Unit 8 - Frustration sets in

I still don't understand the CIV's. Most of them are so similar, that I don't understand the difference. My team partner sees them as one thing I see them as another. I would like to see more concrete examples of where people have applied these values. We been given several sites to view, but I don't know what I'm looking at. Which things on a site is which value? Do you HAVE to have all 5 instructional values?

Unit 7

In this unit we were given links to prior EdWeb courses created by former students. Most of these were fairly good attempts at online training. I think the main issue here is trying to combine elearning with web design. I think that creates quite a challenge for anyone that is new to both topics. Most of the sites seemed to use a lot of text. I personally dislike reading so much text on a monitor. It's too hard to read and I tend to skip a lot of it. There didn't seem to be enough graphics and visual used through these. There was no audio or voice instruction that I found and no video.

The one site that I enjoyed going to was the Wild Horses site. The activity where you choose what kind of horse you are and then make choices and faced the outcome of those choices was very clever. I enjoyed that whole scenario-type learning.

Another component of this unit was the video of Downes. I do not agree with Downes theory of minimal instruction. The topic was pretty much over my head, but I got the jest. In my discussion group, I listed the issues I have with this theory, so I won't go into them now. Needless to say, I a not a fan of this philosphy. I prefer clear cut direction/instructions. I don't like floundering trying to find my own way. I figure, if I have to fork out money for a course, there better be something worth while. Minimalist instruction seems to be the easy way out for the instruction by putting all the "teaching" on the student.

Unit 6

Unit 6 was a discussion on Do-Type activities. Horton describes a lot of activities for the Do phase. I was especially intrigued by the Case Studies and the Role Playing.

I used to be a member of the eLearning Guild and I attended one of the online conferences they held a couple of years ago. I don't remember who the speaker was (it could have been Horton), but I remember how he described and demonstrated Role Playing using a story of a murder mystery. The one Horton described in his book was exactly the same one I saw demonstrated. I thought it was so cool. I had never seen that type of elearning.

I love the whole idea of branching; that the answer the learner selects can take them in a different direction. Trying to put something like that together would be a lot of fun, but I imagine a bit of a challenge as well.

I purchased Captivate 3 several months ago because of this funtionality of branching. I hope to someday be able to create a story telling elearning using this type of Do Activity.