So, you've attended one of the RLO-CETL's workshops on developing new RLOs. You're probably a bit tired and have lots of ideas, but the whole process might now seem a bit daunting.
This is a dangerous time - you'll either now steam through and complete your RLO or other things might get in the way - your day job, for example.
Here are some things that you can do now that don't take lot of time, but by chipping away at them, you'll make measurable progress:
1) Review the notes and ideas you wrote on the posters - break them down into screens if you can. The poster notes won't mean much to you in a few month's time so transcribe them now. I use Post It notes and stick them on a board - you can move them around easily.
2) Review the objectives of your RLO and reflect on them - are you putting in too much content for a 20 minute piece of learning? Remember you are writing a small object , not a module or course. Making things too big is a common pitfall and sets you up for a fall.
3) Write a list of question that cover the objectives of your RLO - i.e if the learner can answer them, then they have mastered the content of the object. Don't worry about what type of question it is or what the feedback will be, just get it down on paper - it will be the blueprint for your screens and content. Guidelines on writing effective the questions and feedback will be covered in the next post in January.
If you do these three things as soon as possible after attending a workshop, then you will have the blueprint for your object mapped out for you. The next bit , writing content, will be much easier as a result.
Rob Alton
Wednesday 31 December 2008
Friday 19 December 2008
Writing & Using Text in Reusable Learning Objects
Many of the RLOs we develop for the CETL are interactive tutorials. New material is presented as text, audio, graphics and video in a series of screens. Text is probably the most used media element in our projects.
Reading lots of text can become tedious for the learner and it makes them turn off, get distracted and only partially engage with the content. In this post, I look at how you can sharpen up your writing to make easier for your learners to understand new content, reflect on it, remember and practice it.
First some facts about how learners read text online:
They read much more slowly online than reading from a book or article.
They find on-screen text harder to read than paper based text.
They often scan on-screen text rather than studying it.
They read screens in an F shape – across, down, across, down.
So, how can you write text that is readable, engaging and that also gets your content message across? Here are some tips that you can try out on any new productions. Like all new skills, you will need to practice a lot before it becomes second nature.
My tips on writing text:
If you are an academic, you are probably used to writing a specified number of words for a thesis, article or book. This doesn’t apply in e-learning, where you should try to write as few words as possible to get your message across.
1) Keep your sentences short and declarative.
2) Limit punctuation to full stops and commas – this will help you stop writing long, complex sentences.
3) Avoid using passive sentences and write actively. Here’s a passive sentence: “the mixture is placed in a beaker, and the temperature is then raised.” Here’s the same information written actively: “you put the mixture in a beaker and heat it up.” This is particularly important if you are thinking of recording your text as audio – passive sentences will sound stilted.
4) Simplify your vocabulary as much as possible. Use ‘so' instead of ‘therefore', ‘but’ instead of ‘however’, ‘goes before’ instead of ‘precedes’.
5) If your subject requires you to present long text pieces, consider offering them as downloadable pdfs – your learners will appreciate ‘take away’ texts.
6) When you have finished writing a piece of text, edit it to use fewer words without losing the content message. Try to use 50% fewer words – you won’t always be able to do it, but the effort will make your text sharper in your current and future productions.
Some tips on presenting text:
You don’t always have to present text as sentences in paragraphs. Consider presenting it in these ways:
Use headings to help anchor learners to the topic, remember learners will scan your pages
Use bulleted lists
Use clickable bulleted lists - click to reveal more content – it makes information easier to read and assimilate
Use tables
If you need any help, please contact me.
Rob Alton
Reading lots of text can become tedious for the learner and it makes them turn off, get distracted and only partially engage with the content. In this post, I look at how you can sharpen up your writing to make easier for your learners to understand new content, reflect on it, remember and practice it.
First some facts about how learners read text online:
They read much more slowly online than reading from a book or article.
They find on-screen text harder to read than paper based text.
They often scan on-screen text rather than studying it.
They read screens in an F shape – across, down, across, down.
So, how can you write text that is readable, engaging and that also gets your content message across? Here are some tips that you can try out on any new productions. Like all new skills, you will need to practice a lot before it becomes second nature.
My tips on writing text:
If you are an academic, you are probably used to writing a specified number of words for a thesis, article or book. This doesn’t apply in e-learning, where you should try to write as few words as possible to get your message across.
1) Keep your sentences short and declarative.
2) Limit punctuation to full stops and commas – this will help you stop writing long, complex sentences.
3) Avoid using passive sentences and write actively. Here’s a passive sentence: “the mixture is placed in a beaker, and the temperature is then raised.” Here’s the same information written actively: “you put the mixture in a beaker and heat it up.” This is particularly important if you are thinking of recording your text as audio – passive sentences will sound stilted.
4) Simplify your vocabulary as much as possible. Use ‘so' instead of ‘therefore', ‘but’ instead of ‘however’, ‘goes before’ instead of ‘precedes’.
5) If your subject requires you to present long text pieces, consider offering them as downloadable pdfs – your learners will appreciate ‘take away’ texts.
6) When you have finished writing a piece of text, edit it to use fewer words without losing the content message. Try to use 50% fewer words – you won’t always be able to do it, but the effort will make your text sharper in your current and future productions.
Some tips on presenting text:
You don’t always have to present text as sentences in paragraphs. Consider presenting it in these ways:
Use headings to help anchor learners to the topic, remember learners will scan your pages
Use bulleted lists
Use clickable bulleted lists - click to reveal more content – it makes information easier to read and assimilate
Use tables
If you need any help, please contact me.
Rob Alton
Tuesday 16 December 2008
CIES Reward Programme - University of Ulster
Just one week after the December Wolfson Reward Programme (WRP) we are just north of Belfast facilitating the University of Ulster's Reward & Recognition Programme at the Rosspark Hotel. This two-day residential event has attracted 30 participants: academics, developers and students from across five faculties, plus 11 facilitators including myself, Tom Boyle and Richard Windle.
Alan Masson and Colette Murphy at the CETL Institutional E-learning services have taken our WRP and adapted it for their own local staff and resource development needs. This is the first of four two-day events we will be helping them run over the coming eighteen months and judging from the enthusiastic way in which folks have engaged and the large quantity of ideas that have been generated and set out on our trademark laminated posters, it is already a success.
Here are the learning designs: http://www.ucel.ac.uk/images/workshop/ulster/designs/
The gallery: http://www.ucel.ac.uk/images/workshop/ulster/
and the evaluations: http://www.ucel.ac.uk/workshops/docs/cies_dec08_eval.pdf
Alan Masson and Colette Murphy at the CETL Institutional E-learning services have taken our WRP and adapted it for their own local staff and resource development needs. This is the first of four two-day events we will be helping them run over the coming eighteen months and judging from the enthusiastic way in which folks have engaged and the large quantity of ideas that have been generated and set out on our trademark laminated posters, it is already a success.
Here are the learning designs: http://www.ucel.ac.uk/images/workshop/ulster/designs/
The gallery: http://www.ucel.ac.uk/images/workshop/ulster/
and the evaluations: http://www.ucel.ac.uk/workshops/docs/cies_dec08_eval.pdf
Thursday 11 December 2008
The Wolfson Reward Programme - December 2008
We've just had a very hectic and successful three days where 37 academics, developers and students came to Wolfson College and RLO-CETL, Cambridge to meet up and work collaboratively on learning object projects.
We started on Monday 8 December with an introduction to the Wolfson Reward Programme for newcomers – what it is and how to get the best out of it. Local academic coordinators presented ongoing work from each of the partner institutions and Tom Boyle gave an overview of the priorities and challenges for us as we move into our final funding phase 2009-10.
In the afternoon, participants split into groups to conduct teamwork. A large group from Nottingham and a number of partner universities focused on the SHOULD (Supporting health occupations’ understanding of learning disabilities) project. This is a very exciting project, being completely student driven. For more info see: http://www.nottinghamnetlearning.com/nursing/sonet/projects/should/
The developers are working hard on Version 2 of the GLO-maker tool (see V. 1.0 at http://glo-maker.org and they got together for a techy Flex tutorial, continued on Day Two.
In the evening we had a jolly fizz reception and sit-down supper at Wolfson in the Combination room.
Mini-project team-work continued the next morning and afternoon. Jenny Piggott, Director of NRICH Maths, came along to give a great interactive presentation of some of the many resources plus audience participation in a very interesting rope trick! Maths doesn't have to be difficult or boring. See http://nrich.maths.org/ for much more.
That evening we were lucky enough to be invited to the Master's Lodge at Magdalene College for a Reception before sitting down to a splendid candlelit dinner in Hall. The Master, Duncan Robinson, gave a highly appropriate after dinner speech highlighting the importance of teaching and sharing and this struck a chord with all of us.
Numbers somewhat depleted on Wednesday morning (wonder why?), we regrouped for a final session with presentations of work so far from the students on the SHOULD project, Alan Williams from Nottingham who got some feedback on his design, and Tom Boyle rounded off the morning with an overview of the developer wiki where they get up to all things technical.
We started on Monday 8 December with an introduction to the Wolfson Reward Programme for newcomers – what it is and how to get the best out of it. Local academic coordinators presented ongoing work from each of the partner institutions and Tom Boyle gave an overview of the priorities and challenges for us as we move into our final funding phase 2009-10.
In the afternoon, participants split into groups to conduct teamwork. A large group from Nottingham and a number of partner universities focused on the SHOULD (Supporting health occupations’ understanding of learning disabilities) project. This is a very exciting project, being completely student driven. For more info see: http://www.nottinghamnetlearning.com/nursing/sonet/projects/should/
The developers are working hard on Version 2 of the GLO-maker tool (see V. 1.0 at http://glo-maker.org and they got together for a techy Flex tutorial, continued on Day Two.
In the evening we had a jolly fizz reception and sit-down supper at Wolfson in the Combination room.
Mini-project team-work continued the next morning and afternoon. Jenny Piggott, Director of NRICH Maths, came along to give a great interactive presentation of some of the many resources plus audience participation in a very interesting rope trick! Maths doesn't have to be difficult or boring. See http://nrich.maths.org/ for much more.
That evening we were lucky enough to be invited to the Master's Lodge at Magdalene College for a Reception before sitting down to a splendid candlelit dinner in Hall. The Master, Duncan Robinson, gave a highly appropriate after dinner speech highlighting the importance of teaching and sharing and this struck a chord with all of us.
Numbers somewhat depleted on Wednesday morning (wonder why?), we regrouped for a final session with presentations of work so far from the students on the SHOULD project, Alan Williams from Nottingham who got some feedback on his design, and Tom Boyle rounded off the morning with an overview of the developer wiki where they get up to all things technical.
Welcome to the RLO-CETL blog
We're setting up this blog as a quick and informal communication method, to encourage discussion and feedback; to share tips, tricks and best practice; to provide alerts about new resources and events; to help consolidate and grow our communities of e-learning practice.
www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk
www.rlo-cetl.ac.uk
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
