POCKET

The RLO-CETL is the Centre for Excellence for the design, development and use of learning objects. The partner institutions are London Metropolitan University, the University of Cambridge and the University of Nottingham.

The CETL develops, shares and evaluates learning objects and leads on innovation in pedagogical design.

This Web site gives access to a rich set of learning objects, tools and information developed by RLO-CETL.

The Informing Science Institute’s open source Learning Objects Repository (ISI OSLOR) is an Open Source LOR created by a team of 5 individuals. The source code is available to download  as a model to use, expand, adapt, modify, and/or enhance the LO repository.

Today I had a very useful meeting with the E-Learning Development Team at the University of Derby. I met with Pete Radcliff, Adam Bailey and Glenn Mcgarry to get their thoughts and opinions on the materials we had produced so far for POCKET. The following points were raised:  Transferring the materials to a VLE 

• We briefly discussed how the materials could be transferred to a VLE like Blackboard and the option of using RELOAD was suggested.

Material content

• A list of technical requirements could be included in the Introduction section of each unit (eg. This unit contains audio, Flash files…) Maybe include a list of websites where any necessary software/plugins can be downloaded
• The glossary tool that is included in the OU XML Schema could be used more to explain complex terms and definitions, particularly in the law units.
• It was suggested that another academic who is a specialist in the field should look over the materials. This will be done through the final review forms.
• There should be a consistent use of acronyms on every page (this applies to the law units)

Multimedia

• More explanation should be provided for the ‘high’ and ‘low resolution’ options for the video media.
• Contact Lyn Pearson at the Interactive Media Unit or guidance on accessibility (eg. high contrast versions)
• Create different silhouettes (different genders, ethnicities) for the ‘quantitative and qualitative data’ animation
• Photograph interaction: state the number of hotspots, maybe differentiate the different hotspots more clearly, make the arrows more prominent, increase readability of the text.
• Activities could include more detail in the instruction and to let learners know the kind of activity (ie. research, interaction, animation, film). This could be a series of headings.
• Activities should be a way of encouraging learners to think about the subject.
• All activities should give learners a positive experience. (ie. Having ‘wrong answer’ feedback might not be encouraging
• Is there a way of creating more space between activities when they are displayed one after another?
• The ‘most valuable customer’ interactive quiz should contain more information to help learners complete the quiz (ie. Contained in the preceding text or on a splash page at the start of the quiz). Other ideas included having hint boxes, showing all of the customers on the same page so that they can be compared, having a range to ‘rate’ the customer instead of just three levels (high, median and low) and having a summary to sum up all the information for reflection.
• It was felt that the law units could benefit from more real-life examples to aid understanding of the material.
• For example, to explain bilateral and multilateral economic regulation.
• Hard and soft law drag and drop activity: draggers could be moved to the middle to make the interaction work better
• Multiple choice questions: it would be helpful if the learners had to commit themselves to an answer to stop them revealing the answer straight away (the EDO team might be able to provide some code for this). It would be helpful if the answers provided more reflection for learners - for example if it explained why the other answers were not correct. The answers are not always provided in the preceding text, so this should be noted in the question (ie. ‘This hasn’t been directly covered in the preceding section, but see if you can work out the answer anyway’)
• The multiple choice questions could be designed in Flash, an example of this can be seen in the OpenLearn unit: Exploring the English Language
• The interactive map showing the countries who signed the Bretton Woods agreement should have mored instructions. It would be helpful if there was an option to show all the countries who signed as well as showing them individually - regions could even be selected instead of individual countries. This would also shorten the long list of countries which are currently named individually on separate lines. The learners could be asked to select which countries they thought signed the agreement and then the answer could be revealed. Instead of using a modern map, use a map from the 1940s.
• Look at animations from the BBC news for inspiration  

Sarah and I have a meeting next week with the University of Exeter to begin the transformation process of their module material. To prepare for the meeting I have read through all of their module material and made notes about how the material can be transformed into open content. This led to the creation of a new content development plan which details the process of the transformation of module material into a single OpenLearn unit. I have uploaded this map onto our POCKET collaboration space on OpenLearn.

The Creative Commons website also has a page on case studies of projects that use Creative Commons Licenses. At the end of POCKET we might consider writing about our experiences on the project here, as the Creative Commons Licenses is an important part of the project.

On Tuesday I went to the Buxton campus to visit Louise Buxton, content author of the Customer Service Skills module. Progress is going well on this module and there are currently three units uploaded onto OpenLearn in various stages of development: Introduction to Customer Service; Responding to Customer Needs; and Market Research Methods.

Louise has rewritten a lot of the material to address the copyright issues of quoting from various websites and books and also to provide feedback on various activities included in the material. Louise has also rewritten the introductions for all of the units to make them more detailed.

We discussed some of the longer external articles that are included in the material for various units and Louise has said that she will pick out the relevant information and rewrite them to avoid any further copyright issues.

We also discussed the tagwords that can be included in the metadata file: I will take keywords from the unit material and include these in the metadata file and if there were any other tagwords that Louise wanted to add she would let me know.

We agreed to meet in two weeks time and in the meantime we’ll stay in touch via email.

On Monday I met with content author, Antonios Platsas who is writing the International Economic Law module from scratch for POCKET. We both agreed that progress on this material is going very well and that the POCKET team and Antonios have a very strong working relationship. Antonios has even said that he would be very keen to write another module (based on European law) to be broken up as units for POCKET.

There are two units from this law module currently uploaded onto OpenLearn: Introduction to International Economic Law and The World Trade Organization. Antonios has also written all the six units and there are only minor changes and expansions to make. These changes include the writing of all the learning outcomes for each unit. We arranged to meet again in three weeks time, although we will stay in touch by email until then.

The WTO have some interesting interactive learning material on their website:

WTO Distance Learning Gateway

WTO eTraining

This is very relevant to the law module module being developed for POCKET, as unit 2 is all about the World Trade Organisation. The interactive activities contained on these two sites will hopefully give us some inspiration and ideas for our POCKET material. I have sent a link to the content author and we can discuss it further during our meeting on Monday.

Today I began to fill out the initial review forms for the POCKET material: one form for the Introduction to Customer Service unit and one form for Introduction to Economic Law. I plan to discuss the form with both academics when I next meet with them, as their input will be very valuable.

Yesterday I had a meeting with content author Louise Buxton at the Buxton campus. We discussed the development of her module material and viewed the two units that are currently uploaded onto the PlaySpace: Introduction to Customer Service and Responding to Customer Needs.

I informed Louise on the feedback from the meeting with Tina Wilson at the OU last week, namely: that websites included in the units should be contacted for permission; a clearer structure on activities; the need for a ’sales pitch’ introduction for the LabSpace; and the calculation for the units’ study hours.

From the equation that Tina recommended to calculate study hours for a unit, Louise and I worked out that unit 1 (Introduction to Customer Service) would be:

6 hours (time originally allocated to the section) + 0.3 (5% for new learners to the topic) = 6.3 hours
6.3 hours + 3.55 minutes (lengths of video and animation) + 6.75 hours (activity time) = 13 hours (rounded up)

I will update this study time in the metadata file for unit 1.

Louise and I agreed to meet again in two weeks time on Tuesday 8 July at Buxton. In the meantime Louise will write a reading list for each unit and will also write feedback on various activities. Louise sent me an updated version of the units today in word format.

This morning Sarah Malone (Project Manager) and I met with Antonios Platsas, who is authoring the International Economic Law module material for POCKET. This module is being written from scratch for POCKET, which means the development process is slightly different to the other modules on the project.

Antonios has written a large amount of the content now: units 1 - 5 are complete. An initial version of unit 1 has been uploaded onto the OpenLearn platform. Still to be added are the learning outcomes, study hours and interactions.

From the recommendations from the OU, the study time for these units should be along the lines of:

150 (time allocated to the whole module originally) - 30 (delivery time) = 120 120 + 6 (5% for new learners to the topic) = 126

126/6 (total number of units) = 21 hours (plus time for activities, videos, animations etc remembering that learners may want to watch these more than once)

Antonios and I plan to meet again in 2 weeks time when he will have finished writing the final unit and I will have started to create interactions for the units.