Q1: About the design and delivery of the course

The basic design idea of the course is like this:
Before the class, you are supposed to study the lesson materials (or the knowledge part) by yourselves; during the class, you are guided to link the knowledge self-constructed to the skills in the Multimedia Builder; and after the class you need to reflect on both the knowledge and skills .

• How do you like the design of the course?
• Did the teacher's presentations after the recess help you better understand the content of the topics?
• Please give some comments and suggestions for improving the design and delivery of the course.

(Please click on the ' # comments ' below to post your responses to these questions.)

Q2: About Blogger

Basically Blogger is a diary or journal writing tool. In this course, it was used as a tool for self-reflection, topic discussion, pair negotiation and collaboartion on the final project, and whole class sharing.

• What are your comments and suggestions on the uses of Blogger in the course?

Q3: About Multimedia Builder

Multimedia Builder is a multimedia authoring tool that is selected for creating your final project (designing a student-centered problem-based multimedia program) in this course.

• What features of MMB do you like most or least?

Any problems with your final project?

Please let me know if you have any problem with your final project

Adding pictures to your blog.

In order to add a picture to your blog post, you need to have a separate host for the image. That means that the picture cannot be uploaded to blogger and saved in Blogger's server. You need to upload it elsewhere. Or if the image can be found somewhere else on the web, you can link to it.

This is what you do. You need to work with html tags.

To include a picture, get its direct url. That means "http://www.whatever.com/images/picture.jpg". It will not work if you give a html file.

Then put it in a <img> around it. Which will give you:

<img src="http://www.whatever.com/images/picture.jpg">

"src" specifies the source, that is where the image is from. If you want to add a border, include border="1px" (or however thick you want the border in pixels) into the tag. That is:

<img src="http://www.whatever.com/images/picture.jpg" border="1px">

You can also align the image. Just add align="left" (or "right" or "center" into the tag. Note that you must use the format that is specified.

Hope this helps.

Zurainah: When posting a blog, can we attach a pix as well?

Does anyone know if we could also attach an image when we post a comment in the blog? Or do we add a hyperlink to direct others to open that image?

Learner Control in Multimedia?

50-50. I find that important sequence decisions should be controlled by the computer and not the learner. The designer has to determine appropriate ways of structuring material to enable efficient access to it by learners and design appropriate tools to allow efficient navigation through the materials. In addition, effective strategies have to be devised for users of these systems so that they can gain the maximum benefit from the instruction. The computers’ role is to provide a framework for different degrees of interaction, providing for learners to assimilate information through visual, auditory and kinaesthetic modes.

However, learner control is one of the elements that make multimedia instruction effective. With multimedia, a course content is presented in a nonlinear way, with the user being active rather than passive. Because it is interactive, the user determines what content is delivered, when it is delivered and how it is delivered. Responding to text, animation, and sound not only motivates learners but also requires them to constantly make decisions and evaluate progress, thus forcing students to apply higher order thinking skills. By giving learners greater control over various aspects of instruction, such as pacing and sequencing, they can tailor to their own learning style, thereby making learning more meaningful.

Some thoughts on ASSURE Model (Systematic Planning for Media Use)

Reflecting on the ASSURE Model process in teaching & learning, I would like to share my thoughts on some common shortcomings of a teacher:

Under the ‘U’component (‘Utilise Media & Materials’), I think that as teachers using electronic equipment in the classroom, we often neglect that hardware can malfunction and fail to have a plan B. It is crucial to make sure that our instructional materials are suitable and working before using it in the classroom.

Under the ‘R’component (‘Require Learner Participation ’), we often spend too much time lecturing students that we fail to listen to them and lose them in the process. We often overlook that students learn best when they are actively involved in learning. The passive learner has more trouble learning whatever we try to pour into his/her brain. Hands-on new media actvities is an excellent way of getting students actively involved in the learning, but we should also encourage more questions and answers, discussions, group work wherever possible.

Under the ‘E’component (‘Evaluate & Revise’), this last stage is often neglected but it is the most important one. Anyone can develop a lesson and deliver it, but really good teachers take time to reflect upon the lesson, the objectives, instructional strategy, instructional materials and assessment and determine if these elements of the lesson were effective or if one or more of them need to be changed the next time the lesson is done. Sometimes a lesson may seem like it would be great on paper but when we actually teach the lesson with a specific set of students, we might discover that it may fall flat of our expectations. Some students may not be tech savvy so how do we help these students cope? We are not bad teachers if a lesson does not work. We are if we don't reflect upon our lessons and work on revising elements of the lesson until our students become successful learners.

Zurainah's Blog

http://zurainah_wr_ted249.blogspot.com

Make more contributions to the blogs

I found some of you have already made substantial contributions to their own blogs as well as to the sharing Corner. Some, however, is still staying at a minimal level. Please make more contributions to the blogs, focusing on both the tools of blogger/MMB, and the content of the module shown on the PPT slides.