Learner Engagement

So, I was having an interesting conversation with my partner who has written his applied project about Standards for Quality Matters for online learning.

Learning engagement is a concern for me. Ever since I took a course at ASU for history and the discussion board questions were required each week with individual responses but no replies to others. In an attempt to reply to others, I found the culture was already set by week 5 and no students would reply to me.
I did have a discussion with ASU regarding my input on this matter. In the online courses I teach, I require replies as well as responses.

However, recently, I had a student who asked if he closes the door on the discussion too soon himself. Good question.
This brings larger questions. What about students who do not post to the discussion in week 5 regarding something relevant in week 3?

My sincere belief is that without synchronous communication, the learning experience is not as effective.
In 1998, I envisioned experts and published authors teaching for multiple universities. I imagined that someone who was, say an expert instructor in copyright law, would teach at both ASU and at Indiana State and University of Colorado. Now, imagine if you could access these expert instructors no matter where you were in the country or world! These experts could actually make a substantial living being adjunct and accessible. I would pay more, in fact, for access to Karjala, Junger, or Seltzer.
Honestly, it would be fantastic if there was a weekly synchronous session - optional. This would be amazing.

In 1998, I had a computer science instructor who did weekly synchronous sessions with us. Of course, there were only 3 of us. However, this was really an amazing format. This would definitely be a great option. I am surprised that 15 years later, this is not the standard.

Learning Management Systems and Compliance with the TEACH (Technology, Education, and Copyright Harmonization) Act of 2002

Several years ago, I conducted research into compliance of the TEACH Act by Pac-10 universities as partial completion of my Masters degree in Technology at Arizona State University.

In doing so, I discovered that universities were attempting to make efforts to be in compliance even though in some cases fair use could be argued.

In order to be in compliance with TEACH, there are several requirements that must be met for faculty, the university, staff and the technology department.

With particular emphasis on distance education and classroom management systems, those colleges who had a home brewed or proprietary management system, took effort in creating a system where students could view but not store information on their personal systems.

In other words, students could view documents and video but not download these to their personal computers.

However, those universities that used tools such as Blackboard, for example, were not in compliance with the TEACH act dependent on whether the instructors attached documents students could download and length of time materials were available.

Why? One example was a PDF created by an instructor that included content from a book. Another example was a video that could be downloaded by students. While the material was restricted to the use only by students, the material could be shared.

Now, the one greatest issue was maybe not Blackboard itself, but the configuration settings by administrators. In some cases, students were allowed access to the course years after completion of the semester. The materials were still present on the server and this could be a violation of the requirement for a "reasonable" amount of time for use.

That being said, SCORM compliant content within a Learning Management System, is really the answer.

With Rapid e-Learning tools such as Articulate Studio, instructors can quickly convert a PowerPoint presentation into an interactive learning environment that cannot be downloaded to any personal computer.

Through a Learning Management System, compliance of the TEACH Act can be reached by converting materials into SCORM compliant output that can be viewed but not downloaded.

Now, placing the Articulate Output on a website may seem reasonable to some, but unless this is password protected, and only available to enrolled students, this would not be compliant with the TEACH Act.

One might also argue that since the output by Articulate is consistent, someone who has minimal technical knowledge could download portions of the material (such as the xml files and swf files) and reuse the content if not placed within a Learning Management System.

For more information about the TEACH Act, please visit the LOC website.

Additionally, if you are interested in reading about Compliance with the TEACH Act by PAC 10 universities, a copy of the Applied Project can be found in the library at Arizona State University.

Running an Engage or Presenter video as a Facebook App

This was completed several months ago.
All I did to create a Facebook application was to basically link to the website containing the Presenter file.


http://apps.facebook.com/articulatedemo/

Articulate - ??? Quirky Bugs?

Ok, so the other day, I was working in Articulate and I caught a few little snags.

1. If you open another PPT or view another PPT during publishing, the output is a little strange!!

2. The Engage interaction in the tab was blank. I fixed this by calling the file something new, but still do not know why.

3. There is 1 second extra on the timer in one of the outputs. In other words, we have 3:56 of 3:55. Huh?

Anyone encounter any of these?

Articulate Engage

Labeled Graphics and audio files.

If you have finished the script for your audio files and broken these down, thing that will really help is to keep a table indicating which audio file goes with what script.

This will save you time when you are adding the audio files either into the PowerPoint or the interactions.