October 2005 Archives

I like creating photographs for their own sakes but they are very useful to communicate learning principles as they can remind students of concepts and ideas, i.e. they can act as memory triggers. The spiral, see image of a gourd tendril, can be used in support of the learning achieved through reflection and improving practice being a spiral rather than a circle which implies you end back where you started, not ideal if want to develop as a professional or student.

There is an aspect to designing and building interactive learning objects that over complicates leading away from simple learning objectives. A learning objective or learning outcome for module may require a more complex design but when you break a module down to individual lectures and then down to individual points in a lecture then these require simple interactive elements that put across single concepts or ideas or parts of ideas.

These are more likely to be the single photograph or two side by side, the rollover comparing photographs or building a diagram sequentially, the drag and drop, the single question about something. Here the learning activity should be simply defined.

The lecture or learning sequence should be a carefully designed experience for the learner made up of individual snippets of learning that build up to a whole. If an activity or object is overcomplicated the learner will not know what they are meant to do with it.

An example of a learning object is my use of stop start sequence to highlight problems of naming for changes in words associated with colour in photography. Black body radiator