Re-using teaching materials

1
Re-using teaching materials

• Matija Lokar,
• Matija.Lokar_at_fmf.uni-lj.si

CADGME09, Linz, July 12th, 2009
2
Few quotes

• New technologies should be used in the most
  appropriate way to provide a quality learning
  experience for students.
• University of Technology, Sydney, Institute for
  Interactive Media and Learning, Teaching Matters
  A handbook for UTS academic staff
• Not the tool, but the use of the tool is or is
  not pedagogical
• Vlasta Kokol-Voljc

3

• The most effective kind of learning experience
  is determined not by the technology available,
  but by considering what is most appropriate for
  the students, the subject and the learning
  objectives and then selecting the most
  appropriate technology to use, be it a book, an
  online discussion, a multimedia simulation, or a
  workplace experience.
• (UTS, Teaching Matters)

4
Organising and using resources for teaching
process

• Making combinations of different materials
• Choosing a workbook, choosing tasks, choosing
  pages on the Internet, choosing ...
• Always taking into account the class we are
  teaching, the day, the pedagogical situation

5
Usage of teaching resources

• Have you ever used a certain workbook, textbook
  exactly in the way it was written from the
  first letter to the last one
• Have you ever considered how great it would be if
  you could have a slightly different textbook with
  a different sequence of examples, with a certain
  part omitted, some parts added from another
  source
• Thus technology nowadays most often used in
  preparing teaching materials

6
Technology used
Source www.cksinfo.com
Source simplepress.wordpress.com
7
Or

• Retyping
• Giving instructions to students on the order in
  which they should use a textbook and believing
• Students will not spend most of the time thinking
  about the paragraph you suggested they skip
• Students will not object if they should first
  read the last paragraph on page 73, then look at
  the picture on page 70, then return back to page
  73 and read the first paragraph

8
Reasons

• Authors of resources consider a hypothetical
  pedagogical situation with hypothetical students
• The actual teaching process is always at least
  slightly different
• and never the same
• A good teacher as Handbook from S2 says
• uses resources in the most appropriate way
• So s/he is forced to adapt the resources

9
What about modern e-materials

• Could teachers use them more effectively?
• Unfortunately not! (most of the time)
• Lots of teaching e-materials are prepared in the
  same way as an ordinary textbook
• Monolythical
• Hard to change
• Complete portals, web pages with embedded flash
  animations, usage of frames, applets without the
  source

10
Self-learning desing

• Majority of resources
• The author prescribes the way to use the
  resource
• Suitable (we can argue sometimes this too) for
  self learning
• But in majority of usage
• Teacher is also present

11
Teacher comes first

• Introducing the teacher into the author-student
  relation.
• In my opinion, the teacher "comes first", i.e.
  s/he should have control over the content s/he
  uses to teach the student

12
Put teachers back into the game

• E-resurces should be flexible
• Allow the teacher to adapt them, combine in
  his/her own way ...
• Resource authors should prepare
• Basic building blocks
• Pre-constructed models
• Instructions

Source http//www.lego.com
13
Source http//www.lego.com
Source http//www3.towerhobbies.com
14
Re-using resources

• Teacher should gain control over the resource
• Author should merely be an initiator of the
  resource in various forms
• Basic building blocks
• Pre-constructed models (but with the possibility
  of adapting them)
• Instructions how to adapt, reuse, change the
  models
• Teacher has the possibility to
• Adapt
• Change
• (Re)combine

15
Resource authors

• Of course they should prepare the complete
  resource
• What to tell,
• How to tell,
• In what order,
• Something teacher can start with
• Thus avoiding we do not have time problem

16
Resource authors

• Teacher is the one who upgrades the idea, adapts
  it to a certain pedagogical situation, his/her
  beliefs,
• Author creates the resources for an ideal
  situation, teacher teaches in real world
• Resources teacher knows to be adaptable are more
  accepted and used
• Even that are mostly not adapted
• Hwang, D., EDUNET The Core of Korea's Knowledge
  Bank, 2nd Strategic meeting EdReNe, Lisbon, June
  2008

17
Tools flexibility - settings

• Tools used in teaching should be also (more)
  flexible
• Most of the tools offer the possibility to change
  the settings
• But only within certain document
• Or within certain instalation of a tool
• Importing/exporting settings
• Very rarely offered
• Teachers often need quite different sets of
  setting in various pedagogical situation
• Cumbersome to change them each time

18
Tools flexibility user interface

• User interface (or various user interfaces) of a
  tool used in teaching provided by author
• Should be just implementaion of an idea,
  proposition
• User (teacher) should decide what/when
• Adaptable user interface
• With possibility to quickly switch between them
• To store the settings
• To apply stored UI

19
Basic blocks

• Should be adaptable too
• Should be tool independent
• Teacher should have the possibility to change the
  tool used
• Should be in standard formats
• Not be locked in
• Change of tools
• Should be in different formats
• Pdf, doc, htm, xml

20
Choice of formats

• The technology behind the resource should not
  present an obstacle but offer new possibilities
  of use.
• Different situations different formats needed
• Content is the same
• Question (quiz)
• paper based (DOC, PDF )
• Web (HTML, JavaScript )
• LMS (Moodle XML, QTI )
• Standardization
• CAS dictonary
• INTERGEO project
• Possible use in the future
• Adaptation to new formats/standards

21
Choice of tools

• one-size-fits-all syndrome
• to stay within the same environment, the same
  program
• amazing tricks can be seen, features exploited in
  unusual ways done in Derive, GeoGebra,
  Mathematica ... or tricky instructions are
  provided
• to stick with the same tool at any cost

22
Choice of tools

• Part of the teaching process is also to teach
  students how to choose the most appropriate tools
  for the task
• and Netgeneration has no (or significantly
  less) problems with multitasking
• We should use different tools
• Tool should cooperate

23
Active Math Project

• A pilot project on authoring the resources in the
  way described
• Part of NAUK (ALB) project
• NApredne Ucne Kocke (Advanced Learning Blocks)
• Mathematics, physics, computer science, logic
• http//www.nauk.si
• Active math
• http//am.fmf.uni-lj.si

24
Active Math

• E-learning content for secondary schools
• Different types
• Can be used either in its original form as well
  as changed, combined, rearranged, exported and
  transferred to a web page, into a LMS or on a CD.

25
AM various basic blocks
26
AM Basic blocks different formats
27
AM - Combination of building blocks
28
The life cycle of a resource
Frans Van Assche, Riina Vuorikari, (2006). A
Framework for Quality of Learning Resources. In
U. Ehlers J.M. Pawlowski (eds.), European
Handbook for Quality and Standardization in
E-Learning
29
To summarize
30
E-materials Preparation Guidelines

• Teaching resources lots of primary building
  blocks that can easily be adapted to a particular
  teachers needs.Anyone can thus construct their
  own learning path and have the possibility to
  combine their own resources with resources
  obtained elsewhere.
• Building blocks small, adaptable, transferrable
  and as independent of particular programming
  tools as possible.Building blocks should be
  easily obtained in different formats such as text
  files, html with different styles, original xml
  format, SCORM 1.2, MoodleXML ... This makes it
  easier for the users to embed the blocks into
  their own Internet pages, use them in online
  classrooms, provide CD copies of them, adapt
  them, etc.
• The power of metadata.All building blocks should
  be equipped with descriptions that outline their
  content even before they are entered. Metedata
  provides quality searching and the user can thus
  obtain exactly the resource s/he is looking for.

31
E-materials Preparation Guidelines

• The teacher must be in control Every teacher is
  unique and has a unique teaching style that
  changes depending on the students the teacher is
  teaching at a given moment. Therefore the
  resources should not be limiting and prescribe
  the use. The author should provide a learning
  path, but that path should be easily
  deconstructed, changed, adapted. And should a
  teacher believe that Paddy, not John, should be
  the name of the main character in the resource,
  that adaptation is to be as easily achieved as
  possible.
• A pre-constructed resource should only present
  one of several patterns possible Of course it is
  only rational, that the authors offer a resource
  as a preconstructed format (or several formats).
  This provides example(s) of using the basic
  building blocks. However, the complete resource
  should be available in a technically easily
  adaptable way.

32
Bare necessities

• A repository of well described (metadata
  equipped) building blocks
• In different formats (where rational)
• Useful in different situations.
• Not too extensive
• Should only cover a paritcular way of dealing
  with a certain subject.
• Examples of teaching units constructed with the
  building blocks provided.
• Provide a base for the teacher,
• Can be adapted to a particular teachers needs
• Instructions how to use the building blocks,
  combine them, change them, and adapt the units
  provided.
• Tools that enable preparation, adaptation,
• Adaptable tools