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Introduction
Well-prepared educational materials can remove the need to "wing
it" in the classroom by keeping our students occupied and helping them learn.
Whether we are new to teaching or have been at it a while, we will know of
the huge repository of educational material on the Internet that may meet
this need. But however tempting it may be to borrow from the Web, downloading
educational materials may be found to be an infringement of copyright, a
violation of the moral rights of the author, and even plagiarism if we are
representing their work as our own.
Although special exceptions of intellectual property
infringement have been made for educational institutions, these exceptions do
not as yet cover Internet programs or educational materials. Although most of
us already know about copyright infringement, what isn=t so well known is that the Copyright Act also has a
provision for moral rights, to enhance and protect the reputation of authors.
The moral rights of the author of the web material or Internet program last
as long as the copyrighted work itself and can only be vested in the author,
regardless of who owns the copyright (Durette, 2000). Furthermore:
· The author=s work cannot be
distorted or mutilated so as to harm the reputation or honour of its author;
· The author=s work should not
be used in association with any product, service, cause or institution where
such association would have a negative effect on the author=s reputation;
· Even where copyright has been contracted away from them, the author
has the right to be associated with a work by name or by pseudonym, or
alternatively, the right to remain anonymous, at the author=s option.
Added to this is the fact that our academic
institution takes a dim view of plagiarism, such as representing someone
else's work as our own, including any part of their website. Without
exception, we should never represent someone else's work as our own. Some
professors today have access to software that can assess the likelihood of
plagiarism off the web and reserve the right to use this software in their
evaluation of student assignments. Under these conditions therefore, at least
provide a proper and full citation about our sources, complete with the full
URL to the web page, web text, graphic, audio or video clip.
Making Our Own Educational Materials
The better alternative to borrowing educational
materials from the Internet that may be well be violating copyright law, the
moral rights of the author, and rules of the university, would be to make our
own materials. It=ll be good for us
and good for them - good for us because it=ll be a testament to our hard work and determination
to support our students= efforts, even at
home. It=ll be good for
our students as a constant resource for them to learn from at home. Besides
we know our students better that any Internet site. Only we can provide our
students with real help and guidance. We should not rely on the Internet to
do our job for us. Most educational websites are either too advanced or too
game-like anyway for our students and as such won=t serve them well enough to meet our standards.
Building Web pages is among the most constructivist
activities that learners can be engaged in, primarily because of the
ownership that students feel about their products and the publishing effect
(Jonassen, Peck & Wilson, 1999, p. 28).
So let=s get started. let=s assume that we=ll want our materials to be available to our
students on the web - an educational website, just for our students. So we=ll first need to be able to distinguish an
educational website from an informational one, and identify some of the key
features of an educational website. And second, we=ll need to know
something about how to write a few codes in Notepad, display the web files in
Internet Explorer, and manage them in Windows Explorer.
The Wrong Way: "Tell >Em and Test >Em
We should be able to distinguish an educational
website from an informational website masquerading as an educational website.
The impostor is easy to spot B mainly because
they are technocentric, using a Atell >em and test >em@ approach as they
skip from one topic to the next without depth, opportunities to practice or
meaningful feedback on that practice. Informational websites might have good
design but aren=t designed >too good=. We have found that the use of a paper mock-up as a pre-computer
activity can promote a more instructionally relevant and less technocentric
educational website (Brown & Mann, 2001).
The Right Way - DECL: Considering All the Factors
Educational
websites, unlike their informational counterparts, are comprised of at least four factors that under certain conditions
will affect student learning, Delivery, environment, content and learner, or
DECL. Before we begin B we must think
about where we will be teaching B in a French immersion school, a military training
college, a private school, a public school. DECL can help us identify all or at least the major
factors we know affect to affect student learning. ADECL@ was adapted for
distributed learning environments (Mann, 2005a, 1995a, 1997a) from Richey=s conceptual model of instructional design (Richey,
1986).
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Delivery
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Environment
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Content
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Learner
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Scope
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Setting
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Mental Operations Required
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Attitude
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Presentation
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Climate
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Task
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Capacity
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Strategy
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Domain
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Demographics
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Sequencing
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Competence
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Figure 1. DECL factors of educational website
management and associated variables.
DECL stands for delivery, environment, content and
learner factors that comprise student achievement. The Adelivery factor@ or AD@ in DECL can be furthered sub-divided into the
scope, sequence, strategies, and the presentation of the educational website.
Two variables comprise the Aenvironment
factor@. Three variables comprise the Acontent factor@, and four more variables the learner factor.
Student achievement is the weighted sum of the delivery, environment, content
and learner factors (DECL). For an explanation of the variables under each
factor in DECL see Mann (2005a). The importance of each factor in DECL can be weighted under certain
conditions. The size of the circles
in Figure 2 indicates their emphasis and subsequent impact on student
achievement.
Figure 2. Graphical comparison of educational
materials development by emphasis. The ALearner@ emphasis (left) the AEnvironment@ emphasis, and the ABalanced@ emphasis right. In Mann, B. (2005a). Research styles and the
Internet. In Bruce L. Mann (Ed.). Selected styles in web-based educational research. (pp. 1-11) Hershey, PA: Idea Group Publishing.
Notably, the varying weights added to DECL can also be represented
mathematically. The small Ab@ in subscript in the formula indicates the weighting
that can be attributed to any of the DECL factors.
Db + Eb + Cb + Lb
= Achievement + some error
Generating Some Ideas
Now that we are able to distinguish an educational
website from an informational one, and have considered the DECL, our first
step in developing educational material is to generate some ideas. A bonafide resource of ideas would be the
Curriculum Guide within the jurisdiction in which we wish to teach. We might
consult the curriculum guide for the grade level we want to teach. Curriculum
documents are written by experienced teachers and researchers with excellent
ideas from which to develop an educational website. If for example we are
intending to teach in a province in Canada, we can find information about
education in each of the provinces and territories of Canada from
Education@Canada.
Education@Canada is an information resource sponsored by the Council of
Ministers of Education in Canada (CMEC), as there is no federal or national
department of education in Canada.
If you are intending to teach in United States,
Education America has quickly grown to become the United States' largest
educational e-recruitment service with over 900 employers posting thousands
of jobs. In the US, there is the
ANo Child Left
Behind Act@ which education
leaders at state and local have developed to effectively employ technology to
enhance learning and increase student achievement. There are many American
educational policy websites that may provide some good ideas for our
educational website.
If we are headed to Australia, the Australian
Council for Computers in Education consists of representatives from the
state-based Computer Education Groups. It publishes the journal Australian
Educational Computing and authorises the Australian Computing in Education
Conferences - a good source of information for our educational website. See
Mann (2005b) for more information on educational technology policy in the
United States, Australia, Canada and the European Union.
Developing a Paper Mock-Up
Once we have a short list of good ideas for an
educational website, our next step in the process is to make a paper mock-up.
Developing a paper mock-up means making a hand-drawn replica on paper with
coloured pencils. The layout should be uncluttered and appropriate to the
student=s abilities and
reading level. The foreground font colours and shading should have plenty of
contrast against the background. Bright red and bright yellow backgrounds can make reading for average
readers very tiring over extended periods of time. We should note, however,
that very bright background colours can be perfectly appropriate for in
special needs situations.
Title. We must make our
title important, catchy and curriculum related. We might add a missing or
curious photo or graphic. We should not be redundant with our title, such as a title AWhales@ accompanied by a photo of a whale. And we should not give the answer away. Below the photo, we might add a statement of the
curricular rationale, say something about the school climate (K-1, grade 2-3,
4-6, 7-8, 9-10) and below that write one or more stated objectives, goals,
missions or challenges - behavioural component in "A-B-C-D"
form (discussed below). Colour coding can help separate examples from
instruction, and instruction from program directions. It is most important
that our font colour is designed by instructional event, the colour of the text
on the webpage matches the instructional event. The colours don=t matter per se, but once chosen, they must
always be consistent across the entire educational website, to prevent
distracting effect in student learning. Here for example, is a colour design
rubric for an educational website:
INFORMATIONAL TEXT will always be presented
in a blue font colour, usually under the photo or graphic(s) and above the
scroll line. Informational text presents a brief, informal rationale about
the
NAVIGATIONAL TEXT will
always be presented in a black font colour.
INSTRUCTIONAL TEXT will
always be presented in dark green font colour, usually under the brief
informational statement as ALearning Objectives, AMissions@ or AChallenges@. Instructional text
presents the behavioural components to the educational website, that is the
audience (the learner characteristics), behaviour (add your verb
"distinguish", "describe", "demonstrate", or
"summarize in your own words"), conditions (how - using the art
paper? the protractor? the atlas? in front of people?), degree (when? what
criteria?).
QUESTIONING (i.e.,
procedural facilitation) will always be presented in dark brown font colour.
PARTIAL FEEDBACK will
always be presented in a pink font colour.
HINTS will always be
presented in olive green font colour. Hinting is presented before requesting
responses from students, whereas partial answers require a statement from
them followed by feedback.
Other considerations are that the figure/ground
contrast is evident, all graphics are clear and representative, all
multimedia are related to the topic, and that there are several links, for
further study.
Similarly, the right way to apply audio to an
educational website is to think of sound as having a purpose or function - to
complement formatted text, graphic or moving image and assist students in
shifting their attention between the auditory and visual channels. When the
primary intent of audio is to orient learners about a future event or give
feedback about a past event between web pages, temporal speech prompts should
be considered. Alternatively, point-of-view (POV) sound should be used to
provide opposite sides of an issue, or as a function of character in
objective, subjective points of view. There are a few of the sound design
possibilities with the SSF Design Model (Mann, 1992, 1995b, 1997b). Research
with the SSF Model (Mann, Newhouse, Pagram, Campbell & Schulz, 2002)
suggests that we can expect good immediate results in student retention, and
even better results following a latency period.
Domains of Learning. In developing our own educational materials it is
helpful to keep separate the different domains of learning B behaviour,
from cognitive, from affect, from social. Also within the cognitive domain,
its good to keep separate declarative from procedural knowledge, and both of
these from strategic knowledge. This makes it easier to articulate what we
want our students to do with our educational materials.
Educational Objectives. Now that we know to keep separate the
different domains of learning, as well as the types of knowledge in the
cognitive domain, it=s time to introduce Aeducational
objectives@. The field of Education has long been known for
setting objectives. There are two basic types of educational objectives that
we use all the time B behavioural and cognitive. Some educators say Alearning
objectivesA to indicate intended performance or cognitive
processes in their students. Others prefer to use the less rigid term Alearning
outcomes@ to denote the consequence of instruction and
practice. I=ll continue to use Alearning
objective@but one can use the term with which one is most
comfortable.
In any case, a learning objective can be
defined as a statement written in AABCD A format;
that is to say, the audience (A), behaviour (B), condition (C) and degree
(D). though they won=t appear in this order in our statements. To maintain consistency between Gagné=s conditions
of learning (Gagné, Briggs,
& Wager, 1992), constructivist learning as well as learner-centred
theories (see Richey, 2000), let's attempt to write a broad, fairly high
level educational objective (i.e.,
cognitive strategy) for developing educational materials on the web -
After reading this article on developing your
educational website (the condition), the teacher (the audience) will be able
to develop an educational website (the behaviour) to support his/her
students, by completing a paper mock-up showing learning objectives in ABCD
format (the degree).
Similarly, our web-based educational
material should contain a few intellectual skill objectives and should
appear near the top of the first webpage on our educational website. The verbs for intellectual skills
objectives are straightforward. First, the student is asked to distinguish
between one thing and another, say bears and other creatures. They may be
asked to do this by constructing a table with columns and listing the
differences within each of the columns. This Adistinguishing@ activity is
called discrimination learning and is a low-level activity. Now that the
students have distinguished bears from other creatures, they are asked to
identify the characteristics within the class of different bears, brown
bears, grizzly bears and so on.
We might try
this now with one of our own ideas adapted from our local curriculum guide. On the
first web page we might jot down a few objectives, with a verb:
· To distinguish between things natural or imagined: Procedural
knowledge, discrimination learning, an intellectual skill.
· To describe the identifying characteristics of a concept: Procedural
knowledge, concept-learning, an intellectual skill.
·
To demonstrate a procedure step-by-step: Procedural
knowledge, rule using, an intellectual skill.
·
To generate a new procedure for problem solving: Procedural
knowledge, higher-order rule using, an intellectual skill approach to problem
solving.
· To summarize in their own words, recite exactly, or recall a fact:
Declarative knowledge, verbal information learning
·
To devise a plan, predict an outcome, or figure-out a new
way: Strategic or generic procedural knowledge, a cognitive strategy
approach to problem solving.
We must
remember that for each learning objective we have written we should
incorporate the "A-B-C-D" format, that is -
· Audience (the learner characteristics),
· Behaviour (add your verb "distinguish",
"describe", "demonstrate", or "summarize in your own
words"),
· Conditions (how - using the art paper? the protractor? the
atlas? in front of people?),
· Degree (when? what criteria?).
Finally we might add some associated links to
websites. Below the links,we might add a "hint" if we want the student to construct something
original on video or in PowerPoint, make a link to a page that tells them how
to do that. Below that, we can add our email address with the note "If
you have any questions, please email me at...". At the top of page 2 is our partial answer to the
first objective, goal, mission or challenge stated on page 1. For example, if there are five things they must
know, or five parts of a procedure to demonstrate, we might tell them two and
ask them for more.
In
summation, this paper has suggested how we can make our own educational website, do it well, and as a
consequence, avoid infringing copyright law, the moral rights of the author,
and rules of the university. The recommended procedure has been to use
a syntax-independent approach to educational
website design, wherein wedraw on paper before typing into a text editor,
thereby keeping design and the coding decisions separate. The inclusion of
paper mock-up as a pre-computer activity may improve teachers= educational websites, as it has done in previous educational research
(Brown & Mann, 2001). Regarding the
organization of your educational website, we should aim for a clear focus, not skipping from one topic to the next.
We must provide lots of student guidance on one topic between webpages
(i.e., multiple choice or constructed answers, full or partial answers,
error-contingent or fault-free questions, elaborative interrogation). Learner
factors (from DECL) should be students' attitudes toward the subject or
topic, demographics (do all have computer access - if not it may have to be
printed), their capacity to learn this content, and their competence with the
language. Our language should be conversational and easy for students to
engage in the tasks.
We should keep the sentences and paragraphs concise
and check our grammar, punctuation, and spelling. The next step involves the
transformation of our paper mock-up into an off-line educational website by
developing the HTML documents from our paper frames, displaying them in our
Internet browser and then uploading web files to the schools or university
server, a large topic which is beyond the scope of this paper.
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