Interactive Design: creating manipulatives

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Interactive Design creating manipulatives

• Learning is not a spectator sport
• Dr. Alan Barnes October 2006

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Learning and the web role of the web a.

• The Web as Instructor
• entire instructional sequences
• entire instructional sequences with support for
  groups of students
• a total alternative to the classroom
• Suits some students and some subject areas
• Can offer strongly social elearning experiences

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Learning and the web role of the web b.

• The Web as resource provider
• extensive resources for teachers
• supports blended learning with sequences of
  activities
• supports resource based learning eg. web quests
• resources range from
• passive?-------------? highly interactive
• May lack continuity
• Students may get off-topic
• Resources may be in many different places

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Sources of web interactivity

• The sequence of learning activities itself
• Individual navigation through the pages
• Interactive aspects of the actual resource or
  object
• Exchange and communications with others through
  blogs, chat, etc.
• Sophisticated learner management features
• Collaborative and cooperative interactivity eg.
  Wikis creation

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Types of Interaction According to Sims(1997)
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Passive Web Objects

• Word documents .docs
• Adobe Acrobat files .pdf
• Pictures .gif, .jpg
• Movies .mov .mpeg
• Pod Casts .wav, .snd etc.
• Animations-flash and other formats

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Some Interactive Web Objects

• Interactive simulations eg. Frogut
• Web games
• Virtual manipulatives demonstrating concepts eg.
  NLVM
• Interaction with experts or peers eg. NRich
• Manipulatives demonstrating principles or models
  eg Central Limit Theorem, Water Cycle
• Virtual worlds

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SomeWeb Technologies Supporting Interaction

• Flash
• Javascript
• Java
• RSS-Blogs, Wikis
• Database driven eg. Google Maps
• Quicktime-and virtual reality movies
• Applications that produce these file types
  eg.Geometers Sketch Pad,