Principles for the selection and integration of educational multimedia materials

This paper sets out to clarify the decision framework for the selection and integration of educational multimedia material into courses. Two main areas are discussed. The first involves matching the educational principles inherent in the multimedia artefact to the aims of the course. The opposition between instructionist and constructivist approaches is particularly highlighted. The second area concerns the models used to integrate the multimedia component into the overall course. The models are classified in terms of how they distribute the balance of responsibility for explicit educational structuring between the multimedia system and the course tutor. The paper does not set out prescriptive rules; it aims rather to inform and articulate the decision space for the tutor

Online interactivity: best practice based on two case studies

The purpose of this paper is to identify and explore best practice in the effective support of online interactivity. Five key issues related to best practice are delineated, based on the experience derived from two case studies. The first case study involved online, collaborative work carried out by twenty-six conversion M.Sc. students following a module on‘Interactive Multimedia Systems'. The online group work was structured around the production of essay-style critiques and the development of prototype multimedia resources. The discussions were structured using the bulletin board facility in WebCT. The second study involved sixty-four second-year undergraduate students following a module on‘Communication via Multimedia’. These students were involved in assessed online discussion groups that aimed to foster a community in enquiry and provide an opportunity for vicarious learning. The assessed discussion groups were based on Netscape Collabra. A comparison of the experience of these two case studies led to the identification of a set of five key issues relating to best practice in the effective support of online interactivity. The first four issues concern the design and implementation of the online learning experiences. The fifth issue involves reflection and improvement on the interventions mad

The distributed development of quality courses for a virtual university

Although virtual universities are widely touted as a way of competing globally in a post‐compulsory educational market, systems for implementing them are currently underdeveloped The central thesis in this paper is that in order to ensure the quality of the development and delivery of course materials for a virtual university, a collaborative and iterative approach to authoring is required. In this paper, the development of such a process will be discussed The paper is based on experience with a project whose aims included the provision of Masters‐level courses in supply chain management for learners in full‐time employment in small and medium‐sized enterprises (SMEs). The materials developed through the project were required to be academically rigorous, vocationally relevant, and situated in the context of the learners. The project relied on distributed development, with authors based at institutions across the UK and in Europe. This paper focuses on the creation and evolution of the development processes adopted by the project, illustrating these with examples of good and bad practice. Based on these, tensions between quality and resourcing are identified, and implications will be drawn for other teams working on the development of online courses

Empowering teachers to author multimedia learning resources that support students’ critical thinking

Students studying Marketing, Fashion, Public Relations, Advertising and similar subjects need to develop a ‘critical eye’ in relation to images, media and digital technologies. This project aims to empower teachers to develop multimedia learning resources that would support students engaging in this essential activity. Developing such resources is usually demanding in terms of time and effort, and staff can be reluctant to take part due to their (perceived) lack of skills in using unfamiliar software. A key aspect is that the resources developed should act as ‘open educational resources’ (OERs) that could be reused and re-purposed easily by other teachers. An action learning methodology is followed to develop two learning resources, embed them in two different classroom contexts, and evaluate student reaction. The evaluation shows that use of the resources across a large module with over 300 students made a difference by the inclusion of theory in the students’ written work and that use in a smaller classroom with international students assisted in overcoming cultural barriers of ‘speaking out’ in a discussion setting. The teachers in both class settings report that they, and their students, found these resources relevant, accessible and useful both inside and outside the classroom

Kennesaw State University HPC Facilities and Resources

The Kennesaw State University High Performance Computing (HPC) resources represent the University’s commitment to research computing. This resource contains verbiage for users of Kennesaw State University\u27s HPC resources to include in their grants and publications. Please use the recommended citation rather than including the listed authors in the your citations

Simple Measures of Convergence in Per Capita GDP: A Note on Some Further International Evidence

We apply simple measures of convergence in per capita GDP, namely, the trends in the coefficient of variation (sigma-convergence) and rank concordance (gamma-convergence), for the period 1960-1992 to a wide group of countries which are classified using the World Bank typology. The findings indicate sigma-convergence,albeit at a slow rate, for "High Income" and "Upper Middle Income" countries, very slow to negligible convergence for "Lower Middle Income" countries and divergence for "Low Income" countries. Our results also suggest several periods for all country categories when sigma- convergence is constant. However, since we do not find gamma-convergence during these episodes, we conclude that beta-convergence is not demonstrated. The rank concordance measure emerges as significant only from about the late 1980s, save in the case of "Low Income" countries where "leap frogging" is observed from about 1981. The implications of these results for the neoclassical growth model are discussed.Economic Growth

Toward a user-oriented analytical approach to learning design

The London Pedagogy Planner (LPP) is a prototype for a collaborative online planning and design tool that supports lecturers in developing, analysing and sharing learning designs. The tool is based on a developing model of the components involved in learning design, and the critical relationships between them. As a decision tool, it makes the pedagogical design explicit as an output from the process, capturing it for testing, redesign, reuse and adaptation by the originator, or by others. The aim is to test the extent to which we can engage lecturers in reflecting on learning design, and make them part of the educational community that discovers how best to use Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL). This paper describes the development of LPP, presents pedagogical benefits of visual representations of learning designs, and proposes an analytical approach to learning design based on these visual representations. The analytical approach is illustrated based on an initial evaluation with the lecturers

Towards a user oriented analytical approach to learning design

The London Pedagogy Planner (LPP) is a prototype for a collaborative online planning and design tool that supports lecturers in developing, analysing and sharing learning designs. The tool is based on a developing model of the components involved in learning design and the critical relationships between them. As a decision tool it makes the pedagogical design explicit as an output from the process, capturing it for testing, redesign, reuse and adaptation by the originator, or by others. The aim is to test the extent to which we can engage lecturers in reflecting on learning design, and make them part of the educational community that discovers how best to use technology‐enhanced learning. This paper describes the development of LPP, presents pedagogical benefits of visual representations of learning designs and proposes an analytical approach to learning design based on these visual representations. The analytical approach is illustrated based on an initial evaluation with a small group of lecturers from two partner institutions