designer can create a link only for learners to download the course materials for offline using. The same thing if composing another separate link for online viewing will make the layout of this website more clearly. The last thing I want to mention is that the font size is kind of big to users and looks uncomfortable. Especially, in the course materials section, font can be smaller and also make the page smaller. Do not need that much space between each topic. I do not think that is a good idea that using tables to display the contents. It will be matter if the designer can just all links right below each lecture titles.
Generally speaking, this is a good website that offers students enough information for this course. Multimedia technologies such as audio and video are also used in this websites. It contains all the important components for a course website. The consistent of navigation menu give users a clear and easy guideline and help them view through the whole site. This website will help the people who cannot attend the on-campus study and it also will benefit the students who have the difficulties with algebra studying. It is a good example of course web site.
THREE SUPER WBI WEBSITES EVALUATION II
Site: NROC – Introductory Algebra 1A
Subject: A multi-representational approach to algebra; understanding, writing, solving, and graphing linear equations; systems of linear equations and inequalities, quadratic equations, and rational equations.
URL:http://www.montereyinstitute.org/courses/Algebra%20IA/nroc%20prototype%20files/coursestartc.html
NROC Introductory Algebra course is an excellent course website. The whole site is divided into three parts: introduction, syllabus, and units. Course description and learning objectives are provided in the introduction section. The syllabus section is illustrating that the course will be taught in two semesters and the course outline in this semester are provided in a subsection under syllabus. The four units that offered in the first semester including 19 lessons and each unit includes four lessons. The majority contents of this course are in the units section. In all the lessons under each unit, there are three subsections: Readings (Objectives and Readings); Multimedia (Play Introduction, Play Lesson); Assessments (Chapter Test, Answer Key). All the lesson objectives, chapter need to read from textbooks and multimedia lecture can be found among all these lessons. Furthermore, learners can evaluate themselves through the assessment sect. Generally speaking, the whole course emphasizes a multi-representational approach to algebra, with concepts, results, and problems being expressed graphically, analytically, and verbally. It is really a good course website for algebra studying.
When I view this web site I felt comfortable and quiet which is the environment needed for study. When users go through the pages they can find that not only the navigation bar is consistent, but also is very clear and convenient. The header of this site is very simple, but it matches the whole design. White is the majority back ground color, plus the black text and green and red header, they work well together. The totally 19 lessons, also, are created in same style and have three categories: reading, multimedia, and assessment. Learners can figure out how to learn and where to start very quickly. Especially the multimedia subsection offers users very clear videos with audio which are also separated into several sections. Users can watch them online and the speed is very good. I also found that if the designers can add more sections to this website may make it more helpful to users. For example, some users may want to download these materials and listen to them in iPod, mp3 or some other portable devices which cannot be realized in this course. Also, if the designers can add another section for learning pace or something like schedule for learners to follow maybe better.
Undoubtedly, no course websites can be the perfect. There must be somewhere can be made progress. Plus different people may have different opinions to the same website. This website overall is a very good one. I like the design style and simple layout which make me very clearly know where to go, how to get there and where I am in the sites. It makes learning convenient, interesting and easy. Learners will enjoy learning through this website and this is also the goal for all the course websites: making learning more fun, convenient and efficient.
Subject: A multi-representational approach to algebra; understanding, writing, solving, and graphing linear equations; systems of linear equations and inequalities, quadratic equations, and rational equations.
URL:http://www.montereyinstitute.org/courses/Algebra%20IA/nroc%20prototype%20files/coursestartc.html
NROC Introductory Algebra course is an excellent course website. The whole site is divided into three parts: introduction, syllabus, and units. Course description and learning objectives are provided in the introduction section. The syllabus section is illustrating that the course will be taught in two semesters and the course outline in this semester are provided in a subsection under syllabus. The four units that offered in the first semester including 19 lessons and each unit includes four lessons. The majority contents of this course are in the units section. In all the lessons under each unit, there are three subsections: Readings (Objectives and Readings); Multimedia (Play Introduction, Play Lesson); Assessments (Chapter Test, Answer Key). All the lesson objectives, chapter need to read from textbooks and multimedia lecture can be found among all these lessons. Furthermore, learners can evaluate themselves through the assessment sect. Generally speaking, the whole course emphasizes a multi-representational approach to algebra, with concepts, results, and problems being expressed graphically, analytically, and verbally. It is really a good course website for algebra studying.
When I view this web site I felt comfortable and quiet which is the environment needed for study. When users go through the pages they can find that not only the navigation bar is consistent, but also is very clear and convenient. The header of this site is very simple, but it matches the whole design. White is the majority back ground color, plus the black text and green and red header, they work well together. The totally 19 lessons, also, are created in same style and have three categories: reading, multimedia, and assessment. Learners can figure out how to learn and where to start very quickly. Especially the multimedia subsection offers users very clear videos with audio which are also separated into several sections. Users can watch them online and the speed is very good. I also found that if the designers can add more sections to this website may make it more helpful to users. For example, some users may want to download these materials and listen to them in iPod, mp3 or some other portable devices which cannot be realized in this course. Also, if the designers can add another section for learning pace or something like schedule for learners to follow maybe better.
Undoubtedly, no course websites can be the perfect. There must be somewhere can be made progress. Plus different people may have different opinions to the same website. This website overall is a very good one. I like the design style and simple layout which make me very clearly know where to go, how to get there and where I am in the sites. It makes learning convenient, interesting and easy. Learners will enjoy learning through this website and this is also the goal for all the course websites: making learning more fun, convenient and efficient.
THREE SUPER WBI WEBSITES EVALUATION I
Site: MITOCW – Seminar in Historical Methods
Subject: Approaches used by historians writing
URL: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/History/21H-931Spring2004/CourseHome/index.htm
The MIT open course ware offers a series of courses online (over 1800 courses) and all these online courses are free. MITOCW is the first organization to post free courses online. This course named Seminar in Historical Methods is an online course offered in Spring, 2004. The course is designed to acquaint students with a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the twentieth century. This course site is divided into seven parts: Course Home, Syllabus, Calendar, Readings, Lecture Notes, Assignments, Download this Course. The course home section introduce learners the description of this course. The syllabus is very simple and offering learners information about the assignments and grading details. In the calendar section, instructors are trying to make a schedule for learners. Reading section listed all the materials that need to be read for this course. Books information that need to be read in this class is introduced in the reading section and these books have made significant contributions to this field and have been selected to give as wide a coverage in both field and methodology. I think the greatest part is lecture note, because it provides learners video with audio format lecture which makes learners feel that they are in the real classrooms. The assignments examples in the assignment section is very helpful to the students who want to self evaluate their assignments. Furthermore, in order to give convenience to users, this course can be downloaded and viewed offline. As introduced in this site this course focus on the questions below: how historians conceive of their object of study, how they use primary sources as a basis for their accounts, how they structure the narrative and analytic discussion of their topic, and what are the advantages and drawbacks of their various approaches.
Clearly layout and navigation menu design are the reasons why I recommend this website as a super example of course website. This website has a very simple but clearly layout. Learners can find all the information they need from the seven sections as soon as they see the menu. The combination of background, header, foot design, color, font size and style give a viewers-friendly interface and greatly feeling. It can grasp the users’ attention at the first glance. The clear and reasonable layout designing includes a separate link for downloading the whole course which is an efficient consideration. All the lectures can be either downloaded to iPod or listen online through iTune media player. This offers learners more choices and makes learning more convenient and efficient. Furthermore, this website also offers lectures in video format which makes this web course almost perfect. And both the speed of the audios and videos downloading is very good.
To be honest, it is hard for me to find problems of the web design. In my own opinion, I prefer to add a little bit more graphics such as back ground, header or footer to make the page more active. I also think the instructor’s information is also needed. Overall this is a good website and interesting course.
Subject: Approaches used by historians writing
URL: http://ocw.mit.edu/OcwWeb/History/21H-931Spring2004/CourseHome/index.htm
The MIT open course ware offers a series of courses online (over 1800 courses) and all these online courses are free. MITOCW is the first organization to post free courses online. This course named Seminar in Historical Methods is an online course offered in Spring, 2004. The course is designed to acquaint students with a variety of approaches to the past used by historians writing in the twentieth century. This course site is divided into seven parts: Course Home, Syllabus, Calendar, Readings, Lecture Notes, Assignments, Download this Course. The course home section introduce learners the description of this course. The syllabus is very simple and offering learners information about the assignments and grading details. In the calendar section, instructors are trying to make a schedule for learners. Reading section listed all the materials that need to be read for this course. Books information that need to be read in this class is introduced in the reading section and these books have made significant contributions to this field and have been selected to give as wide a coverage in both field and methodology. I think the greatest part is lecture note, because it provides learners video with audio format lecture which makes learners feel that they are in the real classrooms. The assignments examples in the assignment section is very helpful to the students who want to self evaluate their assignments. Furthermore, in order to give convenience to users, this course can be downloaded and viewed offline. As introduced in this site this course focus on the questions below: how historians conceive of their object of study, how they use primary sources as a basis for their accounts, how they structure the narrative and analytic discussion of their topic, and what are the advantages and drawbacks of their various approaches.
Clearly layout and navigation menu design are the reasons why I recommend this website as a super example of course website. This website has a very simple but clearly layout. Learners can find all the information they need from the seven sections as soon as they see the menu. The combination of background, header, foot design, color, font size and style give a viewers-friendly interface and greatly feeling. It can grasp the users’ attention at the first glance. The clear and reasonable layout designing includes a separate link for downloading the whole course which is an efficient consideration. All the lectures can be either downloaded to iPod or listen online through iTune media player. This offers learners more choices and makes learning more convenient and efficient. Furthermore, this website also offers lectures in video format which makes this web course almost perfect. And both the speed of the audios and videos downloading is very good.
To be honest, it is hard for me to find problems of the web design. In my own opinion, I prefer to add a little bit more graphics such as back ground, header or footer to make the page more active. I also think the instructor’s information is also needed. Overall this is a good website and interesting course.
Tuesday, February 5, 2008
An inportant m-learning devices: PDA and its potential in education
Personal digital assistants (PDAs) are becoming more and more popular nowadays, especially in business and industry areas. In education area, PDAs are more attractive for the small size, cheap price and powerful function. In education area, PDAs have other advantages, such as light weight, access to information, supporting many learning activities, infrared beaming support, unlimited by time, data transformation, communication abilities, and long time battery support. PDAs can also be improved in the future, such as employ more functions and more convenient to users. Some other aspects that needed to be improved are: PDAs are cheaper than laptop but not cheap enough for all the students. The problem is there is a theft risk for students to use them in schools. PDAs have very powerful functions such as games which may mislead students. In fact, some educators are worrying about PDAs will distract students from studying. Except these, there are also some other potential problems: low computational capability, without printing problems, lack of multimedia displaying problems, inefficient input operation and small screen. Some technical problems may be solved very soon with the development of technology such as low computational capability and inefficient input operation. Some other problems maybe exited all the time with PDAs like the distracting to students.
As Dr. Yuen talked in this article PDAs can be used many ways in education: used as multimedia textbooks with calculator, calendar, notepad and pencil. In fact, PDAs are like school bags to students; help students with organizing and managing time; easy accessing to reference materials; individual centered material managing; and other ways to use in classrooms. PDAs are efficient for students to learn and connect students to learning materials all the time.
PDAs can be used to enhance both teaching and learning. First, on the teaching side, PDAs provide communication opportunities between instructors and students all the time. Whenever students have questions or instructors have information to share, they can contact each other. PDAs make teaching anywhere and any time. Second, on the learning side, PDAs definitely helped students a lot more. Except the advantages that mentioned above, PDAs can do more: students can check assignments, schedule, lecture, and note anytime they need. Furthermore, they can do their assignment through PDAs and turn it in through the PDAs too. PDAs can also help learners to improve the usage of their time, whenever learners have a small piece of time want to study they can access all the materials they need through PDAs. Technologies represented by PDAs are bringing us a new ture of learning revolutionary.
This article is besed on Dr. Yuen's article: Teaching and Learning with Personal Digital Assistants http://dragon.ep.usm.edu/~yuen/teaching/it780/resources/pda-yuen.pdf
As Dr. Yuen talked in this article PDAs can be used many ways in education: used as multimedia textbooks with calculator, calendar, notepad and pencil. In fact, PDAs are like school bags to students; help students with organizing and managing time; easy accessing to reference materials; individual centered material managing; and other ways to use in classrooms. PDAs are efficient for students to learn and connect students to learning materials all the time.
PDAs can be used to enhance both teaching and learning. First, on the teaching side, PDAs provide communication opportunities between instructors and students all the time. Whenever students have questions or instructors have information to share, they can contact each other. PDAs make teaching anywhere and any time. Second, on the learning side, PDAs definitely helped students a lot more. Except the advantages that mentioned above, PDAs can do more: students can check assignments, schedule, lecture, and note anytime they need. Furthermore, they can do their assignment through PDAs and turn it in through the PDAs too. PDAs can also help learners to improve the usage of their time, whenever learners have a small piece of time want to study they can access all the materials they need through PDAs. Technologies represented by PDAs are bringing us a new ture of learning revolutionary.
This article is besed on Dr. Yuen's article: Teaching and Learning with Personal Digital Assistants http://dragon.ep.usm.edu/~yuen/teaching/it780/resources/pda-yuen.pdf
Who is the technology Natives or Immigrations
A video "Mobile phones, mobile minds” produced by Teachers TV on Google video is very educational. In fect it is both interesting and educational. As technology natives, the young people are better at new technology than their parents. I think the educators are more familiar with the situation that how young people learn, use, and play with new technologies because they spend a lot of time with kids. They have mobile minds because they are in a mobile world. Mobile devices such as mobile phone can offer them more choices than a normal phone. For example, Mobile game is a video game that played not only on a mobile phone, but also can be played on a Smartphone, PDA, handheld computer or any type of handheld or wireless device. This is more powerful and unbelievable to their parents who are so called technology immigration.
In fact, mobile phone is not very new any more. The mobile phone or mobile, also called a cellular phone, cell phone, or cell, is a long-range, portable electronic device used for mobile communication. It is from traditional phone that we are using now days. But the newest mobile phone has more function that we are not familiar any more. New functions as such: SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching for accessing to the internet, and MMS for sending and receiving audio, video and graphics. Furthermore, as Dr. Yuen already created for this class – website for these kinds of mobile devices – so called cell sites.
Ok, some people may think: “Well, I am not behind the Time yet, because I know all these stuff now.” I just want to say that every body will be behind the time and called some-immigration unless the keep learning. Lifelong learning is behind the time now, some people are talking about the lifelong learning habit. Year, learning should be a habit and should be lifelong now!
In fact, mobile phone is not very new any more. The mobile phone or mobile, also called a cellular phone, cell phone, or cell, is a long-range, portable electronic device used for mobile communication. It is from traditional phone that we are using now days. But the newest mobile phone has more function that we are not familiar any more. New functions as such: SMS for text messaging, email, packet switching for accessing to the internet, and MMS for sending and receiving audio, video and graphics. Furthermore, as Dr. Yuen already created for this class – website for these kinds of mobile devices – so called cell sites.
Ok, some people may think: “Well, I am not behind the Time yet, because I know all these stuff now.” I just want to say that every body will be behind the time and called some-immigration unless the keep learning. Lifelong learning is behind the time now, some people are talking about the lifelong learning habit. Year, learning should be a habit and should be lifelong now!
M-learning: current status and future potential
After reading the materials that provided by Dr. Yuen, I think m-learning is a new way to assist human learning. m-learning can happen at any time and any place with the help of mobile devices. Here mobile devices include cell photos, PDAs, and other portable devices.We can tell with the development of technology, especially the technology of PC and Internet, mobile devices are becoming smaller and more powerful. Form correspondences study that happened more than one hundred years to online learning, the effectiveness is improving. However, all the learning styles, even the online learning are still limited by time and access. I mean learners cannot really access the resources they need for studying either at any time, or in any places. Sometimes when learners need access to get information, communicate, check emails, or do other things, they have to go back to their offices to get online which is painful and low effective. m-learning is right the way to solve these problems that mentioned above:
M-learning is the result of the improvement of technology and the needs of high effectiveness of modern life. People need lifelong learning and high effective learning. People need to update their information at any time and in any places nowadays. Access to information resources is needed to be provided. In schools students need to know not only their schedules, learning materials, but also need to exchange materials and communicate with classmates, when we are out of school or when they are on the way home. In fact, we already saw the benefits of m-learning: some people do not always bring laptop with them any more because it is not as convenient as a PDA and Smartphone; students can do their assignments on their ways home. Emerging m-learning devices in education can benefit both educators and learners from inside and outside of teaching and learning.
M-learning allows students to carry out activities in a variety of settings and according to different paces. Instructors can lecture online and students can access these materials through mobile devices. Under this help, students with different learning styles can work well with their own learning pace through m-learning. Furthermore, mobile devices support immediate communication, whenever students have problems they can contact instructors or talk about it with their classmates. However, though m-learning holds potentials in education area, there is a long to go for implement in every school. As the author stated in this article, m-learning has its own limitations. For example, infrastructure needs to be built to support m-learning and mobile devices need to be improved to fit the need of human learning. Another thing, in my own opinion, is the price of these devices: if people, especially students can afford them and the technology supports people to create content which will be appreciate for mobile devices.
Undoubtedly, m-learning will be more popular in the future and more people will be involved. The trends are from two aspect of m-learning. One is the mobile devices including the infrastructures will be more advanced and powerful. On the other hand more learning theories based on m-learning will be explored by educators. The m-learning will be common to every one like the e-learning today when it is really efficient and helpful with human learning.Mobile Learning: Learning on the Go: http://dragon.ep.usm.edu/~yuen/teaching/it780/resources/mlearing-yuen.pdf
M-learning is the result of the improvement of technology and the needs of high effectiveness of modern life. People need lifelong learning and high effective learning. People need to update their information at any time and in any places nowadays. Access to information resources is needed to be provided. In schools students need to know not only their schedules, learning materials, but also need to exchange materials and communicate with classmates, when we are out of school or when they are on the way home. In fact, we already saw the benefits of m-learning: some people do not always bring laptop with them any more because it is not as convenient as a PDA and Smartphone; students can do their assignments on their ways home. Emerging m-learning devices in education can benefit both educators and learners from inside and outside of teaching and learning.
M-learning allows students to carry out activities in a variety of settings and according to different paces. Instructors can lecture online and students can access these materials through mobile devices. Under this help, students with different learning styles can work well with their own learning pace through m-learning. Furthermore, mobile devices support immediate communication, whenever students have problems they can contact instructors or talk about it with their classmates. However, though m-learning holds potentials in education area, there is a long to go for implement in every school. As the author stated in this article, m-learning has its own limitations. For example, infrastructure needs to be built to support m-learning and mobile devices need to be improved to fit the need of human learning. Another thing, in my own opinion, is the price of these devices: if people, especially students can afford them and the technology supports people to create content which will be appreciate for mobile devices.
Undoubtedly, m-learning will be more popular in the future and more people will be involved. The trends are from two aspect of m-learning. One is the mobile devices including the infrastructures will be more advanced and powerful. On the other hand more learning theories based on m-learning will be explored by educators. The m-learning will be common to every one like the e-learning today when it is really efficient and helpful with human learning.Mobile Learning: Learning on the Go: http://dragon.ep.usm.edu/~yuen/teaching/it780/resources/mlearing-yuen.pdf
My opinions of m-learning is based on the article of Mobile Learning: Learning on the Go.
After reading the materials that provided by Dr. Yuen, I think M-learning is new way to assist human learning. M-learning means that learning can happen at any time and in place with the help of mobile devices. Here mobile devices include cell photos, PDAs, and other portable devices.
We can tell with the development of technology, especially the technology of PC and Internet, mobile devices are becoming smaller and more powerful. Form correspondences study that happened more than one hundred years to online learning, the effectiveness is improving. However, all the learning styles, even the online learning are still limited by time and access. I mean learners can really access the resources they need for study at any time and in any places. Sometimes when learners need access to a certain resources, communicate with somebody, check emails, or check other materials, they have to go back to their offices to get online which is painful and low effective. It is the time for learning moves forward.
M-learning is right the way to solve these problems that mentioned above:
First, m-learning is the result of the improvement of technology and the needs of high effectiveness of modern life. People need lifelong learning and high effective learning. Today’s world is a world full of information and people need to gain the newest information at any time and in any places. All these need people have the access to information resources. So we have cell phones and PDAs, but these are not enough we need more for study purpose, we need to know not only our schedule, learning materials, communicating with classmates as well, when we are not in offices. What we need today for high effective learning is what m-learning can offer. And modern technology can make smaller devices to support m-learning nowadays, such as some cell phones with internet browsers can surf online and check emails. These devices can be more powerful in the future, like it said in this article that the functions of camera, cell phone, and PDA will be built within one.
Second, E-learning connects individuals together and extends the learning process out of classrooms. However, it does not support learning taking place anywhere and anytime. In other words, it just offers more accesses to classrooms. Only m-learning can connect individuals to internet with real freedom. In fact, m-learning makes learners are part of internet.
Third, m-learning can not take place of traditional learning. Here traditional learning includes classroom learning, distance learning and other modern learning. M-learning is an important way to assist traditional learning. It will make learning more efficient and unlimited by time and places.
Even m-learning holds potentials in education area there is a long to go for implement in every school. As the author stated in this article, m-learning has its own limitations. For example, infrastructure needs to be built to support m-learning and mobile devices need to be improved to fit the need of human learning. Another thing, in my own opinion, is the price of these devices: if people, especially students can afford them and the technology supports people to create content which will be appreciate for mobile devices.
Undoubtedly, m-learning will be more popular in the future and more people will be involved. The trends are from two aspect of m-learning. One is the mobile devices including the infrastructures will be more advanced and powerful. On the other hand more learning theories based on m-learning will be explored by educators. The m-learning will be common to every one like the e-learning today when it is really efficient and helpful with human learning.
We can tell with the development of technology, especially the technology of PC and Internet, mobile devices are becoming smaller and more powerful. Form correspondences study that happened more than one hundred years to online learning, the effectiveness is improving. However, all the learning styles, even the online learning are still limited by time and access. I mean learners can really access the resources they need for study at any time and in any places. Sometimes when learners need access to a certain resources, communicate with somebody, check emails, or check other materials, they have to go back to their offices to get online which is painful and low effective. It is the time for learning moves forward.
M-learning is right the way to solve these problems that mentioned above:
First, m-learning is the result of the improvement of technology and the needs of high effectiveness of modern life. People need lifelong learning and high effective learning. Today’s world is a world full of information and people need to gain the newest information at any time and in any places. All these need people have the access to information resources. So we have cell phones and PDAs, but these are not enough we need more for study purpose, we need to know not only our schedule, learning materials, communicating with classmates as well, when we are not in offices. What we need today for high effective learning is what m-learning can offer. And modern technology can make smaller devices to support m-learning nowadays, such as some cell phones with internet browsers can surf online and check emails. These devices can be more powerful in the future, like it said in this article that the functions of camera, cell phone, and PDA will be built within one.
Second, E-learning connects individuals together and extends the learning process out of classrooms. However, it does not support learning taking place anywhere and anytime. In other words, it just offers more accesses to classrooms. Only m-learning can connect individuals to internet with real freedom. In fact, m-learning makes learners are part of internet.
Third, m-learning can not take place of traditional learning. Here traditional learning includes classroom learning, distance learning and other modern learning. M-learning is an important way to assist traditional learning. It will make learning more efficient and unlimited by time and places.
Even m-learning holds potentials in education area there is a long to go for implement in every school. As the author stated in this article, m-learning has its own limitations. For example, infrastructure needs to be built to support m-learning and mobile devices need to be improved to fit the need of human learning. Another thing, in my own opinion, is the price of these devices: if people, especially students can afford them and the technology supports people to create content which will be appreciate for mobile devices.
Undoubtedly, m-learning will be more popular in the future and more people will be involved. The trends are from two aspect of m-learning. One is the mobile devices including the infrastructures will be more advanced and powerful. On the other hand more learning theories based on m-learning will be explored by educators. The m-learning will be common to every one like the e-learning today when it is really efficient and helpful with human learning.
My opinions of m-learning is based on the article of Mobile Learning: Learning on the Go.
After reading the materials that provided by Dr. Yuen, I think M-learning is new way to assist human learning. M-learning means that learning can happen at any time and in place with the help of mobile devices. Here mobile devices include cell photos, PDAs, and other portable devices.
We can tell with the development of technology, especially the technology of PC and Internet, mobile devices are becoming smaller and more powerful. Form correspondences study that happened more than one hundred years to online learning, the effectiveness is improving. However, all the learning styles, even the online learning are still limited by time and access. I mean learners can really access the resources they need for study at any time and in any places. Sometimes when learners need access to a certain resources, communicate with somebody, check emails, or check other materials, they have to go back to their offices to get online which is painful and low effective. It is the time for learning moves forward.
M-learning is right the way to solve these problems that mentioned above:
First, m-learning is the result of the improvement of technology and the needs of high effectiveness of modern life. People need lifelong learning and high effective learning. Today’s world is a world full of information and people need to gain the newest information at any time and in any places. All these need people have the access to information resources. So we have cell phones and PDAs, but these are not enough we need more for study purpose, we need to know not only our schedule, learning materials, communicating with classmates as well, when we are not in offices. What we need today for high effective learning is what m-learning can offer. And modern technology can make smaller devices to support m-learning nowadays, such as some cell phones with internet browsers can surf online and check emails. These devices can be more powerful in the future, like it said in this article that the functions of camera, cell phone, and PDA will be built within one.
Second, E-learning connects individuals together and extends the learning process out of classrooms. However, it does not support learning taking place anywhere and anytime. In other words, it just offers more accesses to classrooms. Only m-learning can connect individuals to internet with real freedom. In fact, m-learning makes learners are part of internet.
Third, m-learning can not take place of traditional learning. Here traditional learning includes classroom learning, distance learning and other modern learning. M-learning is an important way to assist traditional learning. It will make learning more efficient and unlimited by time and places.
Even m-learning holds potentials in education area there is a long to go for implement in every school. As the author stated in this article, m-learning has its own limitations. For example, infrastructure needs to be built to support m-learning and mobile devices need to be improved to fit the need of human learning. Another thing, in my own opinion, is the price of these devices: if people, especially students can afford them and the technology supports people to create content which will be appreciate for mobile devices.
Undoubtedly, m-learning will be more popular in the future and more people will be involved. The trends are from two aspect of m-learning. One is the mobile devices including the infrastructures will be more advanced and powerful. On the other hand more learning theories based on m-learning will be explored by educators. The m-learning will be common to every one like the e-learning today when it is really efficient and helpful with human learning.
We can tell with the development of technology, especially the technology of PC and Internet, mobile devices are becoming smaller and more powerful. Form correspondences study that happened more than one hundred years to online learning, the effectiveness is improving. However, all the learning styles, even the online learning are still limited by time and access. I mean learners can really access the resources they need for study at any time and in any places. Sometimes when learners need access to a certain resources, communicate with somebody, check emails, or check other materials, they have to go back to their offices to get online which is painful and low effective. It is the time for learning moves forward.
M-learning is right the way to solve these problems that mentioned above:
First, m-learning is the result of the improvement of technology and the needs of high effectiveness of modern life. People need lifelong learning and high effective learning. Today’s world is a world full of information and people need to gain the newest information at any time and in any places. All these need people have the access to information resources. So we have cell phones and PDAs, but these are not enough we need more for study purpose, we need to know not only our schedule, learning materials, communicating with classmates as well, when we are not in offices. What we need today for high effective learning is what m-learning can offer. And modern technology can make smaller devices to support m-learning nowadays, such as some cell phones with internet browsers can surf online and check emails. These devices can be more powerful in the future, like it said in this article that the functions of camera, cell phone, and PDA will be built within one.
Second, E-learning connects individuals together and extends the learning process out of classrooms. However, it does not support learning taking place anywhere and anytime. In other words, it just offers more accesses to classrooms. Only m-learning can connect individuals to internet with real freedom. In fact, m-learning makes learners are part of internet.
Third, m-learning can not take place of traditional learning. Here traditional learning includes classroom learning, distance learning and other modern learning. M-learning is an important way to assist traditional learning. It will make learning more efficient and unlimited by time and places.
Even m-learning holds potentials in education area there is a long to go for implement in every school. As the author stated in this article, m-learning has its own limitations. For example, infrastructure needs to be built to support m-learning and mobile devices need to be improved to fit the need of human learning. Another thing, in my own opinion, is the price of these devices: if people, especially students can afford them and the technology supports people to create content which will be appreciate for mobile devices.
Undoubtedly, m-learning will be more popular in the future and more people will be involved. The trends are from two aspect of m-learning. One is the mobile devices including the infrastructures will be more advanced and powerful. On the other hand more learning theories based on m-learning will be explored by educators. The m-learning will be common to every one like the e-learning today when it is really efficient and helpful with human learning.
Create a Course Website
After talking about the panning of a website and developing contents of a website, in this chapter, the author is talking about how to create the site. This is an exciting chapter because we are closing to have our own website – that is we begin to build a house.
As the author said the fest step of site creation is to decide on a design approach. There many ways for us to choose to, however, I think we should choose one of them. This is choose a fixed method to design our website is a better way because we should unify design and structure of each page, make them coherence and easy to maintain. The reasons why we choose one approach are it is easy for users to follow, navigate, and adjust. Another concern about different approaches is the problem of compatible because not all the software that used in creating website can work well with each other. Then which approach you want to choose, I think this is up to what kind of website you want to design because different tools may have different advantage or disadvantage. Normally, I prefer dreamweaver, it is easy and powerful.
Whenever we are talking about graphics that used in a website, there must be two concerns: size and resolution. We do not want to put graphics that are very big in our website because it will cause long time to download them when users are browsing the site. However, we do not want to lose resolution either, it is painful to both the creators and users when the graphics can only be shown in very bad resolution and nobody will come back to site again. So normally people choose graphic in GIFF or JEPG format. There are also some differences between these two formats too. GIF format compress images through LZW compression that is very good for the images which have large areas of single color. Let us see the JEPG format, JEPG format can achieve a higher compression than GIFF. Another advantage if using JEPG is that users can control the rate of compressing. Of course, the higher qualified images, the bigger file size. But users can adjust the rate of compression according to the different use of images. In fact, there are also other concerns about the format of images, such as safety, some people prefer to use small and lower resolution graphics to protect their works.
About the navigation system, as we already talked about at the first chapter: navigation system can not only help users go through all the pages in a website, but also show users the contents in a website. So the principles of creating navigation systems are to help users go through the whole website easily, and show users the contents clearly. We can use graphic menus, text links, or both. This is up to the situation of a real website. For example, if there are already many pictures in a website, I suggest using text links. If there are only text blocks on a web page, graphics menu may work better. Not all the problems that we may have when we are creating a website, will be mentioned in this book. We need to append time and practice to gain experience. The next website will always be better than the current one.
As the author said the fest step of site creation is to decide on a design approach. There many ways for us to choose to, however, I think we should choose one of them. This is choose a fixed method to design our website is a better way because we should unify design and structure of each page, make them coherence and easy to maintain. The reasons why we choose one approach are it is easy for users to follow, navigate, and adjust. Another concern about different approaches is the problem of compatible because not all the software that used in creating website can work well with each other. Then which approach you want to choose, I think this is up to what kind of website you want to design because different tools may have different advantage or disadvantage. Normally, I prefer dreamweaver, it is easy and powerful.
Whenever we are talking about graphics that used in a website, there must be two concerns: size and resolution. We do not want to put graphics that are very big in our website because it will cause long time to download them when users are browsing the site. However, we do not want to lose resolution either, it is painful to both the creators and users when the graphics can only be shown in very bad resolution and nobody will come back to site again. So normally people choose graphic in GIFF or JEPG format. There are also some differences between these two formats too. GIF format compress images through LZW compression that is very good for the images which have large areas of single color. Let us see the JEPG format, JEPG format can achieve a higher compression than GIFF. Another advantage if using JEPG is that users can control the rate of compressing. Of course, the higher qualified images, the bigger file size. But users can adjust the rate of compression according to the different use of images. In fact, there are also other concerns about the format of images, such as safety, some people prefer to use small and lower resolution graphics to protect their works.
About the navigation system, as we already talked about at the first chapter: navigation system can not only help users go through all the pages in a website, but also show users the contents in a website. So the principles of creating navigation systems are to help users go through the whole website easily, and show users the contents clearly. We can use graphic menus, text links, or both. This is up to the situation of a real website. For example, if there are already many pictures in a website, I suggest using text links. If there are only text blocks on a web page, graphics menu may work better. Not all the problems that we may have when we are creating a website, will be mentioned in this book. We need to append time and practice to gain experience. The next website will always be better than the current one.
Friday, February 1, 2008
A brief acknowledge of virtual school and E-learning
This is about virtual school and I will upload the E-learning part later.
Virtual school have become popular nowadays not only in the
In fact, virtual school came from distance learning. According to Verduin and Clark, distance learning is a form of normal education that the instructors and learners locate in different places (1991).
Virtual school means that teaching and learning is not happened in a school that built by "brick and mortar". All student services and courses are conducted through Internet technology. It is totally different form traditional schools that instructors and learners may do not need to meet each other physically in the real life. (http://technologysource.org/extra/20/definition/1/)
In the
I would like to talk about the e-learning and distance learning together because they are very close to together. And understanding the relationship between them is helpful to know the both concepts.
Simply to say, e- learning is a type of training, teaching, and learning that is delivered in a synchronous (real- time; instructor- led) or asynchronous (self -paced) format through internet. This is not like self - learning, because learners still need to follow the traditional instructor- led training (ILT) and computer based training (CBT).
As we all know that E - learning is always involved with any type of learning situation that is computer supported. There are many kinds of technologies that can be used in E -learning. At the same time, distance learning is related to E-learning. It is used to describe a learning type that takes place away from the actual traditional teaching and learning. E-learning have been growing with the computer for so many years, I mean when people tried to employ computer into education, e-learning began to be a part of teaching and learning. Comparing with the concept and practice of distance learning which predates the computer area by almost 100 years, the e - learning is kind of new in education area. The difference between E - learning and distance learning, I think, are about the “separating”. I mean in distance learning model instructors and students are separated physically, while e-learning is nothing to do with separating, sometimes e -learning can be part of classroom (virtual classroom or extension of classroom).
(http://technologysource.org/extra/20/definition/1/)
Virtual Schools: Trends and Issues, Tom Clark, 2001:
http://www.wested.org/online_pubs/virtualschools.pdf
Virtual schools, real concerns Amanda Paulson 2004
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0504/p11s02-legn.html
A brief instruction of the advantage and disadvantage of distance learning
Form the experiment that did by Souder in 1993, we can tell that not only did distance learners defend of the distance learning course was a better way of learning, but also the other two groups thought that the approaches they accessed were better than the other groups’. Souder did explain that why the distance learners in that study were defending for the distance learning approach. He thinks that distance learners gained more than the other groups because they can learn form their classmates, social skills, and also the experiences of learning at a distance. However, he did not explain why the other two groups — traditional group and onsite group – had the same feeling? I am not sure if there are some psychological issues, but I do think that there are other reasons which can cause the distance learners defend their distance learning. As we all know, if learners can think and discover the truth by themselves the learning effectiveness will be better than they just listen from instructors (cognitive learning theory). This is understandable because learners have to really think about the contents that they are learning and figure them out step by step. The process of this kind of learning is active. On the other hand, listening to the lecture or demonstration is sort of passive than discovering the truth by students themselves. This is also the reason why instructors like to create a similar environment when they are demonstrating. Now in the distance learning environment learners, first, have to work together with their classmates which is a social skill. For distance learning approach learners are separated from their instructors and classmates need to work together to talk and discuss more than in traditional class. Second, in distance learning, students have to use the technology skills that needed for operating the distance learning system. Third, in order to finish a course effectively, learners have more activeness than in traditional or onsite class. I mean they have the right to arrange their time and learning pace. However, more right here also means more responsibilities. That is to get everything done on time and make everything reach the requirement. These are totally different from the traditional class that everything is led by the instructors. Learners just need to be a certain place as what the instructors require. This can also explain why the effectiveness of distance learning is important in IT area. If the DL has a lower effectiveness than other approaches, the DL does not have to be exited because people, of course, do not want to learn through a way which is slow and not efficient. In fact, DL has its own problems as the author stated on the page of 76 in this chapter. So nobody can prove that DL is the “best” because it is not. It is only distance learning, it is not different learning, it is not super learning either.
As the author stated in this chapter about the medium that used for distance learning, there are two kinds of technologies: telecommunications technologies and classroom technologies. There are a lot of mediums listed in this chapter, form correspondence study to today’s online study, from postal mail to electronic mail, the technology is updating and the effectiveness of distance learning is improving. It is not necessary for us to talk about all the differences between all the mediums. But we all know that with the development of science and technology, there must be more and more chances for us to employ more effective technologies for distance learning. Online learning, for example, is the most common and effective distance learning approach used nowadays. It offers both synchronous and asynchronous communication between instructors and learners. Furthermore, it can deliver two-ways audio and video as people are talking face to face. But advanced technologies not always have advantages, some problems that appeared during using new technology are very serious. I have the experiences of taking courses online and the problem of attaching assignment is a big problem to me. Professors always want us to submit assignment through distance learning system such as WebCt, however, this system is not performing well all the time. Another problem is losing email, an adjustment of assignment that comes from instructor through email which may be delayed or lost by the system itself. This may cause learners spend hours on their assignment and then find that it is not fit the requirement. Even worse problem is virus which can cause you lose your data which you spend whole day or whole semester on. As we already talked in Chapter 3 that there are still some problems in our area which need us to solve.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
