"Federated learning: out of reach no matter how close",Oleksandr Lapshyn
Team 4 d unit 1 wiki
1. WHAT MAKES AN
EFFECTIVE LEARNING
OBJECT (LO)?
IX535: Unit 1 Team Wiki
Team 4D
Sharon Anderson
Sarah Connelly
Rachelle Gamblin
Abigail Ngwako
Viki Viertel
3. Shifthappens: Clear Objective?
Not clearly stated
Bombarded with data & facts
overwhelming & alarmist info
Tries to highlight changes in world & warn
viewers world will continue to change
4. Copyright: Clear Objective?
Inferred from question on first slide: How does
copyright apply to online resources and
technologies?
Gives background and info to answer question
5. Shift Happens: Effective
aspects
Displays text effectively (Bray, 2009)
Good ratio of text to visuals
text not overwhelming
Varies format (Bray, 2009)
Audience doesn’t get bored
“show rather than tell” (Bray, 2009, p. 208)
Use familiar concepts (Bray, 2009)
i.e. using examples related to CDs, laptops, college,
Myspace, etc.
Incorporated participation/interactivity
Asking questions (i.e. Did you know? Pop quiz, To
whom were these questions addressed before
Google?)
6. Copyright: Effective aspects
Organized
Provides list of topics at beginning
Summary slide at the end
Limits number of slides (Bray, 2009)
Good job in beginning with lists, bullet points
Incorporated participation/interactivity
i.e. Quiz towards the end- what does the Teach
Act let us do?
7. What parts were ineffective?
LO not clearly stated
No target audience
No degree of
measurement
Started with an non-
leading question
Font size too small
Length of
presentation was too
long
Style of text
Graphics
Too many bullet
statements
Shifthappens Copyright
8. What was the most glaring
presentation mistakes made?
No learning objectives
early on in the
presentation.
Font size is small and
difficult to read
Music in the
background was
inappropriate and
unfitting of presentation
Inconsistency in the
slides
Font size too small
Some graphics
used are irrelevant
Sides have too
much information
(“Wordy”)
Shifthappens Copyright
9. Q:Was it a useful training tool?
Answer: No
“a training tool needs to
express the training
objective in terms of a
desired behavior or
outcome”(Stimson, 2002,
p. 6)
did not highlight any
objectives
No expected outcome
Answer: No
“ …for the learner to
teach themselves must
have an end goal”
(Bray, 2009)
Data filled but with no
direction given
Did not provide goals
or objectives
Shifthappens Copyright
10. References
Bray, T. (2009). The Training Design Manual:
The complete practical quide to creating
effective and successful training programs
(2nd ed.). London, England: Kogan Page Ltd.
Stimson, N. (2002). How to write and prepare
training materials (2nd ed.). London, England:
Kogan Page Ltd.
Editor's Notes
In order to get a better understanding of what makes an effective Learning Object (LO) we will be evaluating two learning objects (LOs) Shift Happens and Copyright in this presentations. Team 4D will be addressing whether each presentation included a clear objective, effective and ineffective aspects, any mistakes that were made and whether it was a useful training tool.
The objective of this learning object is not clearly stated. The slideshow is examining America’s future in the 21st Century. The viewer is bombarded with data and facts – the slideshow is interesting and informative, but also overwhelming and a bit alarmist in nature. The objective of this learning object is debatable. To me, this presentation seeks to highlight how much the world has changed, and to warn the viewer that our world is not done changing.
The objective of this learning object is not specifically stated, but it can be inferred that the presentation aims to answer the question on the first slide: How does copyright apply to online resources and technologies? The presentation provides a lot of background on Copyright law specific to academia, and does improve the viewer’s ability to begin to answer that question.
“…most people remember what they see more easily than what they hear…” (Bray, 2009, p. 196). The Shift Happens presentation makes use of visuals very well. According to Bray (2009) it is important that the text is displayed effectively in visual presentations. In Shift Happens presentation the ratio of text to visuals is good, there is not too much text to make it overwhelming to the audience.With so many slides, 67 in total for Shift Happens presentation, it is important to vary the format (Bray, 2009) so that the audience does not get bored. As Bray said “show rather than tell” (Bray, 2009, p. 208). I think the Shift Happens presentation does a good job of that by varying how the visuals and facts are presented. To make it easier for audience to take in the information it is also helpful to use familiar concepts (Bray, 2009). In the Shift Happens presentation they relate the facts to many examples that we can all understand such as number of CDs, laptops, college attendance, Myspace, etc. It can also help to incorporate participation or interactivity to make the presentation memorable and easy to retain. Shift Happens presentation does this by asking some questions to the audience to make them think about the facts as they are presented, such as Did you know? Or To whom were these questions addressed before Google? They even have a pop quiz midway through.
Some of the effective aspects of the second presentation on Copyright include the following. There is good organization in the presentation with the outline of topics covered at the beginning and then summary slide at the end.According to Bray (2009) having too many slides can be a disadvantage since most people will lose interest after awhile and it would be difficult to retain the information. The Copyright presentation does a good job with only having 12 slides. At the beginning of the presentation they did a good job utilizing lists or bullet points to make it less overwhelming to the audience.Lastly, the Copyright presentation included some participation or interactivity towards the end by including a quiz at the end, asking “what does the Teach Act let us do?”
Shifthappens:The learning objective was not clearly stated. Bray (2009), “An objective, on the other hand, is a clearly defined milestone which is a step towards achieving an aim” (loc. 2787). Without a clearly stated objective, the learner has no idea what they are supposed to accomplish or take away from the learning session. The performance requirement, criteria and, conditions were not listed. There was no degree of measurement. Who is the target audience? The question would have to assume it is not elementary students but possibly high school or college age students would understand the presentation.The length of the slide show was ineffective, PowerPoint presentations should be short and sweets while highlighting the most important facts and points. The font was a bit small so it was at times difficult to read. Copyright:In this presentation the parts of the presentation, which were ineffective, was the style of the text. It was difficult to read. The graphics used did not follow along with subject. The slide, which contained the Fair Use factors, was too wordy and the font was too small to read even on a computer screen. Too many bullet statements were used on slide number eight. The indentions were also not used correctly on slide nine.
Shifthappens: The most glaring presentation mistakes were referencing the learning objectives. It begs the question what does the learner need to know? This was not known until the very end. The presentation itself was well put together, however the lack of knowing up front what the learner was going to learn was missing. Also, the font size is small and difficult to read. And lastly, the music in the background was like a lullaby and due to the length of the presentation it may cause drowsiness. Copyright:The most glaring mistakes that I noticed were the inconsistency in the slides in terms of the use of bullets, capitalization and use of bold lettering. Slides need to be consistent when using bullet, numerical format, Roman numerals or the alphabet, the creator of the presentation used several different versions within the same slideshow. The font size was not ideal for a PowerPoint presentation, it is important not to use distracting fonts, font colors or small font sizes, this detracts from the information being displayed. Using graphics in a PowerPoint presentation can be a great way to grab the attention of the audience, however the use of graphics can be a bit overwhelming when being used in excess and when the graphics being used are not relevant to the presentation. I found some of the graphics in this presentation to be very distracting and not necessary for the presentation.
Question: was it a useful training tool?Shifthappens:Answer: NoAs a training tool I felt that this presentation did not communicate the objectives clearly. According to Stimson (2002 pg. 6) “Effectiveness, achieving your objective, is the sole reason for communicating at all.” Additionally Stimson (2002 pg.6) states that “a training tool needs to express the training objective in terms of a desired behavior or outcome.”This presentation did not highlight any objectives specifically. The visuals of the presentation did not lead to any communicated expected outcome. Copyright:Answer: NoThis presentation was data filled, but no direction was given for what to do with this information. According to Bray (2009) the Structuralist approach to how people learn is a way in which a learner teaches himself or herself, a PowerPoint with volumes of data such as this one, appears to be in this genre, in that it is self paced. However this is Structuralist framework Bray (2009) states that for the learner teaches themselves but must have an end goal, to be able to breakdown the process. In this case the presentation did not provide any information for goals or objectives.
