As part of the MSc in Applied Learning, I had to design and develop eLearning object – page, website or resource. Below I include a brief summary of the process and its steps.
Step 1.1 – mind map with planned sections and topics
Below are some ideas of what could be included in the induction programme. It is much broader than my final artefact (at the end of year 2) will consist of. I need to focus on one or two areas I plan to start with the introduction and a very brief orientation to the university and faculty. This is due to the fact that the classroom-based orientation runs only twice a year, and believe that often new employees lack this very basic introduction. This will follow with a more detailed orientation to the Faculty. Topics introduced under this heading can be discussed later in more detail as independent sections. Moving to the actual Job induction, I decided to start from placing everything in the context of the academic calendar. I can then introduce the main systems used across the university, as we will be referring them often discussing various processes. Finally, the most important part of the job induction – the introduction of the processes that employees will look after. there are many processes and they are rather complex and multilayered so I start with two of them, which I am familiar with – the Academic Structures and Research Administration. This is dictated by the tight timeframes and certainly can be expanded and other areas can be included in the future.
Step 1.2 – Planning the goals, objectives, Instructional activities
When I had the map created I started thinking about wireframe, and I even started working on it. It proved to be however difficult, because in order to develop the wireframe or some sort of mockup I needed to know more about content. I had a basic structure, but I decided to look at further segmentation. To develop the meaningful mockup (even if it was to be built with the placeholders) I needed to decide what am I going to say or teach, how I am going to do that and what technologies use. This step was basically looking in more detail on each of the areas I mapped above. I was breaking them down into smaller pieces focusing on learning objections and the indicators of that learning that could be later used when planning assignments and assessment.
I used this exercise to think about possible technologies and ideas for lessons content – these are obviously going to be explored in detail at the later stage when I will be working on particular sections but at the mock-up development they would be helpful with creating more meaningful placeholders ( e.g. distinguishing sections where there will be a video, text, audio or where I will have additional links, etc.)
I also used that document to track relevant existing documents that could be used (either to inform the artefact, lessons content or to include them as links. I was also adding comments and ideas that could be potentially explored in the future.
This project plan turned out to be quite detailed, but I am sure it is not time wasted. Even though it would not be possible to include all sections and topics in my final project (I think it would be a success if I manage to complete 10-20% of what I included there), it could certainly be used in the future development of the artefact, should faculty decide to go ahead with it. I would also hope the approach would help me to work on the similar project in the future.
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Step 2 – Consultation with some members of the team (management initially)
I met with the supervisor t wor responsible for training new staff and asked for feedback. I wanted to know whether the direction I took was agreeing with management expectations.
Step 3 – Mapping the website flow
I started with the website flow and started working on creating a basic draft sitemap. I looked at the sections I had considered for the artefact started thinking about the actual flow of the content and user journey through the website.
Step 4 – website wireframe to be ready for the interview stage
With the above basic site-map/ flow and the learning goals/objectives document, I started working on website wireframe. I considered using cacoo.com but there are restrictions on the free account and I did not want to create another account. I also looked at the http://framebox.org but eventually decided to install Pencil software on my PC (http://pencil.evolus.vn)
Here is the link to the compressed folder with the wireframe files (the folder needs to be downloaded, files extracted and then the HTML index can e accessed to see the wireframe in the browser
[wpdm_package id=’1256′]
Trying some tools and technologies
Working on the wireframe gave me an opportunity to think more about the content presented on each of the pages and technologies that could be used to do it best. I realised that some of the tools I planned to use were new to me and I would need to learn using them. I was concerned that some of them are might be too complex and that I am perhaps a bit ambitious planning to use them. I was concerned about the learning process itself and wanted to see whether it is even realistic to learn using them efficiently. These concerns led me to try some of the ideas and draft a couple of learning objects (an academic calendar, committees structure and html5 test )so I could test myslef and check how suitable they would be for what I was hoping they could achieve. While they turned out to be not too difficult, they were definitely time-consuming (especially at that early stage) so I need to consider that when planning further content development. This exercise led me to a decision that most of the content will be presented using text, audio, video (screencasts) or interactive presentations; and that I will be using HTML5 reach elements (Visme infographics and H5P open source html5 platform).
Redo the site-map and decide the exact areas of focus
At some stage, the wireframe has overgrown the sitemap. I was struggling with additional pages that I kept adding. I decided to get back to the sitemap – develop it all and highlight only the pages that and sections that I decided to focus on.
https://www.gloomaps.com/NNGzRooqaE
Step 5 – Align each section and topics with the various Activities following the KEMP model
(Link them to goals, instructional activities and technologies and tools to be used)
