In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning envir... more In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client comp uter. Tools are provided in the interface to allow students to search for concepts and create personalised views of the materials. Link annotations driven by an overlay student model are supported in all components of the system. The system supports the WWW as its addressing space but uses the local client areas to store media items expensive in terms of delivery time. Learning objects that provide frameworks for tasks and other summative assessment activities are stored on a server and delivered when required.
EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology, Jun 1, 2002
In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises mul... more In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client computer. A student and course model exists that determine what content item is presented, based on both student prior competencies (pre-requisite knowledge and skills) and preferences.
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2005
In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information technol... more In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information technology related leaning environment. Fine grained concepts form the basis of the system; these are initially configured hierarchically into sessions by the instructor to constitute a week's worth of work. Tools however, exist to provide other forms of access. This constitutes a separation of the course's knowledge and skill base from the instructional methodology pursued. A session for example, is an instructor driven grouping that has instructional significance. Other instructional objects or artifacts that play particular roles in a methodology can be specified. We examine a problem based scenario and contrast it with an expository form of delivery. Adaptive hypermedia techniques driven by student profiling, are employed to provide students with feedback on their status with particular concepts. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along with web based tools to scrutinize and access information stored about them. This also includes the formal assessment maintained for the course and any individual settings used by the environment.
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2009
In this paper, we report on a longitudinal study into instruction in a technology based course di... more In this paper, we report on a longitudinal study into instruction in a technology based course directed at the creation of multimedia applications. Students come from both the Computing and Media Arts areas and group project work has been the main assessment strategy employed. A metric referred to as the Difficulty was arrived at through a factor analysis of questionnaire data. This metric has been the focus of successive offerings of this action research. A disparity in this metric between students groups became evident and efforts have been employed in subsequent iterations of the course to appease these differences. The project based instructional methodology that has been employed, is characterised by the giving of control over to the students during the development process. Peer review and assessment were also embedded within the instructional methodology to both provide exemplars of work conducted and subsequent feedback, and equity within the assessment process. A number of assessment rubrics were introduced to aid in this process. Interestingly, the end result was an movement on the Difficulty factor for the Computing students. Both cohorts agreed that the instructional methodology was satisfactory.
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2010
In this paper, we report on a course offering in 2009 within the media arts area where the develo... more In this paper, we report on a course offering in 2009 within the media arts area where the development of a Flash game was used as a group project for a cohort that included media arts and computing students. A previous offering of this course in this longitudinal study, identified through a factor analysis of questionnaire data, a metric referred to as Difficulty with the development. A disparity in this metric between student groups became evident and efforts have been employed in subsequent iterations of the course to appease these differences. A project based instructional methodology has been employed witin this course, and an authentic project sponsored by a credit union was used. Flash was used to develop the game and each group member was responsible the production of an equal section. Game structures like the representation of the game actions and associated scoring, were the responsibility of the whole group; students needed to be engaged with the whole process. Peer review and assessment were embedded within the instructional methodology to ensure that students maintained their engagement. A number of assessment rubrics were used to ensure that all activities were viewed favourably. The end result was an movement on the Difficulty factor and an appeasement of the initial difference. Both cohorts agreed that the instructional methodology was satisfactory.
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2002
In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises mul... more In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client computer. A student and course model exists that determine what content item is presented, based on both student prior competencies (pre-requisite knowledge and skills) and preferences.
Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 2007
In this paper, we describe the characteristics of Project Based Learning, a derivative of problem... more In this paper, we describe the characteristics of Project Based Learning, a derivative of problem based learning and report on a multimedia course where this methodology was pursued. The instructional materials are reported on and the artefacts/documentation developed by students discussed. A factor analysis was performed on questionnaire data that was collected at the end of the semester to evaluate the methodology pursued and the instructional artefacts developed. The results of this analysis are discussed along with the implications of this analysis on the use of online learning environments. A model to provide alternate instruction in an online environment are further discussed.
The move to online learning environment for the global delivery of Australian CS programs has hei... more The move to online learning environment for the global delivery of Australian CS programs has heightened the need for adaptive interactive learning environments. Research has indicated that adaptive and interactive online CS learning environments play a useful role in the provision of lifelong learning but these needs are not being fully met by current tools or COTS systems. This paper builds on a previous implementation of an adaptive multimedia learning environment, (AMLE), a networked multimedia learning environment which attempts to provide the functionality of a traditional intelligent tutoring system and looks at the support of CS learning by the provision of new highly-integrated and context aware tools.. .
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2003
In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning envir... more In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client comp uter. Tools are provided in the interface to allow students to search for concepts and create personalised views of the materials. Link annotations driven by an overlay student model are supported in all components of the system. The system supports the WWW as its addressing space but uses the local client areas to store media items expensive in terms of delivery time. Learning objects that provide frameworks for tasks and other summative assessment activities are stored on a server and delivered when required.
In this paper, we report on a longitudinal study into instruction in a technology based course di... more In this paper, we report on a longitudinal study into instruction in a technology based course directed at the creation of multimedia applications. Students come from both the Computing and Media Arts areas and group project work has been the main assessment strategy employed. A metric referred to as the Difficulty was arrived at through a factor analysis of questionnaire data. This metric has been the focus of successive offerings of this action research. A disparity in this metric between students groups became evident and efforts have been employed in subsequent iterations of the course to appease these differences. The project based instructional methodology that has been employed, is characterised by the giving of control over to the students during the development process. Peer review and assessment were also embedded within the instructional methodology to both provide exemplars of work conducted and subsequent feedback, and equity within the assessment process. A number of a...
In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning envir... more In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client computer. Tools are provided in the interface to allow students to search for concepts and create personalised views of the materials. Link annotations driven by an overlay student model are supported in all components of the system. The system supports the WWW as its addressing space but uses the local client areas to store media items expensive in terms of delivery time. Learning objects that provide frameworks for tasks and other summative assessment activities are stored on a server and delivered when required.
In this paper, we report on a unique collaboration between industry, the community and the tertia... more In this paper, we report on a unique collaboration between industry, the community and the tertiary sector in establishing and analysing community websites. The University of South Australia (UniSA) supports service learning as an approach to integrate teaching, research, and community engagement. The rewards here are two-fold in that the not-for-profit organisation in the community receives a free and tangible product that supports their functioning and which would otherwise be either too expensive or outside their skill level, while the students become involved in authentic, engaging projects that develop communication and life-long learning skills. The Sustainable Online Community Engagement (SOCE) program is a South Australian Government, Office for Volunteers funded project that provides on-line support for volunteer organisations based on the service learning model. Over the last 10 years, more that 300 community groups have participated in the project, and UniSA students in a range of courses have designed and produced websites for them. These websites have then been made available to the general public. However, very little has been done in assessing whether the websites have satisfied the ongoing requirements of the organisation once they have been made available to the general public. A further cross-sector partnership between the company Accenture and Web Technologies, a course offered at UniSA, has resulted in a suite of web analytics software being made available to support coursework. An investigation of the site provides students with background information concerning the site’s information structure. The software provides students with a visual representation of the website and the ability to navigate its structure in an intuitive way. Reports can also be generated providing a wealth information concerning the website’s conformance to web standards. The subsequent use of server log files then enables an analysis of the past traffic through the website providing the data for a further analysis. Students can use this information to then critique the website and produce a report for the organisation, based on its initial goals. This paper will discuss the software provided in this cross-sector partnership and its application in the provision of feedback to the organisations involved. The process of students providing feedback to community members in the form of reports revealed important learning opportunities for both students and their community clients. Firstly, the students must be able to present their analysis and findings using specialised knowledge of the industry, but also translate this into plain language which is useful for the layperson. Secondly, most community members were unaware of how their sites were being used and had not considered aspects such as how to make important content more accessible. These community clients were keen to learn more and apply the suggestions in the reports with the assistance of university students. The relative worth of these cross-sector partnerships is discussed and evaluated. Plans for future iterations of the course are discussed.
Interdisciplinary Journal of e-Skills and Lifelong Learning, 2011
This paper focuses on an action research that was conducted to address difficulties with the deve... more This paper focuses on an action research that was conducted to address difficulties with the development of multimedia applications. These difficulties were associated with the programming (scripting) parts of the development environment that were required to create the interactive elements within them. Initially, a learning environment based on adaptive hypermedia was constructed to provide for students with different backgrounds. Unfortunately a large amount of the content that was developed became redundant when the development software changed. Anecdotally, I was aware of these difficulties, but an analysis of questionnaire data that had been collected at the end of each course offerings, revealed a Difficulty factor that could be reduced to a value. When we looked at this figure for arts and then computing students, we found that arts students found these elements significantly more difficult than the computing. This in itself was expected but their respective values provided a metric to use in future evaluations. What followed was a longitudinal study that involved an action research to resolve the difference in this metric; the result hopefully being that students managed the development environment irrespective of their background. This involved presenting the framework for the development in a more abstract way so that global commands could be planned by the group and then used within individually created sections. A project based instructional methodology suited this course and authentic projects were used. Students were expected to engage in all aspects of the project, including the interactive elements. We avoided the situation where the arts group member became responsible for the graphic design alone. Peer review and peer assessment were embedded within the course to ensure that students maintained their engagement and got meaningful feedback that could be included in their projects. The instructional methods used resulted in there being an emphasis on all the parts of the project, and a subsequent valuing of all the components required for the project's completion.
Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 2005
In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information technol... more In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information technology related leaning environment. Fine grained concepts form the basis of the system; these are initially configured hierarchically into sessions by the instructor to constitute a week's worth of work. Tools however, exist to provide other forms of access. This constitutes a separation of the course's knowledge and skill base from the instructional methodology pursued. A session for example, is an instructor driven grouping that has instructional significance. Other instructional objects or artifacts that play particular roles in a methodology can be specified. We examine a problem based scenario and contrast it with an expository form of delivery. Adaptive hypermedia techniques driven by student profiling, are employed to provide students with feedback on their status with particular concepts. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along with web based tools to scrutinize and access information stored about them. This also includes the formal assessment maintained for the course and any individual settings used by the environment.
In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises mul... more In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client computer. A student and course model exists that determine what content item is presented, based on both student prior competencies (pre-requisite knowledge and skills) and preferences.
In this paper, we report on a course offering in 2009 within the media arts area where the develo... more In this paper, we report on a course offering in 2009 within the media arts area where the development of a Flash game was used as a group project for a cohort that included media arts and computing students. A previous offering of this course in this longitudinal study, identified through a factor analysis of questionnaire data, a metric referred to as Difficulty with the development. A disparity in this metric between student groups became evident and efforts have been employed in subsequent iterations of the course to appease these differences. A project based instructional methodology has been employed witin this course, and an authentic project sponsored by a credit union was used. Flash was used to develop the game and each group member was responsible the production of an equal section. Game structures like the representation of the game actions and associated scoring, were the responsibility of the whole group; students needed to be engaged with the whole process. Peer revie...
The move to online learning environment for the global delivery of Australian CS programs has hei... more The move to online learning environment for the global delivery of Australian CS programs has heightened the need for adaptive interactive learning environments. Research has indicated that adaptive and interactive online CS learning environments play a useful role in the provision of lifelong learning but these needs are not being fully met by current tools or COTS systems. This paper builds on a previous implementation of an adaptive multimedia learning environment, (AMLE), a networked multimedia learning environment which attempts to provide the functionality of a traditional intelligent tutoring system and looks at the support of CS learning by the provision of new highly-integrated and context aware tools.
In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information tech- n... more In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information tech- nology related leaning environment. Fine grained concepts form the basis of the system; these are initially configured hierarchically into sessions by the instructor to constitute a week's worth of work. Tools however, exist to provide other forms of access. This constitutes a separation of the course's knowledge and skill base from the instructional methodology pursued. A session for ex- ample, is an instructor driven grouping that has instructional significance. Other instructional ob- jects or artifacts that play particular roles in a methodology can be specified. We examine a prob- lem based scenario and contrast it with an expository form of delivery. Adaptive hypermedia techniques driven by student profiling, are employed to provide students with feedback on their status with particular concepts. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along wit...
In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information tech- n... more In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information tech- nology related leaning environment. Fine grained concepts form the basis of the system; these are initially configured hierarchically into sessions by the instructor to constitute a week's worth of work. Tools however, exist to provide other forms of access. This constitutes a separation of the course's knowledge and skill base from the instructional methodology pursued. A session for ex- ample, is an instructor driven grouping that has instructional significance. Other instructional ob- jects or artifacts that play particular roles in a methodology can be specified. We examine a prob- lem based scenario and contrast it with an expository form of delivery. Adaptive hypermedia techniques driven by student profiling, are employed to provide students with feedback on their status with particular concepts. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along w...
In this paper, we describe the theory and techniques we have employed within a pre-existing learn... more In this paper, we describe the theory and techniques we have employed within a pre-existing learning environment to provide personalised features for students within an IT related domain. Our system is based on concepts, both declarative and practical, that can be combined in different configurations, and displayed in different media formats to account for different students. We also use instructional objects to represent higher level instructional content that play particular roles in a methodology. These objects could be groupings of concepts presented to the learner, or some instructional template that plays another role within the methodology. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along with web based tools to scrutinise and access information stored about them. This includes both the formal assessment data along with the individual settings that drive the environment.
In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning envir... more In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client comp uter. Tools are provided in the interface to allow students to search for concepts and create personalised views of the materials. Link annotations driven by an overlay student model are supported in all components of the system. The system supports the WWW as its addressing space but uses the local client areas to store media items expensive in terms of delivery time. Learning objects that provide frameworks for tasks and other summative assessment activities are stored on a server and delivered when required.
EdMedia: World Conference on Educational Media and Technology, Jun 1, 2002
In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises mul... more In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client computer. A student and course model exists that determine what content item is presented, based on both student prior competencies (pre-requisite knowledge and skills) and preferences.
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2005
In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information technol... more In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information technology related leaning environment. Fine grained concepts form the basis of the system; these are initially configured hierarchically into sessions by the instructor to constitute a week's worth of work. Tools however, exist to provide other forms of access. This constitutes a separation of the course's knowledge and skill base from the instructional methodology pursued. A session for example, is an instructor driven grouping that has instructional significance. Other instructional objects or artifacts that play particular roles in a methodology can be specified. We examine a problem based scenario and contrast it with an expository form of delivery. Adaptive hypermedia techniques driven by student profiling, are employed to provide students with feedback on their status with particular concepts. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along with web based tools to scrutinize and access information stored about them. This also includes the formal assessment maintained for the course and any individual settings used by the environment.
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2009
In this paper, we report on a longitudinal study into instruction in a technology based course di... more In this paper, we report on a longitudinal study into instruction in a technology based course directed at the creation of multimedia applications. Students come from both the Computing and Media Arts areas and group project work has been the main assessment strategy employed. A metric referred to as the Difficulty was arrived at through a factor analysis of questionnaire data. This metric has been the focus of successive offerings of this action research. A disparity in this metric between students groups became evident and efforts have been employed in subsequent iterations of the course to appease these differences. The project based instructional methodology that has been employed, is characterised by the giving of control over to the students during the development process. Peer review and assessment were also embedded within the instructional methodology to both provide exemplars of work conducted and subsequent feedback, and equity within the assessment process. A number of assessment rubrics were introduced to aid in this process. Interestingly, the end result was an movement on the Difficulty factor for the Computing students. Both cohorts agreed that the instructional methodology was satisfactory.
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2010
In this paper, we report on a course offering in 2009 within the media arts area where the develo... more In this paper, we report on a course offering in 2009 within the media arts area where the development of a Flash game was used as a group project for a cohort that included media arts and computing students. A previous offering of this course in this longitudinal study, identified through a factor analysis of questionnaire data, a metric referred to as Difficulty with the development. A disparity in this metric between student groups became evident and efforts have been employed in subsequent iterations of the course to appease these differences. A project based instructional methodology has been employed witin this course, and an authentic project sponsored by a credit union was used. Flash was used to develop the game and each group member was responsible the production of an equal section. Game structures like the representation of the game actions and associated scoring, were the responsibility of the whole group; students needed to be engaged with the whole process. Peer review and assessment were embedded within the instructional methodology to ensure that students maintained their engagement. A number of assessment rubrics were used to ensure that all activities were viewed favourably. The end result was an movement on the Difficulty factor and an appeasement of the initial difference. Both cohorts agreed that the instructional methodology was satisfactory.
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2002
In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises mul... more In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client computer. A student and course model exists that determine what content item is presented, based on both student prior competencies (pre-requisite knowledge and skills) and preferences.
Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 2007
In this paper, we describe the characteristics of Project Based Learning, a derivative of problem... more In this paper, we describe the characteristics of Project Based Learning, a derivative of problem based learning and report on a multimedia course where this methodology was pursued. The instructional materials are reported on and the artefacts/documentation developed by students discussed. A factor analysis was performed on questionnaire data that was collected at the end of the semester to evaluate the methodology pursued and the instructional artefacts developed. The results of this analysis are discussed along with the implications of this analysis on the use of online learning environments. A model to provide alternate instruction in an online environment are further discussed.
The move to online learning environment for the global delivery of Australian CS programs has hei... more The move to online learning environment for the global delivery of Australian CS programs has heightened the need for adaptive interactive learning environments. Research has indicated that adaptive and interactive online CS learning environments play a useful role in the provision of lifelong learning but these needs are not being fully met by current tools or COTS systems. This paper builds on a previous implementation of an adaptive multimedia learning environment, (AMLE), a networked multimedia learning environment which attempts to provide the functionality of a traditional intelligent tutoring system and looks at the support of CS learning by the provision of new highly-integrated and context aware tools.. .
Informing Science and IT Education Conference, 2003
In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning envir... more In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client comp uter. Tools are provided in the interface to allow students to search for concepts and create personalised views of the materials. Link annotations driven by an overlay student model are supported in all components of the system. The system supports the WWW as its addressing space but uses the local client areas to store media items expensive in terms of delivery time. Learning objects that provide frameworks for tasks and other summative assessment activities are stored on a server and delivered when required.
In this paper, we report on a longitudinal study into instruction in a technology based course di... more In this paper, we report on a longitudinal study into instruction in a technology based course directed at the creation of multimedia applications. Students come from both the Computing and Media Arts areas and group project work has been the main assessment strategy employed. A metric referred to as the Difficulty was arrived at through a factor analysis of questionnaire data. This metric has been the focus of successive offerings of this action research. A disparity in this metric between students groups became evident and efforts have been employed in subsequent iterations of the course to appease these differences. The project based instructional methodology that has been employed, is characterised by the giving of control over to the students during the development process. Peer review and assessment were also embedded within the instructional methodology to both provide exemplars of work conducted and subsequent feedback, and equity within the assessment process. A number of a...
In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning envir... more In this paper, we describe the development of a personalised multimedia/hypermedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client computer. Tools are provided in the interface to allow students to search for concepts and create personalised views of the materials. Link annotations driven by an overlay student model are supported in all components of the system. The system supports the WWW as its addressing space but uses the local client areas to store media items expensive in terms of delivery time. Learning objects that provide frameworks for tasks and other summative assessment activities are stored on a server and delivered when required.
In this paper, we report on a unique collaboration between industry, the community and the tertia... more In this paper, we report on a unique collaboration between industry, the community and the tertiary sector in establishing and analysing community websites. The University of South Australia (UniSA) supports service learning as an approach to integrate teaching, research, and community engagement. The rewards here are two-fold in that the not-for-profit organisation in the community receives a free and tangible product that supports their functioning and which would otherwise be either too expensive or outside their skill level, while the students become involved in authentic, engaging projects that develop communication and life-long learning skills. The Sustainable Online Community Engagement (SOCE) program is a South Australian Government, Office for Volunteers funded project that provides on-line support for volunteer organisations based on the service learning model. Over the last 10 years, more that 300 community groups have participated in the project, and UniSA students in a range of courses have designed and produced websites for them. These websites have then been made available to the general public. However, very little has been done in assessing whether the websites have satisfied the ongoing requirements of the organisation once they have been made available to the general public. A further cross-sector partnership between the company Accenture and Web Technologies, a course offered at UniSA, has resulted in a suite of web analytics software being made available to support coursework. An investigation of the site provides students with background information concerning the site’s information structure. The software provides students with a visual representation of the website and the ability to navigate its structure in an intuitive way. Reports can also be generated providing a wealth information concerning the website’s conformance to web standards. The subsequent use of server log files then enables an analysis of the past traffic through the website providing the data for a further analysis. Students can use this information to then critique the website and produce a report for the organisation, based on its initial goals. This paper will discuss the software provided in this cross-sector partnership and its application in the provision of feedback to the organisations involved. The process of students providing feedback to community members in the form of reports revealed important learning opportunities for both students and their community clients. Firstly, the students must be able to present their analysis and findings using specialised knowledge of the industry, but also translate this into plain language which is useful for the layperson. Secondly, most community members were unaware of how their sites were being used and had not considered aspects such as how to make important content more accessible. These community clients were keen to learn more and apply the suggestions in the reports with the assistance of university students. The relative worth of these cross-sector partnerships is discussed and evaluated. Plans for future iterations of the course are discussed.
Interdisciplinary Journal of e-Skills and Lifelong Learning, 2011
This paper focuses on an action research that was conducted to address difficulties with the deve... more This paper focuses on an action research that was conducted to address difficulties with the development of multimedia applications. These difficulties were associated with the programming (scripting) parts of the development environment that were required to create the interactive elements within them. Initially, a learning environment based on adaptive hypermedia was constructed to provide for students with different backgrounds. Unfortunately a large amount of the content that was developed became redundant when the development software changed. Anecdotally, I was aware of these difficulties, but an analysis of questionnaire data that had been collected at the end of each course offerings, revealed a Difficulty factor that could be reduced to a value. When we looked at this figure for arts and then computing students, we found that arts students found these elements significantly more difficult than the computing. This in itself was expected but their respective values provided a metric to use in future evaluations. What followed was a longitudinal study that involved an action research to resolve the difference in this metric; the result hopefully being that students managed the development environment irrespective of their background. This involved presenting the framework for the development in a more abstract way so that global commands could be planned by the group and then used within individually created sections. A project based instructional methodology suited this course and authentic projects were used. Students were expected to engage in all aspects of the project, including the interactive elements. We avoided the situation where the arts group member became responsible for the graphic design alone. Peer review and peer assessment were embedded within the course to ensure that students maintained their engagement and got meaningful feedback that could be included in their projects. The instructional methods used resulted in there being an emphasis on all the parts of the project, and a subsequent valuing of all the components required for the project's completion.
Issues in Informing Science and Information Technology, 2005
In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information technol... more In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information technology related leaning environment. Fine grained concepts form the basis of the system; these are initially configured hierarchically into sessions by the instructor to constitute a week's worth of work. Tools however, exist to provide other forms of access. This constitutes a separation of the course's knowledge and skill base from the instructional methodology pursued. A session for example, is an instructor driven grouping that has instructional significance. Other instructional objects or artifacts that play particular roles in a methodology can be specified. We examine a problem based scenario and contrast it with an expository form of delivery. Adaptive hypermedia techniques driven by student profiling, are employed to provide students with feedback on their status with particular concepts. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along with web based tools to scrutinize and access information stored about them. This also includes the formal assessment maintained for the course and any individual settings used by the environment.
In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises mul... more In this paper, we describe an evolving adaptive multimedia learning environment that utilises multimedia presentation techniques in its interface while still providing Internet connectivity for management and delivery purposes. The structure of the domain is based on concepts that can be presented in a variety of ways; multimedia players display the content on the client computer. A student and course model exists that determine what content item is presented, based on both student prior competencies (pre-requisite knowledge and skills) and preferences.
In this paper, we report on a course offering in 2009 within the media arts area where the develo... more In this paper, we report on a course offering in 2009 within the media arts area where the development of a Flash game was used as a group project for a cohort that included media arts and computing students. A previous offering of this course in this longitudinal study, identified through a factor analysis of questionnaire data, a metric referred to as Difficulty with the development. A disparity in this metric between student groups became evident and efforts have been employed in subsequent iterations of the course to appease these differences. A project based instructional methodology has been employed witin this course, and an authentic project sponsored by a credit union was used. Flash was used to develop the game and each group member was responsible the production of an equal section. Game structures like the representation of the game actions and associated scoring, were the responsibility of the whole group; students needed to be engaged with the whole process. Peer revie...
The move to online learning environment for the global delivery of Australian CS programs has hei... more The move to online learning environment for the global delivery of Australian CS programs has heightened the need for adaptive interactive learning environments. Research has indicated that adaptive and interactive online CS learning environments play a useful role in the provision of lifelong learning but these needs are not being fully met by current tools or COTS systems. This paper builds on a previous implementation of an adaptive multimedia learning environment, (AMLE), a networked multimedia learning environment which attempts to provide the functionality of a traditional intelligent tutoring system and looks at the support of CS learning by the provision of new highly-integrated and context aware tools.
In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information tech- n... more In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information tech- nology related leaning environment. Fine grained concepts form the basis of the system; these are initially configured hierarchically into sessions by the instructor to constitute a week's worth of work. Tools however, exist to provide other forms of access. This constitutes a separation of the course's knowledge and skill base from the instructional methodology pursued. A session for ex- ample, is an instructor driven grouping that has instructional significance. Other instructional ob- jects or artifacts that play particular roles in a methodology can be specified. We examine a prob- lem based scenario and contrast it with an expository form of delivery. Adaptive hypermedia techniques driven by student profiling, are employed to provide students with feedback on their status with particular concepts. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along wit...
In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information tech- n... more In this paper, we examine techniques employed to customize features within an information tech- nology related leaning environment. Fine grained concepts form the basis of the system; these are initially configured hierarchically into sessions by the instructor to constitute a week's worth of work. Tools however, exist to provide other forms of access. This constitutes a separation of the course's knowledge and skill base from the instructional methodology pursued. A session for ex- ample, is an instructor driven grouping that has instructional significance. Other instructional ob- jects or artifacts that play particular roles in a methodology can be specified. We examine a prob- lem based scenario and contrast it with an expository form of delivery. Adaptive hypermedia techniques driven by student profiling, are employed to provide students with feedback on their status with particular concepts. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along w...
In this paper, we describe the theory and techniques we have employed within a pre-existing learn... more In this paper, we describe the theory and techniques we have employed within a pre-existing learning environment to provide personalised features for students within an IT related domain. Our system is based on concepts, both declarative and practical, that can be combined in different configurations, and displayed in different media formats to account for different students. We also use instructional objects to represent higher level instructional content that play particular roles in a methodology. These objects could be groupings of concepts presented to the learner, or some instructional template that plays another role within the methodology. Students have access to all course metadata through a range of tools, along with web based tools to scrutinise and access information stored about them. This includes both the formal assessment data along with the individual settings that drive the environment.
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Papers by Frank Kurzel