Design and Production of Multimedia
and Hypermedia Learning Environments
EDIT 752 :: Spring 2009
Class description
ID competencies |
This was a unique experience. The second class in a two-semester track, I had a new instructor, new classroom, new group and a new project. I was a better student for the experience.
Instructor: Brenda Bannan and Shahron van Rooij Credits: 3
Reflections
This was a unique experience. The second class in a two-semester track, I had a new instructor, new classroom, new group and a new project. I was a better student for the experience.
Artifacts Text
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Taught by Drs. Bannan and van Rooij, the class was a mix of instructional technology design theory and project management principles. The mix didn’t seem congruent at first, but as much of the class instruction was done in our groups, the PM guidelines were essential.
I was in a group of five people, who’d researched and done the preliminary design in their first semester together. They’d chosen to do a prototype of a financial website for a Baltimore investment firm. The site focused on young, adult learners between the ages of 18 and 24.
This was a challenging group dynamic, which had elements I’m sure were common throughout the groups in our program. I found it important that everyone have their opportunity to speak their mind and be satisfied that they’d been heard. We rotated roles from meeting to meeting: chair, secretary, timekeeper , moderator. This was very helpful in learning different strategies and skills, and these multiple perspectives have helped me better understand the different roles in my career.
Kuniavsky’s Observing the User Experience very simply laid out the principles of running a focus group. The book made the processes seem very simple and easy to practice. Running the focus group and maintaining an unbiased perspective was actually quite hard to do, but it’s essential to get good data from different perspective. What I found fascinating was how this age group preferred video to online content, even when well chunked. As one woman relayed during the focus group: ‘I would rather have a video of three paragraphs read to me than read it myself, so I can keep on doing other things.’ It helped us understand that the oninine user is a multi-tasker, and if given the opportunity to devote all their attention to content on the screen, will still try to do multiple chores during the exercise.
We concluded that, though the ages of 18-24 seem like a narrow range, it was far too broad. For our purposes, we found three demographics in that one group:
- An 18-year-old high school graduate is learning to maintain a checkbook and a first debit card
- A 21-year-old graduating college senior is looking at first apartments, first jobs and relocation expenses and choices
- A 24-year-old may be trying to buy a first home, marry or start a family
Though any of these elements can be found across all three micro-groups, we found our sample audience met these qualities.