Flowbased delivery

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Flow-based delivery
CMT105 Lecture 5

• Lectures in a box?

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General structure

• Technology
• A quick overview of what this technology is
• Educational context
• Which aspects of our current teaching does it
  relate to?
• Technology basics
• A more detailed examination of relevant parts of
  the technology
• Educational applications
• How does all this relate to what you really do?
• Technology practicalities
• What goes wrong with the nuts and bolts?

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Technology
What is this all about?
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2 lectures - 2 models

• Two different models of delivery
• 1) Flow-based
• This lecture - e.g. authorware, Iconauthor,
  Director
• 2) Hyper-based
• Next lecture - e.g Hypercard, Supercard,
  Toolbook, Guide

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Flow-based as a concept
A flow-based delivery tool is one which
is oriented around the basic concept of time.
There is some concept of progression and
sequencing, and there are tools which permit the
end user more or less control over that process
E.G. A video recorder, CD player. TV is temporal
but without control
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Animation tools

• Animation is
• Showing a sequence of images in a linear
  time-line, to provide the illusion of continuous
  movement
• We may use it to mean...
• any sequenced set of images under time-based
  control with no user interaction, whether it
  appears to show movement or not e.g. teletext
  newsreel

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Gifbuilder
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Presentation tools

• Tools designed for lecturer controlled
  presentation
• Typically linear
• But more recent ones allow branching
• Intended to be simple
• Optimised for business presentations (normally)
• e.g. Powerpoint, Astound, Impact
• Many free slide show programs do similar things
• Beginning to include animation and media

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Powerpoint
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Authoring environments

• Allow better control (programming) of flow than
  presentation tools
• Derived from 1960s programmed learning
• Graphical interfaces for (fairly) easy use
• IconAuthor, AuthorWare, TenCore ...

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Authorware
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Programming environments

• Not tied to a single metaphor
• Contain a full programming language
• Generally object oriented
• Visible objects (e.g. cast members) can have
  behaviours and interactions
• Rich variety of interactivity is possible
• Integrated with media

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(No Transcript)
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Educational context
Where might this enable me to rethink my
teaching?
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What does delivery mean?

• Just one element of taxonomy
• Ideas of Knowledge transfer
• Limited constructivist component
• Delivery is not enough!

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Lectures

• Covering a lesson plan of content
• Trying to reach certain Learning Objectives
• Adapting to the audience
• (Hopefully) getting some feedback and adjusting
  level
• A group activity
• Locus of interaction with the lecturer
• Hard to get feedback, even if you try
• Not a lot you can do with it when you get it
• Audience cannot really direct the lecture

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Self-study

• Student working through structured information
  source
• Reading a book
• Study guides
• Structure is the key
• A teachers job is to make that structure
• Limited adjustment to target audience
• Different from writing a lecture
• Information source - Not!
• Structure is according to educational objectives
• c.f. Reference manual, training guide

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Communication vs. Negotiation

• Simple version
• Education is concerned with the transfer of
  knowledge from the teacher to the learner. The
  teacher must decide what content is appropriate
  for the audience and structure it in the way that
  will best support them in acquiring it.
• Better version
• Education is concerned with the development of
  knowledge within the learner. The teacher and
  learner together must determine the content which
  is appropriate and the best way to structure it
  to facilitate learning
• You cant do that! (this way)

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Interactivity and Engagement

• Reception of information does not necessarily
  lead to understanding
• Desire learners to engage with the problem and
  appropriate it
• because this leads to better understanding,
  retention and application
• Interactivity can lead to involvement
• which helps ensure all of this
• Couldnt do that with a lecture?

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Technology basics
What do I need to make it work?
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Contents

• Time-based models
• These tools contain a timeline around which the
  teaching is based
• There is a concept of beginning, middle,
  end
• There is an implication that the learner is an
  observer rather than participant
• Program based models
• These tools allow the construction of objects
  which can have a visual appearance and a set of
  behaviours
• The structure need not be linear (but often is,
  nearly, through lack of ideas)
• The learner interacts with a set of these
  objects

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Animation

• ???

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Story-boarding

• ???

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One meaning of frame

• Frame in the film sense
• One screenful in a sequence of screens which is
  delivered to the observer

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Presentation tools

• Designed to support a human presenter
• Getting more powerful all the time
• Make easy things easy!
• Mostly linear with simple jumping

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What is program based?

• Objects have behaviours
• Tool contains a programming language
• Better programming makes result more...
• You can do anything
• program-based / programmed learning

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Behavourist systems

• Mostly from that stimulus/response model
• Little support for cognitive stuff
• Makes writing behaviourist teaching materials
  easy!

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Programmed learning

• Divide stuff into small chunks
• Determine sequence of chunks
• Tell person a chunk
• Check if theyve got it
• If yes, go on to next chunk
• If no, go back and do that chunk again

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Another meaning of frame

• Frame in the programmed learning sense
• A screenful of information
• containing just enough to correspond to a
  programmed learning chunk
• There is a concept of next and previous
• Isnt that familiar? (and worrying!)

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Authoring languages

• Designed to be easy
• Special commands for programmed learning

10 define frame1 20 Drawcircle(10,20,30) 30
Drawline(20,20,20,0) 40 DrawNext 50 end frame 60
define frame2 70 DrawText(10,50, Do you
understand?) 80 Drawchoice(A, Yes) 90
Drawchoice(B, No) 100 if getinput B goto
frame 1 110 Go next 120 end frame
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Flowchart models

• Underlying language is the same
• Graphical environment allows drawing of
  control structure
• Based on flow-charts...standard methodology
• Makes authoring easy

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Authoring environments

• Integrated design and test tool
• Can produce stand-alone materials
• Designed to make things easy

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Including media

• Tools were originally text-based
• ...dying out
• Along comes media
• Look what we can do now!
• ...but is it any use?

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Integrated tools

• Allow a full programming model
• Include some media edtiing features
• Often incorporate another metaphor
• Director (Macromedia)
• Overgrown animation tool
• Pretty much the standard
• Works for the web too!
• mTropolis (mFactory)
• More exciting to program!

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Educational applications
Where can I apply this?
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Substituting for lectures

• There is a sort of lecturer that stands in front
  of a class and says the same thing every year
• Might as well read a book
• These systems can do better than that

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What cant these systems do?

• What other things go on in a lecture...
• Motivation (v. important) X
• Orientation ?
• Diagnosis X
• If we use these systems for delivery it is
  important to remember that we are only providing
  suport for one aspect of what goes into a good
  lecture. We need to look at how we deliver the
  other aspects

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The information bank

• Provide a resource of information for the
  learner to access
• Link in to problem-driven enquiries
• Computer as oracle
• But who browses an encyclopaedia?

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Technology practicalities
So, how does it really work in practice?
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Modularity
If you are creating materials for a delivery
system like this, then it is important to
remember that the context around the materials
may change. You cannot assume knowledge of what
comes before or after
Requires modular, reusable chunks of content
This is a lot harder than it looks!
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Profusion of materials

• Best use of these systems provides alternative
  explanations and branches to match user needs
• To provie alternatives means creating
  alternative materials (which may never be seen)
• This takes time and costs money
• Basic CAL is costed at 100 hrs of developer time
  per hr of learner time (at least 2000 per hour)
• Good CAL costs a lot more
• Need economies of scale if you are developing

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User knowledge and assessment

• These systems do not normally understand users
• Partly because behaviourism never needed to
• Partly because designers dont know how
• Partly because you cannot afford to develop
  alternative materials to use the information
• Assessment is limited (but can still be
  effective if done properly)

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Integration

• In reality, CAL combines bits of all the models
  in this lecture
• Tools are gradually moving to support that
• We need to be thinking beyond the tools
• We will see how it all fits together next
  semester

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Specialist skill

• Not just anyone can develop CAL
• though lots of people think they can!
• Not like lecturing
• Havent got an audience to look at, cannot change
  it on the fly
• Not like writing a book
• Need a more navigale structure
• Need to allow for user interaction
• Need to provide more alternative content
• There are many poor CAL designers in the world
• in both senses of the word

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Delivery platforms

• Most tools are cross-platform
• at least for delivery
• Because of media content Macs took a big lead
  in modern CAL
• Mostly this stuff is delivered on CD now
• multimedia takes up so much space
• What about the web?
• Its getting there, but the bandwidth is still
  limiting

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Why arent we all learning like this?

• Cant you guess?
• Inappropriate attempts to develop CAL
• Tried to design stand-alone systems
• Failed to adequately analyse educational needs
• Hardware was too expensive
• Software was too programmed learning
• People thought you didnt need educational
  skills
• People thought you didnt need programming skills

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Activities

• To Do
• Design a small piece of frame-based, flowchart
  structured teaching. Indicate what materials go
  in which frame and what questions are used at
  branching points. Provide three alternatives for
  one section of materials
• Write a presentation in a presentation tool
  (probably Powerpoint on the PCs)
• Readings
• Laurillard Ch 3, 4
• Boyle Ch 5, 6