embed video: 3 phases of matter

Assalamualaikum..

Today I would like to share a video about the 3 phases of matter.

Instructional element

This video use constructivism theory of learning. Viewer are given situation that relate with their daily life experience. From the situation, the viewer are asked why does the situation happen.The animations are used to show the movement of the molecules  as it change between solid, liquid and gas. The concept of freezing, melting,  evaporation and condensation are discussed in detail with example and clear explanation are given. 

Advantages

• The animation is interesting and helps to understand the concept better.
• The bird in the video is used to highlight certain important point.
• The science concept is relate with the daily life experience
• The flow of the story is smooth
• The script is is simple and easy to grasp the concept.

Disadvantage

• Sometimes the voice is not clear.

#13 evaluation presentation

Assalamualaikum..

On this class, we have to present the task that have been given to us two weeks ago. We need to present our topic of evaluation website. For me, i got a focus group topic.

Focus groups are moderated meetings of 'involved' people discussing their experience of an educational intervention.

They are a useful tool for formative/developmental or summative/retrospective evaluation and can serve as a single, self-contained method or link to other evaluation activities.

Uses

-Generating hypotheses 
-Developing interview schedules 
-Identifying key issues 
-Developing emergent themes 
-Illuminating quantitative responses 
-'Learner centred' course development 
-Getting reflective feedback on interim interpretations of study outcomes 

Main advantage: obtaining a large amount of interactive information on a topic comparatively easily, within a short time.

Main disadvantage: the setting is not 'natural' but deliberate

Process:

1. Define issues for focus 
Start with broad themes which can be made explicit to the groups, keep a checklist of individual points of concern to prompt for, if they don't emerge naturally.

2. Identify participants from relevant population
Try to make these representative of various types of 'user', i.e. different motivations, different entry levels, different learning environments ... 

3. Design the sessions 

Set group size - between 6 and 12 is recommended.

•Decide whether mixed groups or contrastive groups will best serve your need, comparing similar groups to check agreement or distinct groups to establish perspectives on issues.

•Decide on structuring strategy - one or two broad topics, or a guided programme for discussion within allocated timeslots? Let conversation flow, if purpose is exploration.

•Define required analysis level - qualitative, 'ethnographic' or systematic content coding, or a combination of these, depending on goals and resourcing. (The data will be 'rich' so it is best not to set too many focus items for one sitting.)

•Decide on recording options - notes? audio recorded? video-recorded?

4. Stage the sessions! 
The most important thing is to be both confident, and relaxed - then they will be too. 

5. Transcribe records 
Verbatim, expressing as written text, or noting against pre-defined criteria whilst listening to/watching tape.

6. (Code and) analyse transcripts 
Start with two, and examine closely to establish most useful breakdown of detail in terms of evaluation targets. Broad possibilities are by topic theme, or by participant type. When procedure agreed, test it against remaining transcripts - does it cover the data?

7. Interpret findings 
Integrate with other outcomes from other methods used.

#12 Publishing Website

Assalamualaikum..

For the 12th week, we learned about how to publish our website. Eventhough only 3 students present in the class, because the other 2 students have went back to their hometown for the general election, the class must go on. At the beginning of the class, each of us are asked to choose one web host. we need to present it to the class about the packages provided, and all of other things that need to be consider before we choose a web host.


FREE WEB HOST

There are many commercial web host available in the market. However, to choose a free web host, there are a lot of things to consider such as:

• Advertising

Does your publish website will be covered by advertisement?

• Amount of web space

How many website can you publish under one account?

• FTP access

Does it provide FTP file transfer or you have to upload each file one by one?

• File type and size limitations

What is the limit of your website file size?

• Reliability and speed of access

Does the website reliable and does it takes too much time to load the website?

• Perl, PHP, ASP

Does it have restrictions in types of files for your website?

• Bandwith

Does it have limit in bandwith?


Some of the free web host are tripod

geocities

and freeservers

Some web host even provide you with free tools and free templates. However, remember that nothing is free in this world. There are some limitations with the free web host. the limitations are:

• You get a free site and the host gets to advertise on it.
• Storage and download amounts are an issue here too.
• Sites that exceed their bandwidth allotments during the month may get shut down until the next month when the bandwidth counter restarts.
• File transfer >> File Management instead of FTP

COMMERCIAL WEB HOST

There are also things that need to be consider when you are planning to use a commercial web host. 

Choosing a Commercial Web Host:

• Reliability
• Data Transfer (Traffic/Bandwidth)
• Disk space
• Technical Support
• Platform/OS
• PHP, ASP, CGI, MySQL FTP, Telnet
• SSL (Secure server)
• Control panel
• Domain name
• Multiple Domain Hosting, Subdomains
• Server
• Price

Overall, after learning about publishing website, now i find that publishing websites is not really complex. I think if i take my time and do a little research about this, i think i can produce my own website.
Till next time, bye!

#11 web testing & evaluation

Assalamualaikum..

 For this class, we've learned about web testing and evaluation.

There are a few types of errors that can be found in our website, which are:

1. design flaws : user interface problems or suggestions, such as proposed new features, relabeling buttons, and screen layouts 
2. content errors: inaccuracies, data with formatting problems, or data of poor quality in some other respect (photo image quality, text misspellings)
3. Software/system defects: commonly called 'bugs,' these are technical problems encountered when trying to run and operate the site

There are also several types of testing that we can do to our website. The types of testings are:

• functionality testing (i.e., unit, integration, regression, compatibility)
• layout testing
• load testing
• link testing
• usability testing
• Alpha/Beta testing
• Peer testing
• Focus group testing
• Usability testing

Testing is a very important step in developing a website, to avoid errors. When the user face difficulties in browsing a website they will easily get bored, they will just leave and search for other similar website. That is why usability testing is very important.

Usability is defined by five quality components:

•  Learnability: How easy is it for users to accomplish basic tasks the first time they encounter the design?
• Efficiency: Once users have learned the design, how quickly can they perform tasks?
• Memorability: When users return to the design after a period of not using it, how easily can they reestablish proficiency?
• Errors: How many errors do users make, how severe are these errors, and how easily can they recover from the errors?
• Satisfaction: How pleasant is it to use the design?

Evaluation

Evaluation can be categorized as formative evaluation and summative evaluation. To understand more about formative evaluation, we can use this analogy:

"When the cook tastes the soup, that’s formative; when the guests taste the soup, that’s summative.“

So, formative evaluation is normally done during the development process, where changes and improvement can be done by the developer. For summative evaluation, the process is usually done at the end of the development process, and usually after the end user use the product.

There are several types of tools that can be used to evaluate our product/website, which are:

• Observation, interviews (Structured/Non Structured)
• Surveys, Focus Groups, Analysis, Reports, and Dialogue with Users
• Form, Checklist or Rubric

To understand more about the difference between each tools, we are given an individual task and we have to present it in the next 2 weeks class. The task is, we need to summarize the procedure to evaluate our website according to the notes provided by this website. Each one of us are given different types of evaluation tools. So we have 5 different presentation topic that will be presented in the next 2 weeks class. Dr.Noraffandy find this website is very handy because it relates the research methodology with our area. I haven't read the notes yet, but i think there must be a reason why Dr still remember this website, even he had graduate for his PhD long time a go. I was told that this website was introduced to him during his study time by his professor.

Ok. I guess this is the most long entry that i've ever written, considering there is no picture attached. huhu..Time to go to sleep peeps. Have a good day everyone. Assalamualaikum...

#10 Visual Design and 50% prototype

Assalamualaikum..

Yes. Today is the day. The day we reveal our website to the class for formative assessment by the lecturer and fellow friends. But, before the presentation start, we learn about visual design first. Visual  design is like a planning, on how your website will look. A few criteria that need to be considered in visual design are:

• What colours will look good together on your site?
• What fonts or styles you will use for the written part of your web pages?
• What graphics and multimedia effects are needed?
•  How will all of these elements be combined or arrange into an attractive layout?

To ease the process of imagining our website, it is advisable to make a rough sketches/thumbnail sketches.

If you think thumbnail sketches and storyboard is similar, you are wrong. these two serve different purposes. While storyboard helps on website's interaction, thumbnail sketches help the developer to focus on how web pages will look.

Ok. That is all  for today's lesson. Now, come the part of our 50% prototype presentation. Overall, we got both positive comments and constructive critics. The most important thing is Dr. can see our application of Inquiry based learning in our website. That is good enough for me. Other critics that we receive are the layout of our website doesn't symbolise chemistry, the font that we use is kind of small, and our explanation is so long that might make students feel distracted and bored.

We are given around 2 weeks to make some improvement to our website, before we test and evaluate our website. Hopefully, we can finish this project early, and pass this subject with flying colors.. Amiin...

#9 Semester Break

Assalamualaikum..

Finally! Its the semester break yowww!! haha..

 

Sounds fun, right? Actually, even if we don't have to attend classes, we got a lot of things to do. For instance, I have to finish up developing our website as soon as possible, because right after the semester break, we will present our 50% prototype to the class. Got a lots of things to do..... so.. yeah. Good luck my dear friends.. For those who enjoying their semester break, have fun guys.. Envy you!

#8 Information design

Assalamualaikum..

Today, we have submitted our design document. Hopefully our assignment can meet the requirement and we can get full marks for it.huhu.

Today is our first class with Dr.Noraffandy. I've never have class with him before, but i do recognize him, as he is the head of our department. Today, he taught us about Information Design to Interaction Design. Dr. also stress the important of interaction design, and brings a few examples of products that require interaction design.

There are 5 things to think in Infomation Desgin, which are:

• Message: What information you wish to share?
• Audience: Whom do you wish to share?
• Purpose: How and why do you want to share?
• Background: What does your intended user already know about?
• Structure: How can your message be organized most effectively?

Other than that, Dr. also stress the important of storyboard in our development.. For those who don't know what storyboard is, it is actually a plan of how our intended website should look, with the details of how the navigation and the placement of the information should be. It's sounds like storyboard is a complex thing right, but actually, the storyboard is juat a simple drawing that looks something like this:

 

Ok. I think that is all for today's post.. Have a great semester break everyone! 

#7 No Class

Assalamualaikum..

The class for week 7 has been canceled. Dr. Dayana has started her maternity leave, and the class will be take over by Dr.Noraffandy. However, Dr.Noraffandy is on leave, and he will start his class next week. Even if the class has been canceled, i still have to finish up my design document. The design document should include all of this informations:

1. Learning problems
2. Solution to learning problems
3. Learning objectives
4. Content of the websites
5. Target group or audience
6. Instructional design model used
7. Theory/Learning approach
8. Flowchart or storyboard 

Hopefully Masarah and I can finish our assignment successfully. Till next time, Assalamualaikum..

#6 Interaction Design

Assalamualaikum..

For week 6, we learned about interaction design. Basically the difference between information design and interaction design is that information design focused on planning the design and answered the question “What is this product?” and what is the content/information that the developer want to deliver. On the other hand, interaction design focuses on the mechanics of the design and answers the question “How should it work ?”.

Some critical tasks of interaction design are:

–Create a guidance system to orient users.
–Design the navigation system.
–Define what happens on each screen.
–Design the controls for interaction.
–Determine how much interaction is to be included.



Effective navigation provides enough location information (Orientation) to let users answer the following question:

1.Where am I? - let the user know their current page.
2.Where have I been? - let the user know where they have been
3.Where can I go? – let users know where they are in relation to the rest of the website
4.How do I get there? – provide consistent, easy to understand link.
5.How do I get back to where I started? – provide alternatives to the browser’s back button to let users return to their starting point.


So the main purposes of interaction design is basically to avoid the user 'lost' in the website.

The three essential elements in interaction design are:

1.Organization – How the information will be organized on the pages ?
The homepage should include:

• Banner
• Title of your website
• Interface of content
• Graphics
• Menu

2.Navigation – How people will find their way around your web site ?
To enhance the navigation of the website, the website should have:

• Site Map

• Hypermedia / Hypertext

• Navigation button/icon

• Checklist page

3.Interactivity – What controls you give your users to work with ?

• Breadcrumb

• Place finding
• Page number
• Different color for the existing menu

That is all for today's class.

#5 web design

Assalamualaikum...

For this week, we learn about basic web design. The purpose of web design is to inform and to persuade user.


Four primary aspects influence web design are:
–Content : To inform or persuade users
–Technology : To implement the function of the site
–Visuals : To provide the form of the site
–Economic : To give purpose for the site

This pyramid is like an analogy for the principle to design a website. Content provides the bricks that build the pyramid, but the foundation rests solidly on both visuals and technology, with a heavy reliance on economics to make our project worth doing. So the main principles that the pyramid tells us are:


– Content is the bricks we use to build the pyramid
– The foundation rests on visuals and technology
– Economics make the project worth doing


Some of the flaws for a website are the confusing accessibility, over-ambitious design, and poor download time. So as a good web designer, we have to make sure our web site is well structured, easy to navigate, and quick download time.


For today's class activity, firstly every body have to present one example of a bad stucture/visual website, and one well presented website. So for this activity, i choose cnet.com as an example for bad structured website.

Can you see how confusing this website might be? There is just too much information in the first page. The developer might want to chunk the information into a few section and not cramp all the info in one page.

For a website that I like is apple.com.

That's it. It is just that in the first page. The ipad is actually changing to other latest apple product after a few seconds. for more information about the product you can just click at the menu bar at the top. If you take time to visit the website, you will notice the way they present their info about their product is really simple, straight forward, yet very alluring.

For our second class activity, we are divided into two groups, and we are asked to convert the information about web design from this website : http://www.webdesignref.com/chapters/01/ch1-07.htm
to powerpoint presentation, and present it to the class. Overall, this class is very enjoyable yet very informative.

Ok. That's all for today's review. Till next time. Bye! ^^

#4 learning theory and design document

Assalamualaikum...

For the 4th class, we've learned about Inquiry Learning, Problem Based Learning, and Authentic Learning. I am quite familiar with all these 3 learning approach as I've learned about it in my degree time.

Basically, Inquiry Learning happens when the teachers start students learning process by giving them questions to think about. through a series of questions, students will discover the knowledge. experiment is one type of Inquiry Learning.

Problem based learning occur, when the teacher present a real life problem to the  students. students will start investigation process, by searching for more information. After they have come up with the idea, they will present the answer to their fellow friends. teacher's role is just to monitor and facilitate the discussion process. At the end of the process, teacher will make conclusion and comment on students answer.

For authentic learning, the learning occurs by bringing real situation in the learning. Here, student be the expert in the field and do authentic task by using the real equipment that the expert used.

Both Problem based learning and authentic learning are the learning process that have been recommended by scholars  to implement in school to prepare our students towards the 21st century. As students in 21st century should have problem solving skills, information seeking strategy, and communication skills.

Other than that, we also learned about project management in web design and production. we've discussed within the members of our group, and come out with the concept of our website. We are also asked to start preparing our design document.

This class is so informative that now, I'm more clear with the overall idea on how our website should be as Dr.Dayana show us some learning website. It really help us to imagine what should we put annd how to organize the content in our website..

#3 third class

Assalamualaikum..

For the third class, we've learned about instructional design model. some of the well known model are ADDIE model, hannafin & peck, waterfall, and dick & carey model. For my PSM during my undergraduate, i had use hannafin & peck for my development project. I am also quite familiar with ADDIE model as it had been used extensively by my fellow friends. Unfortunately, i've little knowledge on waterfall and dick & carey model. So for the class activity, we have been divided into 2 groups. The first group will present about waterfall, and the second group will present about dick & carey model.

Personally, i prefer waterfall model compare to dick & carey because it is much simpler compare to dick & carey model which are more complex.

For the group project, mastura and I are in the same group. For the first meeting that had been placed in the class, we are quite blured because we need to recall all the learmimg strategies that had been learn, and try to implement the approach in our wb site. We also need to ensure the learning approach is appropriate with the content that we want deliver. So for the first meeting, we manage to collect only this....
7‰”


For the second meeting that has been held in the library, we have brainstorm a little idea, but still unsure whether it will work or not.. The product of second meeting are as folow..



Hopefully at the end of the semester, we managed to build a website that suitable for learning.

#2 Second Class

Assalamualaikum...

For the second week, we've start the class a bit late because all of us need to participate in a meeting with lecturers and fellow friends from the educational multimedia department. Although the class has been postpone for about an hour, we've learned about the basic concept of webpage and types of website. we learned that websites can be categorized into a few category, and we can guess the type of the website according to the extesion in the URL. For some examples, .org is for organization, .edu is for education, .com is for commercial, and .gov is for government.

Other than that, we got familiarise ourself with the term webpage, websites, annd portal. There is a significant difference between each term.  A website is actually a collection of web pages, images, videos or other  digital assets that is hosted on one or more web servers, usually accessible via the Internet. Web page is a document, typically written in HTML, that is almost always accessible via HTTP, a protocol that transfers information from the Web server to display in the user's Web browser. for an analogy, a webpage is like a page  in a book, where the book can be an analogy to a website. For the definition of portals, portals are pages intended to serve as “main pages” or “gateway” for specific topics or areas.Some portals that are popular are Yahoo!, LYCOS, Netscape, and many more.

If you can see at the left side, there are a few categories that you can click to start browsing.

Last but not least, we've learned about CMS and LMS. CMS or Content Management System, is a computer software system for organizing and facilitating collaborative creation of documents and other content. It is also a web application used for managing websites and web content. Some of the examples of CMS is Joomla, Mambo, PhpNuke, Xoops and Zope.

For LMS, LMS stands for Learning Management System. it is a set of software tools designed to manage user learning interventions. The function that LMS have is like creating an online discussion forum, link for assignment submission, quizzes and many more. The examples for LMS is Sakai, Moodle, and WebCT.

For the learning activity, we've a little disscussion and presentation about Personal web development using web authoring software vs CMS vs Blog ? and  Educational web development using web authoring software vs LMS vs Blog ? So for each case, we have to pick the right choice..

That's all. Have a great day everyone!

#1 - First Class!

Assalamualaikum...

For my second semester for my Master in Educational Technology, i've taken web based development subject. From the previous semester, i've taken Authoring System. So, pengetahuan untuk membina web ni adelah sikit2.. Kalau nak diikutkan, time degree dulu saya tak amek web development. tapi saya amek CD-Rom based development. Tapi saje untuk menambah ilmu, kali ni time master nak belajar tentang web pulak..huhu..

Untuk kelas ni, saya harapkan saya dapat belajar dengan lebih banyak lagi mengenai pembinaan web untuk tujuan pendidikan. I hope i can learn something new, in both technical aspect, and theoretical aspect. I hope after taking this class, i can create an educational website that can fullfilled students need and enhance their learning.

Our first class have leave me with positive impression, even though there are some problems earlier when we have to find our correct place for the class. The lecturer are very supportive and willing to help students in their learning, the classmates are fun, as majority of the students in the class are my course mates. 

Sorry for the rojak in my bahasa. hehe.. i'm looking forward to our next class. Till then, have a great day everyone!