Istc797 final internship report jou

Running head: Using Adobe Captivate Using Adobe Captivate to create Review Game ISTC 797-Graduate Internship in Instruction Technology Spring 2010 Judy Ou The opportunity to work as an intern in the Center for Instructional Advancement and Technology (CIAT) at Towson University helped me to gain experience in the field of instructional design and enhance my technology skill sets. I worked closely with the Instructional Designer and the health course instructor to design an interactive game for the course HLTH 101-Wellness for a Diverse Society. The technology tool I used to design the game was called Adobe Captivate 4. The newest version was published in 2009. This application featured options such as variables and advanced actions. The objectives and the goals for my internship are listed below: Objectives: ,[object Object]

Identify the use of technology as learning tools to enhance the faculty teaching methods

Assist instructional designers to develop instructions and learning objects for the needs of classroom teaching and learning

Identify different methods of technology for faculty and professional staffGoals: ,[object Object]

Build a prototype of the review game Become familiar the use of the application, Adobe Captivate 4, for creating a Jeopardy game on Sexuality as Review materials for students

Identify the most simple instructions to modify the Jeopardy game for the faculty members for future use

Capture game results on BlackboardIn the first week of the internship, I watched tutorial videos on Lynda.com (http://www.lynda.com) to learn the application of Adobe Captive 4 and the functionality of using this tool. La Tonya Dyer, my internship instructor provided me original copies of Captivate instructions for both public users and the developers. The purpose of reviewing the instructions was to determine whether or not they needed to be revised or added when I developed a review game for this particular course. The course covered the topics of “health promotion, disease prevention and healthy lifestyles; analysis of personal attitudes and behaviors” (Towson University Undergraduate Catalog). Professor Karen Renaud currently works as a part-time faculty in the Department of Health Science at Towson University. Professor Renaud had already decided to use the Captivate template-Jeopardy game before I began the internship. The objective for the game design is to make the game enjoyable for students, yet focused on the specific topic in the course called “Sexuality”. The desired outcomes that Professor Renaud wanted to capture the amount of time each student spent on the game, and the number of correct responses to determine if the student is academically prepared for the exam on Sexuality. The game was designed to play similar to Jeopardy game, and consisted of 25 fill-in-the-blank questions with specific point values (Appendix I-figure 1). The following five categories were identified as Female, Male, General, STIs and Contraceptives. Each question was set to connect to each category with a specific point value. The point value was designed to be 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500, but Captivate 4 only provided the value up to 100. Instead, I set the value point to 10, 20, 30, 40 and 50. A sample question for the category “Female” was something like “where does fertilization occur?” (Appendix I- figure 2). In order to receive full points for each question, students had to identify and spell the term correctly. According to Eck (2006), this type of game is “best for promoting the learning of verbal information (facts, labels, and propositions) and concrete concepts” (p. 8). Those students that answered all questions correctly and spent a shorter amount of time than other students were considered ready to take the exam. The review game provides an opportunity for the students to review their course materials and seek additional help from the instructor as needed. The game was used as guidance for students to see the types of questions that will appear on the test. According to Balasubramanian and Wilson (2006), a well designed interactive game “can facilitate students’ learning of both specific domain knowledge and concepts, and several cognitive skills…” (p. 2). The pedagogical intent for the game is that if students are unable to answer certain questions, they should go back to their materials and review the information. Table ,[object Object],In the game, students had to answer each question before proceeding to the next one. This simulation requires students to use both short-term and long-term memory to play the game. In this case, Captivate is used as an assisting tool in the classroom to promote cognitive learning and preparation for the exams. O’Neil and associates (2005) argue that “using many different contexts in the game or simulation can result in information overload, which creates difficulty for users learning the specified objective” (p. 468). However, the game for the course was very simple and straightforward, and related well to what students had already learned during the semester. Adobe Captivate is commonly used to create interactive activities or games for the purposes of academic learning and job training. The benefit of using Captivate is to increase cognitive learning for individuals and increase higher performance productivity. At the beginning of the game, I inserted a basic instruction for the users to become familiar with the rules and navigation of the game (Appendix I-figure 3). Captivate provides additional features, such as “variables, advance actions, Small Web Format (SWF) commenting, project templates, customizable widgets, and text-to-speech functionality” (Adobe Captivate, 2009). The only feature I used in this review game was the variables option. I set a variable to each game title (Female, Male, General, STIs and Contraceptives). Instructors can modify variables in Captivate when the topic of the course changes in the future. When the variables changed, the titles in all the PowerPoint slides automatically updated as well. Another feature was briefly used in Captive called advance action. I used advance action to set the PowerPoint slide to jump back to the main slide for the user to select the next point value/question. However, the action did not execute the way it was intended. La Tonya and I posted the issue on the Adobe Developer Center, Captivate Group on Facebook and other social media sites. Unfortunately, there was no solution to be found online for this particular issue. As an alternative, I duplicated twenty-five PowerPoint slides of the point value to insert before each question slide. Most commonly used interactive games provide the learners with an environment to learn new information at their own pace. The learners should be able to justify their responses based on their personal development and learning style. According to Kirriemuir (2006), simulation games allow the learner to “receive instant feedback regarding the consequences of their actions” (p. 23). For example, students would see the correct answer right away to each question as soon as an answer was submitted. In addition, students could review a summary of their correct and incorrect answers at the end of the game. After students had taken the game online, their scores automatically uploaded directly to the grade center in Blackboard, which stores all the course content information and resources. The tool that is used to capture the scores is called Sharable Content Object Reference Model (SCORM). In order to convert the game into a zip file and SWF format, the SCORM function had to be activated. Once completed, the zip file was uploaded to Blackboard and students could play the game. The instructor was able to view all the scores that were posted in the grade center on Blackboard. The game was set to launch during the last week of classes, right before the Sexuality exam. For documentation purpose, I created instructions explaining the steps to upload the game, modify changes and check scores in both Captivate and Blackboard (see Appendix II). In conclusion, interactive games and simulations provide students with valuable supplemental learning experiences that complement the material taught in class. Future revisions to the game may be necessary based upon student feedback and whether the learning objectives were met for the course. Additional studies will still need to be conducted to measure the learning outcomes “prior to, during, or after other instruction” (Eck, 2006, p.8). Nevertheless, the review game provided students and instructors with a useful tool to reinforce learning objectives and improve test preparation. Appendix I-Supplemental Materials Figure 1 Figure 2 Figure 3 Appendix II-Basic Instructions Appendix II-Basic Instructions (Cont’) Appendix II-Basic Instructions (Cont’) References Adobe Captivate. (2009). Captivate 4. Retrieved on March 13, 2010 from http://help.adobe.com/en_US/Captivate/4.0/Using/WS5b3ccc516d4fbf351e63e3d119e95818f5-7fee.html Balasubramanian, N. & Wilson, B. (2006). Games and simulations. Retrieved on March 22, 2010 from http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/ Eck, Richard. (2006). Digital game-based learning: it’s not just the digital natives who are restless. EDUCASUSE review, 41(2), 1-16. Retrieved on March 22, 2010 from http://www.seriousgamesystems.com/Digital%20GameBased%20Learning%20Its%20Not%20Just%20the%20Digital%20Natives%20Who%20Are%20Restless.pdf Kirriemuir, J., & McFarlane, A. (2004). Literature review in games and learning. Futurelab Series, 1-35. Retrieved on March 18, 2010 from http://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-00190453/. O’Neil, H., Wainess, R., Baker, E. (2005). Classification of learning outcomes: evidence from the computer games literature. Retrieved on March 22, 2010 from http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/content~content=a727689854&db=all. Towson University Undergraduate Catalog (2009-2010) Additional Bibliography Weng, Tingsheng. (2008). The study of using e-learning platform to analyst learning process curriculum in higher education. Engineering Education, 6(5). Retrieved on March 15, 2010 from ERIC database.

Istc797 final internship report jou

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