Creation Of Courseware Research Articles

TVET SI: Learning at Sea - Blended courseware creation for non-accredited vocational education and training for sea-farers at sea and ashore

Approximately 80% of South Africans do not receive formal post-school education and training (Southafricami, 2020) which implies that the majority of adults may receive non-accredited Vocational Education and Training (VET) or teach themselves. This article provides a theoretical and practical lens for VET educators and researchers on non-accredited VET courseware creation at an intra-programmatic level and it joins a long conversation in the regional and international academy on VET. It draws upon the case study of a production programme which was rolled out in three phases over five years for approximately 400 seafarers. The production programme was a forerunner in the deep-sea trawl industry and facilitated the inclusion of sea-going factory workers in workplace training for the first time. The Theory of Practice Architectures was employed as a conceptual framework to analyse and synthesis the corpus of data arising from a case study with nine methods for data collection. The findings reflect four characteristics concerning the practices of courseware creation for non-accredited VET. Three recommendations are made in the conclusion of this article which concern theoretical, methodological and systemic areas of of non-accredited VET. Keywords: non-accredited Vocational Education and Training (VET); Theory of Practice Architectures; courseware creation; sea-going workers

Evaluating Digital Authoring Tools

As the quality of authoring software increases, online course developers become less reliant on proprietary learning management systems, and develop skills in the design of original, in-house materials and the delivery platforms for them. This report examines the capabilities of digital authoring software tools for the development of learning materials. Seven software tools are evaluated, representing the following categories: single purposes; activity creation; course development and presentation; general presentation; testing and assessment. Evaluating Authoring Tools Despite debate over the efficacy of multimedia, computer and Web-based learning materials (Clark, 1983; Greenagel, 2002), there is compelling evidence that they can be an effective and efficient means of delivering education at a distance in the right situations and conditions (Kirkwood, 1998; Bates, 2000; Mayer, 2001). The development of high-quality digital learning materials, however, involves a complex combination of subject matter expertise, instructional design knowledge, and technical skills (graphic design, photography, audio, video, computer programming, etc.). These result in long and expensive curriculum development cycles (Bates, 2000). Numerous “learning management system” (LMS) products have become available for the purpose of streamlining the process of online courseware creation and delivery. These tend to be expensive, however, and do not always give the students and teachers the flexibility they require. By contrast, a wide range of inexpensive courseware authoring tools has emerged, enabling courseware designers to develop effective in-house materials and delivery platforms. For the purpose of this evaluation, seven authoring products were selected, representing the following uses: 1) Single Purpose Tools: designed for basic purposes rather than for creating a suite of varied tools. Most tools in this category are not specifically designed for production of instructional materials. 2) Activity Creation Tools: designed to produce small, stand-alone, interactive activities that may be incorporated into courses. Technical Evaluation Report 33: Evaluating Digital Authoring Tools Wilde 2 3) Course Development and Presentation Tools: specifically designed for developing and presenting online courses and training programs. These tools are typically organized around specific concepts, lessons, and modules. 4) General Presentation Tools: designed for the presentation of multimedia content, and with specific uses in online education, though not intended for this purpose exclusively. 5) Testing and Assessment Tools: designed to produce tests, quizzes, and other types of assessment for print, computer, and/ or Web-based delivery. 1. Single Purpose Authoring Tools [Note: All evaluations were on a 600 MHz PC with 192 MB RAM and Windows 98 SE] Screen Hunter 4.0 is a freeware edition of a popular screen capture utility. It allows users to capture any image displayed on a computer screen and then paste the image into another application (Word, PowerPoint, FrontPage, etc.) or save the capture as a graphic file. The program worked well on the test system. It was possible to capture the entire screen, active windows, and rectangles of defined sizes quickly and easily. The “zoom tool” makes capturing rectangles very precise by showing a magnified view of the capture area. The help provided is sparse, but the program is so easy to use that this is not a problem. This tool would be especially useful for an instructor creating software-training materials that require students to see exactly what particular screens and operations look like.

What’s yours is mine: Copyright applied to web-based learning

T his is the day of the independent student. Students want to get more education, but they have work, family, and social obligations that make regular class attendance problematic. When the university courses they wish to take a r e hundreds of miles or hours of commuting time away, the obstacles are simply too much to overcome. Enter distributed learning. When courses are offered to off-campus locations or students are allowed choice of time to interact with course materials, more students are able to complete coursework than ever before. Students who would have never considered taking degree programs now matriculate with enthusiasm. Universities build classrooms designed to accommodate videotaping and mount servers to deliver Web-based instruction. While emerging telecommunications and information technologies have the potential for reaching more students, the use of these technologies to create electronic courseware raises delicate policy issues. University faculties have traditionally been told that they own the copyright to their lecture notes, tests, handouts, articles, and other materials. These items are considered to be products of their intellect--sweat of the brow. Despite the fact that the thought process may have taken place in a university office and university libraries may have contained the works that were consulted in the process of creation of lecture notes or course syllabi, the tenets of academic freedom and independent thought have made universities loath to assert a claim of copyright on faculty production. With the advent of Web-delivered instruction, however, the balance of ownership has changed. No longer does the professor contemplate and write in academic solitude. No longer is access to library materials the most significant contribution made by the university in the development of courses. Because the creation of highquality digital courseware often requires considerable investment on the part of the university, the university does not automatically allow faculty members to claim sole ownership of the intellectual property of their own course materials. In an era of distributed learning, professors seldom are responsible for 100% of the creation of online courses. The creation of courseware for distributed learning is a team effort. Distributed learning is a significant investment on the part of the university, and one from which the university would like to recoup its costs-i f not more. Knowing that distributed courses can reach a much larger market than campus-based courses, universities do not want to spend the development dollars to create these courses if the institution will not reap the potential benefits of having the developed courseware available for future semesters, at least. In the past, if faculty members took their overheads with them when they moved to other jobs, the result was not debilitating to the curriculum. If a university sinks substantial resources into the creation of Web courseware through which crucial courses are offered, however, the impact of losing access to this courseware could be devastating. If the courseware is of such high quality that other universities license it, then the issue of royalties raises its head. What is good for the goose may not appeal as much to the gander. Because faculty members contribute a significant portion of their instructional effort into redesigning courses for distributed delivery, professors may balk at university pressure to prepare online courses if they cannot take the fruits of this development to another institution, should they eventually leave. If the faculty member can own traditional lectures, why not electronic course materials as well? The university rebuts that it contributed a significant portion to the development of the course, and the course was developed on university time using university facilities, so the university should own the exclusive rights to the developed course materials. Is there no common ground here? Must this be a win-lose proposition? The University of Nor th Texas found a way to encourage development

String-Pattern Matching in a Visual Programming Language

Determining whether or not a pattern of characters is present within a body of text is such a fundamental problem that it has led to a number of notations for the specification of patterns. These include regular expressions, and notations found within string processing and other application-specific languages. Too often, these approaches are either overly simplistic, offering little in the way of pattern-matching capabilities, or else they are extremely cryptic and terse.In the context of visual programming, the string- pattern-matching problem is largely unaddressed; yet the benefits ascribed to such languages offer the potential for extremely powerful and intuitively meaningful pattern notations. In the CALVIN language, designed for the creation of courseware, the authors have used purely visual constructs throughout. In particular, the content of strings may be analysed by using a graphical and augmented version of regular expressions to specify patterns. This notation, and its realization within CALVIN, is described in some detail, and comparisons are made with the more conventional textual form.

Development of an electronic classroom: the promise, the possibilities and the practicalities

The advent of ubiquitous computing promised much for education, and indeed very powerful developments, spurred on by the computer-supported co-operative working (CSCW) community, are now becoming available. However, 'chalk-and-talk' and slide sequences still remain a significant part of the pedagogical portfolio of many tutors, across all phases of education. This situation persists for a number of valid reasons, including the cost and volatility of the support technology, not least that involved in courseware creation. The paper briefly reviews what is possible with current hardware and software, but concentrates on the development of a basic electronic classroom, designed as a human-tutor aid. Emphasis is given to the qualities of portability, robustness and availability rather than functionality, but it is recognised that system extensibility is desirable when costs and technology allow. >

A hypermedia data model for public space and computer aided learning

Frameworks for the construction of CAL systems and the wide availability of multimedia authoring tools like Asymetrix Toolbook and Microsoft Visual Basic, are aleviating some of the technical difficulties of courseware creation. However problems of locating content materials and ensuing use and copyright considerations are still barriers. This paper examines a potential source of materials for several areas of teaching and how these sources may usefully be managed.

Toward the Design of an Intelligent Courseware Production System Using Software Engineering and Instructional Design Principles

There are literally hundreds of authoring systems available for personal computers. Most of them are designed to go with specific hardware and provide no intention to facilitate individualized instruction. This article describes a prototype courseware production system which is designed not only to offer the full power of traditional authoring system, but also to propose the design based on software engineering practice to ensure system transportability. In addition, the proposed system utilizes sound instructional design theory to facilitate individualized instruction. The basic structure and characteristics of the Minimum Courseware Creation Support Environment (MCCSE), the systematic editing process using the system, the sample products, and the strength of the product are also discussed.

Courseware design: Exploiting the colour micro

The creation of courseware for any medium is a complex and multi-faceted procedure. Although careful reflexion is necessary in all aspects of courseware design, one of the most crucial elements is the manner in which information is presented to the student. The ultimate aim of good courseware is to be pedagogically effective. It is evident that to achieve this end techniques for presenting data must be adapted to the medium: they must motivate the user and they must facilitate comprehension and retention of material. When developing materials for a new medium such as the computer, it is necessary to insure that these precepts are being observed.