The final report on the learning object - "Spring Garden"

MITE 6323 Interactive Representations of Information and Knowledge

How to use the learning object of “Spring Garden”

The following is the lesson plan for the mentioned learning object:
1. Target audience: Kindergarten to Primary two school age children
2. Goal: To enhance literacy skills in young children.
3. Objectives: to support young children in their reading
comprehension and fluency; to enhance their oral reading skill;
and to be interested in reading interactive representative
learning objects.
4. Procedures:
a) Children are given reading instruction in the classroom setting;
b) Children are supported by their parents as teachers in the home
setting by interacting with the learning object, the Spring Garden.
c) The child plays with the learning object with an adult’s company,
learning both the oral and written forms of the nursery rhyme
at his pace and interest.

My Role in the Production
1. Propose the idea and the framework for the learning object
including selecting the nursery rhyme as the learning material
and designing teaching content;
2. Create the storyboard with the ppt application including searching
for all the pictures involved in the storyboard;
3. Produce the first draft of the Flash version by putting all the slides
involved into one single representation and applying the interactive
techniques like the Map exercise.
4. Work together to produce the final product and apply a new
approach as the final.
In summary, I contribute mainly to the teaching content part and
partly to the technicals.

The followings are the swf and fla files:
http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/2003989283/spring-tree-77.swf
http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/2003989283/spring-tree-77.fla

The reflectons on the production are also the reflections on producting the phototype.

Revised Version on the final prototype

We would like the product to be more original. Here is the revised version on the Spring Tree. Comments are welcome!

Reflection - The Production of the Prototype

After we have made the storyboard, I need to learn necessary techniques to make the storyboard become a real thing, the Flash learning object. I first identified the techniques involved in the Map exercise and the Bouncing Ball exercise would be what I need to master for the prototype production.

There are basic Flash skills embedded in the production of interactive presentation from those Flash tutorials. Both the movie type and printed type of tutorials are good for the self-study purpose. I started with the movie ones because they looked like easy to learn. Later, when I got more familiar with such teaching aids, I felt confident to learn more techniques from reading tutorial books. The more complicated Flash samples can be better explained from the print format. Unlike the movie tutorial, the print format one allows me to revisit each part of a tutorial sample right away.

I enjoy working together with my partner, Qingchun. She knows very well about computer. I prepared myself by viewing the movie tutorials and practicing the exercises before we worked on our project together. It is good to have one person (Qingchun) concentrating on the operation and the other (myself) on checking operation errors.

Qingchun was well prepared for the discussion meeting with a tutorial book as our teacher. She showed her proficiency in computer skills. I learnt by observing how she operated the keys of the computer keyboard. It was a good learning lesson. I have learnt those details that both the movie and print tutorials are unable to show.

I reread those comments given by classmates for our prototype and I understand more about it from the audience’s perspective. For example, it is better to show the sequence of those sentences. Even though that is an obvious component of the learning content, I am not conscious about that. Also, some other areas for improvement such as from where to begin the saying of the rhyme, too many hot spot buttons and the fading words should be taken into consideration.

However, we have a brand new version of the learning material. What we are going to do with these two versions is another concern. Should we discard one? Or, combine them together into a more complicated version? Do we have time and skills to handle that? Let’s gather some ideas and then decide what to do next.

Prototype: Spring Tree (Brand New Version)

This version is different from the version we, Quingchun and I , posted a week ago. The previous one I used the technique the Map exercise adopted while this one is a brand new version for the same content.

For the same teaching content, Quingchun has different ideas from mine and that is good because young children could have their learning reforced by different approaches of the same content. As we know that young children learn through repitition. They focus on different area of the learning every time they approach a new presentation of the topic. The new version of the prototype is Spring Tree. Please click on it and enjoy a brand new version.

Prototype - "Spring Garden -The Nursery Rhyme"

Target audience: Kindergarten children

Goal: To enhance literacy skills in young children

Objectives: To support young children in their reading comprehension and fluency;
To enhance their oral reading skill; and
To be interested in reading interactive pictural learning objects.

Procedures: 1. Children are given reading instruction in the classroom setting ;
2. Children are supported by their parents as teachers in the home setting by
interacting with the learning object, the Spring Garden.
3. The child works on their own to interact with the learning object by himself,
learning the saying of the nurse phyme on his pace and at his own interest.

This is the Spring Garden. Comments are welcome.

Problem with the posting of the Flash prototype

I have problem to upload the Flash prototype of the module project onto my Blog. Normally I can open the file on the ILN site, however, the Flash file does not open there.

There are three files created after I have finished and viewed the Flash Movie, one with the tag of fla which is the working file, the other one with html which contains nothing, and the third one with swf which is used to play the presentation. Could anybody tell me what is that html?

Could anyone tell me what I can do to upload the swf file onto the Blog? Thanks!

My reflection - the learning process on the Map exercise

The Map presentation seems like simple and easy to pick up the Flash techniques involved. However, it is not the case. I have spent night after night working on making a copy just exactly the same as the sample even the ways and wordings of it.

Going through the problem solving process on the Map exercise, I have learnt the major functions of Flash particularly the ActionScript function. My Flash application does not have the dialogue box appearing after I select the “tellTarget” command. I have no way to become a copy machine and go through the whole process by following the actions demonstrated in the tutorial of the Map exercise.

I try to find short cut to solve the problem like going back to HKU computer lab and downloading the Flash MX version, the one is used for the Map tutorial. However, the Wizard and the dialogue box do not come out. In order to solve the basic problem, I must go back to the very basic, knowing what the ActionScript is and learning how to use it to help me get my jobs done.

My learning partner gave me some websites for learning Flash. I visited these websites and I found many useful resources. There are many tutorials and examples for beginning and advanced learners to view and learn. (You might want to visit the following website if you find Chinese version is better for you to understand the concepts, however, you need to understand Putonghua.)

http://tech.china.com/zh_cn/netschool/homepage/flash/

There is a tutorial about the core concepts on writing action scripts. That one really helps me. Now I can understand the basic Flash language. With this understanding, I am able to do problem solving during the Flash editing process. Whenever your Flash presentation does not work out as you expect, you need to find out how to solve the problem. It is so frustrated if you don’t have a direction where you are going. But, with the understanding of the Flash language, you know the diagnosis you make will help you solve the problem.

Working on the Flash application, the user needs to be very, very careful on every action. The Flash application does not understand you and does not work for you if you make a very insignificant error. Even though it always tells you what error occurs in which level, which line and which frame in a very exact way, for some occasions, no error is given and you will be in trouble.

How useful the Flash tutorial could be

After hours of watching on the Flash tutorial on Map Making, I am thinking how useful the Flash tutorial could be. On one hand, I need the Flash tutorial to help me learn how to use Flash. Computer-based tutorial is effective in saving the instructor's time in coaching the student. On the other hand, I prefer to learn from a person but not a machine. For learning skills, the student needs a lot of practice for acquiring necessary skills to perform tasks and the technology helps solving the problem of limited resourse. Therefore, I think if I knew how to make Flash tutorials, it would be wonderful.

Reflection on the Flash learning

It is kind of frustrated to learn the Flash. I have spent more than ten hours on watching the Map tutorial, hoping to learn how to copy the techniques used in it so that I could apply those techniques to work on the final project. However, there are problems rising up frequently. It doesn't seem as easy as what I first expected. There are several reasons why I can't finish the entire practice and make a copy of my own. First, a whole range of operations involved in working out one task need lot of practice and memorization. Second, the concepts of layers and formats (visual types) take me many hours to understand them. Third, it takes me hours to understand that the first frame of the movie should leave out images. Fourth, the action scripts are different in different versions of the Flash. The one I use at home is Flash Professional 8 while the version in the tutorial is Flash MX. I realize that I need to spend more time to understand more about Flash and use it as a tool to create movie. No short cut in true learning.

My Photo Story

I like the Photo Story very much. It saves us time to create a slide presentation and add in special visual effect, text and audio information in a very convenient way. It seems like I have a audio-visual studio setting up on my desk and I could do it all myself without technician helping me put all the special effects, audio file, music and captions onto the edited photo album. Even though it takes time to explore and look for the best functions to work out the desired effects, it is a good tool for me, as a teacher, to create and produce simple learning objects for young learners to recall what they have learnt from the class lesson and reinforce their learning.

The following photo story is my first product after hours of exploration on how to use the tool, how to make it display on the blog and to save it in the wmv file but not wp3 file. Many other functions that need me to explore later. Here is my photo story - The Trip to North America.

Storyboard for the final assignment

This is how Qingchun and I work together to create the storyboard. First, we agree upon on using a nursery rhyme, Spring is Here, as the content and text of the learning object. Then, I search for cliparts from the Internet. Next, I create a draft ppt presentation. Later, Qingchun uses new technical to make the presentatin look well.

The storyboard of "Spring is Here" is here for you to view and comment.

Reflection on Session 5

This is so excited to learn about ppt and flash. For the ppt, I feel confident to use it to create storyboard. It is fun to explore a variety of clip arts from the internet particularly Microsoft clip arts and Google photos. My partner is an expert in producing ppt presentation and she showed me how to use tricks to create unique clip arts from the already-made ones. For the Flash animation, I am still standing at the beginning point. I don’t have Flash installed in my computer and I need to use Computer Room’s facility and that is not convenient for me.
I like the Flash Tutorial on HK Map. It provides me the opportunity to repeatedly view how to make Flash animation. I think this is an example that shows wonderful features of computer technology for supporting learning. I believe students will benefit from using tutorials for acquiring skills by practicing. Another wonderful feature is such learning tools enable students to learn things in their own pace and own time. Self-initiative students get the most in the learning from such mode of learning.

Our Proposal on the Final Assignment

We plan to create an learning object for promoting kindergarten children’s language skills in their literacy lesson. In a kindergarten class, the teacher uses nursery rhymes to motivate the children to learn vocabulary and sentence pattern. Nursery rhymes are characterized with repetitive words and sentence pattern. Computer-based learning objects are reusable and support children’s learning need in repeated practice. The selected nursery rhyme is as the following:
The wind told the grasses,
And the grasses told the trees.
The trees told the bushes,
And the bushes told the bees.
The bees told the birds,
And the birds sang out clear:
“Wake up! Wake up! Spring is here!”

The children learn the rhyme in the class. To consolidate their understanding and to help them memorize the names of those objects such as wind, grasses, trees, bushes, bees and birds, the teacher creates the learning object to encourage the children to learn these words. Besides learning the saying of the names, the children are learning the written names also. For some more able children, the learning object supports their learning in memorizing both the saying and the writing of the whole nursery rhyme.

The children are expected to enjoy playing and interacting with the learning object. The objects are presented like humans, having human characters, human voices and movement. Words would pop up, voice would say out and movement would go when the user clicks on the diagram of each objects.

There are three parts of work in the production of the learning object including the creative presentation, the graphic work and the computer design.

If you have any comment on it, feel free to make it! Thanks!

The Proposal on the Final Assignment- Page Error, unable to post

Real Rain Drop Shape

Thank Qingchun! She helps me to solve my problem.

Please here is PPT.

Reflection on Task 3

It is good to work with a partner. Qingchun helps to enrich the ppt presentation by establishing the context of raindrop formation. She put a series of images into one slide. However, I want the primary slide that explains the process of the breaking-up of a rain drop to have interactive device so that the student may interact with the proponents of the promary slide. I don't know how to do it, therefore, I use a stupid method to present my idea but it works. If you want to know how I do it, you could check it out from the following link:
http://iln.cite.hku.hk/com/1374/users/2003989283/RealRainDropShape_Extended.ppt
I appreciate if you could show me how to make it simplier. Thanks!
Remember! This is not the final version because Qingchun and I still have two more days to work on it.

What is the real shape of a rain drop?

A small rain drop with the size of 1-2 mm is normally in spherical shape because the surface tension is able to
maintain its shape like a ball.





When the size of a rain drop is bigger than 4.5mm, the air pressure will be pressing on the bottom of the rain drop, pushing its sperical shape into like a hamburger bun.

Reflection made on March 15

Learning from the class presentaion made by classmates, I have learnt how to make my learning objects simple, not to put everything into one slide. I need to select a central message and convey it through clear visual objects.
I find I need to learn more about the tools that help me actualize my ideas into visual representations. In this stage stage, the PPt application is the tool that I can manage.
After I did make careful exploration onto the PPt application, I find it good enough for me to make a simple learning object.
Then I searched information from the Internet. Next, I put selected visual clips onto the PPt. However, I don't know how to make the hyperlinks work for me. I really need my partner help me make it work.

My Learning Process on Task 2

The working process on the task was quite interesting. Hu Qingchun and I worked along with each other quite well. She was good at applying computer skills. I was a dreamer, suggesting many ideas that were difficult to accomplish to her to make them come true.

Starting my journey for the production of a learning object, I borrowed ideas from the diagram of “The Giant Squid” to design a storyboard using the information derived from the article provided. I could imagine how difficult to produce one like that diagram. For the content part, I gave a title and heading to the diagram. There were four subtitles to go with the title. The title was “What makes our Earth planet’ climate so moderate---The Magical Atmosphere”. The subtitles were to elaborate the theme of the content.

Then, I searched from the Internet for clip arts and animations that might help realize my dream storyboard. I found a very good animation. The content of that was very similar to that of the assigned article. I shared with Qingchun that should we just copied the design but changed the words to fit our need. I also sent Qingchun six clip arts that suggested texts to go with those clip arts. Qingchun put things together with her design and the final product came out. You are welcome to view our product at Hu Qingchun's blog.

If you are also interested to take a look at the animation, feel free to click the following link and check it out.
http://earthguide.ucsd.edu/earthguide/diagrams/atmosphere/index.html

Reflection on Session 3

Reflection on Session 3

There are two things that make me very excited:
1. Lots of useful links for me to look for learning objects from the Internet listed out in the class PowerPoint slides.
2. The discussion on the five diagrams of “The Giant Squid” is very interesting. My group is the only one group that appreciates Diagram 3, The Phantom Squid, while almost all other groups prefer Diagram 2.
I think the Diagram 2 is more appropriate for classroom teaching/learning while Diagram is more feeling provoking and better for general readers.

Reflection on Session 1

Reflection on Session 1

Several things I would like to share with you all:

1. I find blogging quite interesting. It is easy to put things on the internet, not like what I dit with ftp operation.

2. I like what Daniel presented us with the software PhotoStory 3. He produced a photo presentation like doing a majic. I want to know more about. Some other software application like Google Earth is fantastic too.

3. I like the idea like visually introducing oneself with images.

All such new things open my horizon. I need to put in more time and effort on the new challenge!

This is Po-yee's Life

Can you guess what my life would be like with the clues in the slide?

Po-yee's Life

Nice to meet you all!

This is Po Yee Tam and my other name is Theresa. I am an MEd student majoring in Early Childhood Education. This is my last year in the MEd program and I expect to graduate in the coming June.
As I am not that good at using computer and familiar with information technology, I find it is so challenge to take some module from the MITE program, not only enriching my education experience but also my daily life.
I work in a kindergarten school working with very young children. They are so lovely and cute. I enjoy the time with them. I don't know how I can make use what I have learnt from the module to contribute something to my workplace, but definitely I will do something.