Understanding Interactive Elements in Distance Learning Courses

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Understanding Interactive Elements in Distance
Learning Courses

• Laura Foley and Matt MillerCenter for Distance
  and Independent StudyUniversity of
  MissouriColumbia

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Understanding Interactive Elements Presentation
Overview (objectives)

• During this presentation, we will
• Define interactivity, and explain why it matters.
• Identify ways to integrate interactivity into
  course content.
• Explain and illustrate our working set of design
  principles for interactive components.
• Discuss how to use a team approach in developing
  interactive elements for online courses.

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Understanding Interactive Elements Presentation
Overview (presenters)

• Meet your presenters
• Laura FoleySenior Instructional EditorCenter
  for Distance and Independent StudyUniversity of
  MissouriColumbiafoleyl_at_missouri.edu
• Matt MillerInstructional Design
  SpecialistCenter for Distance and Independent
  StudyUniversity of MissouriColumbiamillermatt_at_m
  issouri.edu

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Understanding Interactive Elements

• What Is Interactivity?

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Understanding Interactive Elements What Is
Interactivity?

• General (dictionary) definitionMutually or
  reciprocally active involving the actions or
  input of a user, especially of, relating to, or
  being a two-way electronic communication
  system.
• Steuer (1992)Interactivity is the extent to
  which users can participate in modifying the form
  and content of a mediated environment in real
  time.

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Understanding Interactive Elements What Is
Interactivity? (Moore)

• Moore (1989) identified three types of
  interaction that occur in learning
• between the learner and the instructor
• between the learner and other learners
• between the learner and the content to be learned
• Lack of learner-instructor and learner-learner
  interaction leads to emphasis on learner-content
  interaction

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Understanding Interactive Elements What Is
Interactivity? (interface)

• Online presentation introduces a fourth type of
  interactionbetween the learner and the learning
  interface.
• The students ability to use the interactive
  technologies successfully is a predictor of
  satisfaction and success. (Hillman, Willis, and
  Gunawardena, 1994) (Lohr, 2000) (Thurmond and
  Wambach, 2004)

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Understanding Interactive Elements What Is
Interactivity? (our definition)

• Must define a threshold for interaction on Web
  interfaces (constantly changing)
• A working definitionLearner-content
  interaction modifies the environment in which
  students normally interact with written or visual
  material, and it does so in a way that either
  reinforces the objectives in a given lesson
  (through repetition or reiteration) or asks
  students to somehow work with their knowledge
  about the content (through application, analysis,
  synthesis, etc.).
• Case Study (Ask the Expert) Demo gtgt

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Understanding Interactive Elements What Is
Interactivity? (impact)

• Increased interaction in distance courses is
  associated with higher achievement and student
  satisfaction (Roblyer and Wiencke, 2003)
• Complements different learning styles (e.g.,
  aural or kinesthetic)
• Can promote higher-order thinking
• Provides online adaptations of activities that
  occur in face-to-face classrooms
• Engages student interest in material

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Understanding Interactive Elements

• Ways to Incorporate Interactivity

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Understanding Interactive Elements Incorporating
Interactivity

• Taxonomy of online interactive environments
• texts that ask students to do something
  (illocutionary force) (see J.L. Austin)
• self-checking review questions (can be simple
  HTML, driven by XML, or linear with Flash and
  media)
• graphical organizers that allow students to
  discover content
• integrated approach in which the environment (the
  Web page) allows students to discover content
  within a single interface
• guided, asynchronous conversations that ask
  students to shape their intellectual inquiries
  (blogs, discussion boards, wikis)
• live video/chat (mediated social interaction)
• simulacrum (Second Life, etc.)

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Understanding Interactive Elements Self-checking
Review Activities

• Ideal for reviewing vocabulary, key terms,
  etc.questions that require objective, concrete
  answers
• Can be designed using Flash or XML-driven data
• Best when used in the context of the lesson
• reinforcement (at the knowledge and comprehension
  levels) is most effective immediately after
  concepts are presented
• XML-driven review Demo gtgt
• Flash-based review Demo gtgt

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Understanding Interactive Elements Graphical
Organizers

• Online application of classroom activity that
  helps students organize abstract concepts or
  brainstorm ideas
• Can be designed in Flash or in HTML (using tables
  with form fields)
• Flash graphical organizer Demo gtgt
• HTML table with form fields Demo gtgt

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Understanding Interactive Elements Dynamic Media
and Animation

• Dynamic media can be used for information that
  does not have to be presented in a linear fashion
• Image slideshow
• Tooltips
• Image slideshow Demo gtgt
• Animation can be used to demonstrate a process or
  conceptFlash animation Demo gtgt

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Understanding Interactive Elements New Web
Technologies

• In particular, technologies that allow for more
  dynamic online collaboration
• Weblogs (blogs)
• Wikis
• Podcasts or iPod-compatible activities
• Few are talking about the use of these
  technologies in independent study, but why should
  we consider their use?

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Understanding Interactive Elements Blogs in
Independent Study

• How would we use them?
• Not the same as personal blogging
• Online adaptation of traditional classroom
  activities such as journaling, response papers,
  and preparation for research
• Advantages
• practice/improve writing skills, emphasizes
  process, uses medium of Web (links, citations,
  graphics), functions as a portfolio and record of
  students intellectual development
• Disadvantages
• may encourage sloppy writing habits that could
  spill into other assignments, privacy measures
  should be taken, not suitable for all content
  areas

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Understanding Interactive Elements Wikis in
Independent Study

• Whats a wiki?
• A Web application that allows users to create,
  remove, and edit information
• How are wikis used in education?
• Students can critique, edit, or contribute
  entries to existing wikis.
• The course instructor can start a wiki that all
  students can contribute to.
• Social Justice Wiki, Columbia University Demo gtgt

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Understanding Interactive Elements Packaged
Audio

• Audio that you intend students to listen to and
  work with outside a browser

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Understanding Interactive Elements

• Principles of Designing
• Interactive Components

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Understanding Interactive Elements Principles
of Designing Interactive Elements

• Establish clear learning goals, matched to
  learning objectives
• Type of activity chosen should complement content
  to be learned
• Interactivity must serve a purposenot
  technology for technologys sake
• Include clear, concise instructions
• Maintain learner orientation through use of
  visual cues
• Logical links, buttons, and menu items
• Consistent formatting and use of color
• No unnecessary graphics or content

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Understanding Interactive Elements Principles
of Designing Interactive Elements

• Developing a plan
• Questions
• Keyed responses and distractors (for objective
  questions)
• Sample answers (for open-ended questions)
• Any other feedback
• Vocabulary terms, definitions, etc.
• Multimedia graphics, audio files, etc.
• Design layout, navigation, fonts, colors

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Understanding Interactive Elements

• A Team Approach
• to Interactivity

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Understanding Interactive Elements A Team
Approach to Interactivity

• Author/Instructor
• Provides content knowledge
• Curriculum Coordinator and/or Instructional
  Designer
• Works with instructor to present content for
  online delivery
• Provides orientation and ongoing guidance in
  incorporating technology
• Multimedia Specialist and/or Editor
• Produces interactive components (under guidance
  of instructional designer)
• Helps to fine-tune delivery of course content

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Understanding Interactive Elements

• References

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Understanding Interactive ElementsReferences

• Campbell, Gardner. (November/December 2005).
  Theres Something in the Air Podcasting in
  Education. EDUCAUSE Review, 40(6).
  http//www.educause.edu/apps/er/erm05/erm0561.asp.
  
• Downes, Stephen. (September/October 2004).
  Educational Blogging. EDUCAUSE Review, 39(5).
  http//www.educause.edu/pub/er/erm04/erm0450.asp.
  
• Fountain, Renée. (no date). Wiki Pedagogy.
  Dossiers technopédagogiques. http//www.profetic.o
  rg16080/dossiers/dossier_imprimer.php3?id_rubriqu
  e110.
• Fox, Samantha, and Mary Madden. (December 2005).
  Generations Online Pew Internet and American
  Life Project. http//www.pewinternet.org/pdfs/PIP_
  Generations_Memo.pdf.

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Understanding Interactive ElementsReferences
(cont.)

• Glogoff, Stuart. (June/July 2005). Instructional
  Blogging Promoting Interactivity,
  Student-Centered Learning, and Peer Input.
  Innovate Journal of Online Education 1(5).
  http//www.innovateonline.info/index.php?viewarti
  cleid126. Liu, Alan. (2006). Developing a
  Wikipedia Research Policy. Reprinted on
  Kairosnews.org, http//kairosnews.org/developing-a
  -wikipedia-research-policy.
• Lohr, L.L. (2000). Designing the Instructional
  Interface. Computers in Human Behavior 16(2).
• Moore, Michael. (1989). Three Types of
  Interaction. American Journal of Distance
  Education 3(2).
• Roblyer, M.D., and W.R. Wiencke. Design and Use
  of a Rubric to Assess and Encourage Interactive
  Qualities in Distance Courses. The American
  Journal of Distance Education 17(2).
• Steuer, Jonathan. (1992). Defining Virtual
  Reality Dimensions Determining Telepresence.
  Journal of Communication 42(4).

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Understanding Interactive ElementsReferences
(cont.)

• Thurmond, Veronica, and Karen Wambach. Towards
  an Understanding of Interactions in Distance
  Education. Online Journal of Nursing Informatics
  8(2).
• Trimarco, Ruth. (2004). Use of blogs in online
  college classes. In B. Hoffman (Ed.),
  Encyclopedia of Educational Technology.
  http//coe.sdsu.edu/eet/Articles/blogonlineclass/i
  ndex.htm.
• Wagner, Ellen D. (1997). Interactivity From
  Agents to Outcomes. New Directions for Teaching
  and Learning (71)
• Young, Jeffrey R. (11 October 2006). Textbook
  Company Tries Putting Bonus Materials on iTunes.
  The Chronicle Wired Campus Blog.
  http//chronicle.com/wiredcampus/article/1628/text
  book-company-tries-putting-bonus-materials-on-itun
  es.