Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Further Development of an Engineering Science Course

As mentioned in the previous blog entry, the philosophy behind this Engineering Science course that I am developing is that it is intended to be used purely as an introduction to the basic engineering concepts, units and formulas that first year students studying in the diploma programme(s) will come across in various semester one subjects.
At present, all the learning activities that I do with my students are based around face to face delivery. This introductory course will have no face to face input at all. it is intended to be purely an informative course that the students can do in their own time, at their own pace, on the computer. There will be self directed tests, quizzes etc embedded within the course for student feedback and evaluation.
What learning activities I believe will work for this course will be voice over power point presentations that will be arranged into the various sections or topics making up the course. I will be using Ispring to convert the power points into flash files. In addition to these, some of my notes will be typed into word documents for extra information when required. These will then be made into web pages using eXe and it is intended to have hyperlinks embedded within these pages for additional information and enjoyment for the students. Linking to "virtual experimental" sites could be one such option. Moodle will be the delivery platform for this material.
The self directed tests, quizzes etc that are in this course will be made up with the eXe design tools that are available within that package. These self directed tests will keep the students interested and will provide instant feedback on their learning.
What would not work for this course is the old style of "distance learning" material involving a pile of photocopied notes and telling the students to read up about the various topics. Also, the ability at receiving instant feedback is not available with this form of delivery. Yes, the students could come and ask me questions, but if this was done individually, it would take up a lot of my time and resources, so consequently, not very productive.
Blended delivery would be nice, but as stated, since no teaching hours are going to be allocated for this course, it is not an option. This also applies to the use of Elluminate, although upon saying that, maybe one session of 2 hours at a convenient time for everyone could be arranged as a means of answering any pointed questions that may have arisen from the course content. This could also be a face to face session or both if the need exists.
From my last blog entry, I outlined the intended learning objectives for this course, so I don't need to repeat myself here. Elaborating a bit more on the resources that I think I need for this course, since my last blog entry, I have had some training on using eXe to the point where I can start experimenting with this package so that's a start. My last blog entry showed that I can hyperlink to youtube and such like so that's fine. I still need training with power points and using audacity for the voice over component but that should not be too much of a problem. Typing up my notes into word documents is going to be a drag, but it has to be done sometime. The trouble is when and by whom?
Time is going to be spent surfing the net for those "additional information sites" I mentioned before but I believe these will be well worth it as a means to keep the interest level up for the students.
Taping conversations and making videos are skills worth having, and I know training can be provided for them, but I feel they will not be needed for this course delivery. maybe a future one that I will develop will utilise these resources.