Thursday 2 June 2011

The Result

Note: What will be presented here is not the finished product. Essentially, it is only the design concept, however there are 2 working elements of the prototype.
 
In designing 'Hired or Fired?' it was decided that the critical elements of:
  • The content
(the four key job ready outcome areas) 
  • The learning activities
(the activities are the units)
  • The learning supports
(the inclusion of the always present menu options)
were the key areas Herrington, 2001) that would assist the learner in maximizing their opportunity to learn throughout their participation in the game.  As a result, each of these elements was given the most focus and effort.
This focus resulted in specific design decisions being made as displayed within the following slide image examples.
Slide Image 1

  • Use of simple, easy to use predictable structures in the navigation tools to reduce student cognitive load and thereby give them more 'thinking space' for the task at hand (Herrington, 2001)
It is paradoxical that the very e-learning systems and methods designed to unshackle the learner from traditional teaching methods involve such extraordinary cognitive demands which subsequently result in their use by the learners being seriously compromised. To enable a shift of the pedagogical control to the individual requires more than basic procedural assistance. Rather, it involves the deployment of consistent, strategic uses of tools that scaffold the efforts of the learners (Iiyoshi, T., Hannafin, M., Wang, F. 2005). The use of such tools is demonstrated in the above image’s side navigation panel. This panel is consistent across all screens of the game and requires only 1 click to activate each of the options. Additionally, options within the menu are kept to a minimum for ease of learner use, understanding and reading.


Slide Image 2

  • Creating interactive, choice based activities that allow the students to make frequent, meaningful decisions and be in control of what they choose to be shown/tackle next
The user controls the frequency and continuation of the game by making frequent choices either by clicking on the ‘ok’ buttons or being asked to make a selection from the multitude of scaffolded topic choices.  By asking the learner to take action rather than just have an automated movement process to the next section, I am:
  Empowering the individual to be in control of their learning
  Allowing time for cognition of the new information
  Creating interaction (be it ever so minimal at this stage) between the screen and the learner 
  • Applying PARC principles to all user interface/screen design
Within each of the screens, PARC principles have been applied as follows:
Proximity of headings to content is aided by shading and borders; hence alleviating confusion about the relationship of text. Any bulleted lists (as demonstrated on other slides) are clear proximal to subheadings.  And lastly, ample use of white space (or, in this instance, black space) is utilized.

Alignment of images and text is used effectively. All headings and content are clearly and precisely aligned, hence there is no confusion and no time lost by the learner when interpreting the information. Alignment is aided by white borders and shading of objects.

Repetition is also used. The headings are not only indicated by a repeated alignment but also the choice of font, color and size. The text and format is repeated throughout each of the slides, allowing the reader to quickly digest the content.  Bullet points are recognizably subordinate to the leading heading or sentence, therefore the learner can either quickly skim the content or evaluate whether it is worth reading or not at all.

Contrast in font size, font colors in proximity to the background with additionally shape border shading, helps in the identification of headings and content. 

  • Presenting information in semantic chunks for readability and understanding (Henderson, 2006) as indicated in the following slide images
Any blocks of text that are presented to the learner throughout the game are deliberately chunked (Henderson, 2006) to assist learners in constructing and facilitating meaning from the information presented. This method provides a scaffold for learners in conjunction with the applied PARC principles. 

See a section of 'Hired or Fired?' in action - click here!
Slide Image 3

  • Including interactive game play into in the prescribed activities (Prensky, 2002)
Rather than asking the learner to answer boring questions about what would be the right or wrong type of clothing to wear to an interview, I instead chose for the content to be taught in an interactive, game-like, activity-based approach rather than a more academic, decontextualized text-based approach. Furthermore, the interface reflects real-life contexts and authentic settings wherever possible; for example in the above slide, the learner literally selects and places onto the avatar the appropriate clothing for an interview. This activity (albeit utilizing a cartoon character) is not dissimilar to an actual real life activity of walking into one’s own wardrobe and selecting and putting on clothing.
  • Use of a combination of dynamic (animated) and static, simplistic pictures rather than realistic images such as photographs to reduce extraneous cognitive load (Mayer, 1998, 2003)  and to assist weaker readers in constructing sense of the text and context of the topic
By choosing to utilize animated, simplistic images, rather than realistic images such as photographs, I have attempted to reduce the extraneous cognitive load on the learners, enabling the learner to draw linkages between the image and the text based content quickly and easily without being distracted by the complexities of a real life image.  In addition, by utilizing simplistic images in conjunction with the PARC principles, namely, proximity, extraneous cognitive load is again reduced, enabling the student to focus more on the content meaning rather than the imagery. 

See another section of 'Hired or Fired?' in action - click here!

And this is only the beginning...


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