Preparation & Scripting

DO ONE: Preparation & Scripting

In the last topic you learned about H5P, LearningApps and embedding. You looked at the examples and analysed different content types. Now it is time to start planning your own content type by creating something completely new or using something as a template. This will be ADDIE model phase Design where you should be able to put together the main idea, context and extras like graphics which you will have to create or find. In this unit you will get information about planning and tips for preparations. It is advised you to reflect on the process of preparing.

CONTENT

EXERCISES / TASKS

LEARNING OUTCOMES

TOOLS AND TECHNOLOGIES

Introduction to H5P and LearningApps interactive content creation tools

Reading documentation

Reflection

You will know what H5P and LearningApps are and how they are different.

You will know what can be done with H5P and LearningApps.

You will know how to embed content to a website.

PREPARATION AND SCRIPTING

Introduction to planning and preparing content type according to the purpose of the exercise

Creating accounts

Reflection

You will know why planning and preparing can help to produce better content.

You will know how to analyze what content type suites best for the exercise.

BEFORE YOU MOVE ON ...

After choosing what tools you are going to use and after analysing examples it is time to prepare your work. Preparation and proper planning takes more time but gives better result on the long run. Another way is also to experiment and test out different solutions and to generate many versions of your work. Altogether both ways take time but have different approaches and also results.

Before moving on here are some tips to pay attention and remember while doing interactive content:

  • Bring out only important information, do not flood with pure text. Be critical on the text you need and let the learner think - maybe even fill in the "gaps".
  • Images and simple text formatting can bring life to the text and help the learner to remember the important parts better.
  • Be informative but concise - find a good balance. Usually less text is better.
  • Analyse your content and find out what is the most important part you would like to teach and try to make an exercise or a test to confirm the knowledge.
  • Do not make time consuming interactive content types - keep them simple, active and as short as possible. Try to think on bite-sized learning.
  • When adding interactivity, remember that there is a line when too much interactive content does not help the learner learn and begins to be a harmful. You should be able to detect it youself.
  • And finally - remember three words for playfulness while planning your playful interactive material:
    • intuitive - easy to access and easy to understand so the learner will not get stuck in the learning process,
    • safe - mistakes are not punishable (also seen as mistakes are good) and direct the learner in right direction with welcoming feedback and through that open the way to exploration,
    • fun - if something is fun and entertaining then there is a great change that this may bring the learner back with more interest and help to remember information better through learning with emotion.

PREPARATION AND SCRIPTING

In order to start, one can just begin with the examples and move from that. Although as that seems to be the quickest and easiest way to go, it is advised to plan ahead. Through using ADDIE model as a framework for development one can be sure that making of interactive content becomes something which develops through feedback and gets better in iterations. Whilst sometimes the quickest solutions are the best, usually more and longer development cycle enables to create a better content type.

To start, gather your information - for example select your lecture slides

  • Analyse the content and mark up the most important information you would see fit to compress into one or more activities.
  • Try to visualize and draw a sketch - this will make the creation process easier later and gives more ideas for graphics also known as storyboarding.
  • Plan your information as full content package with interactive activities and parts of text. Think about your package’s pages as a funnel. Try to divide one page into segments where depending on the content types you balance information with assessments (use How we learn activity) and other interactive materials such as pictures with balanced text formatting.

Look at the content types offered by H5P - take a closer look at Course Presentation content type in which you can add together different types offered by H5P. Also look at the other examples to gather more inspiration. LearningApps also offers different options to create interactive content, go ahead and look at those too. You are more than welcome to combine your playful interactive material from different websites and tools.

DIVING INTO H5P AND LEARNINGAPPS

Under this section you can see an interactive presentation made with H5P. Going through the exercise you will learn more about H5P and LearningApps. It is advised you to follow along the slides and also get to know the links which take you to either H5P or LearningApps.org website. There you will find all the information you would need in order to start out creating interactive content yourself.

H5P Course Presentation about H5P and LearningApps

CREATING ACCOUNTS

In order to start and test out different content types you need to have an account to the content creation tool platform to save your work. You will have to choose if you want to use H5P or LearningApps or them both. In order to create an account on one of the sites then follow the next instructions or try to follow the instruction from the interactive activity on top.

H5P

Go to H5P homepage at https://h5p.org

  1. Click on Create free account on top right of the page
  2. Fill out the form and click on Create new account
  3. After successful account creation log in and start planning your content type!

LearningApps

Go to LearningApps website at https://learningapps.org

  1. Choose Login from right side of the page or select a language from the top right corner
  2. In opened window select Register new account and fill out the form
  3. After successful account creation log in and start planning your content!

DESCRIBE OUTCOMES

Before moving forward describe the learning outcomes you would like your learners to achieve. In order to design the learning outcomes it is advised to look at them as objectives. Following objectives gives learners purpose and helps to learn the subject playfully. Usually all learning outcomes could be described as smaller bite-sized objectives – it all depends on the subject and context.

For example learning European geography then one objective could be “Name ten countries and their capitals” and the next objective could be “Name twenty countries and their capitals”.

When describing objectives remember the following four

1. CONDITION
2. PERFORMANCE
3. STANDARD
4. METHOD OF ASSESSMENT

“The correct focus for effective materials is always to keep in mind the performance that you want to achieve and the people who are to achieve it”

EMBEDDING IN PLAYFUL INTERACTIVE MATERIALS

We have been introducing and writing about interactive content types but not much about interactive material as the module is named. This is why - interactive material is usually a compilation of text and interactive elements like interactive content types. In order to make a great interactive material all the parts have to be considered well and put together in logical order for the learner to easily follow. Try to follow the tips introduced earlier.

Interactive content types cannot usually be added into the material like text. You have to use some sort of method to embed them. Try to remember what was discussed in the last topic about embedding and think how you would like to place and add your interactive content to your interactive material. In order to make the material compliant with playfulness you should put emphasis on the interactive content types. Just while making them think on the three words: intuitive, safe, fun.

Assessment usually is not considered a playful activity but by using interactive content types one can help the learner learn through playing by using types like matching pairs, reordering or other game like assessment types. H5P and LearningApps both offer great solution for this kind of purpose and all what is left is for you to add them to your material on a well-thought manner.

Interactive material itself by its design is playful. You give the learner possibility to interact with the material other than simply acquiring information from traditional reading-the-material. Activity which makes the learner interact with the material can be seen as fun. Providing interactive content types in sensible and well thought places plus making sure that the extra activities are not overloading can be seen as intuitive as material is bundled up as a simple and conclusive exercise. Finally making the learner feel safe by providing clear instructions in feedbacks guiding the learner right back to the tracks.

“Playfulness in interactive materials can be achieved by following these three words: intuitive, safe, fun”

BEFORE MOVING ON ...

Preparation is important. This helps to spot out mistakes and errors before going live with the implementation. This is the reason we are using ADDIE framework for development and try to advise you to do the same. In this stage as you are following along you should be through with the first step, Analyse, and already doing the second step of ADDIE - the Design. During the Design you should be able to think how you would like to present your material, have some kind of storyboard and plan which to follow and maybe even start looking for suitable graphics and if needed great them yourself. It is also good practise to test run some exercises on both H5P and LearningApps to see which are the activities you see best suite your playful interactive material.

Reflection is a great way to record your progress and it is advised that you mark down details of creating your playful interactive materials. All is welcome like screenshots of your storyboard or graphics you create. Try also draw out layout of your material.