To find out more about the needs of those using the proposed digital tool, interviews with expert instructors and course developers were conducted and are described in this section. A questionnaire was distributed among students in a design course, to provide insights into the students’ experiences with in-class demos and their concerns regarding demos made available out of class. A comparative analysis of existing products relevant to the proposed digital tool is also found here. Several of these products were specifically emphasized by the expert instructors and course developers.
Six expert instructors and course developers were interviewed:
The main purposes of these interviews included:
Summary
Communication and interactions among students and between the instructor and students is a priority for instructors who have developed and taught online courses. Currently, this interaction is created using discussion boards that are frequently as elaborate as, or more elaborate than, discussions in traditional classrooms.
For online courses taught synchronously, Elluminate is an effective tool for facilitating online sessions between the instructor and students. For online courses taught asynchronously and also for traditional courses that make lectures or tutorials available for later review, Camtasia is often used. However, it was not created to support the level of interactivity described in the Problems and Solutions section above. Some of this interactivity can be programmed in (having relevant links pop up at appropriate times) while other interactivity is not supported (allowing students to post questions or allowing instructors to answer). Camtasia was designed as a screen capture utility rather than purely as an instructional tool.
In order to gain insight into students’ experiences with in-class demos and their concerns regarding demos made available out of class for a design course, a questionnaire was distributed to 16 students in Catalina Naranjo-Bock’s Design 573 class. The questionnaire contained both open-ended and closed-ended questions.
Results
Based on students’ responses to this questionnaire, students:
The fact that students appear to have more questions during class than they actually share also indicates there is a need for students to easily be able to ask questions of the instructor. It is likely that the more private means of communicating with the instructor available through an interactive online demo would allow those students who don’t feel comfortable raising questions in class to still get their questions answered. The students’ needs and expectations revealed in the questionnaire helped to guide the inclusion of tools and functions in the prototype tool.
Carmen's LiveRoom is an online chat and whiteboard, designed to provide a real-time learning environment for all participants. Groups can work together and instructors can hold online sessions and interactive instructional activities.
Analysis of Carmen and LiveRoom
Course materials can be accessed from anywhere at any time. Files can be submitted electronically. Asynchronous communication between instructors and students is supported via discussion boards. Synchronous communication is supported via LiveRoom. However, labels and navigation can be confusing. Moreover, there is no tool to support making available in-class demos from design courses.
Elluminate is part of a software group known as webinar tools. It is typically used as a course supplement to Carmen to support online interactions. It can support up to 6 users at a time using voice chat and a higher number of users participating via text chat. All interactions can be saved for later review. Instructors can bring up the application that they are interacting with, such as Dreamweaver, and the other users that are connected can see exactly what the instructor is doing. The instructor also can choose to see what one of the connected students is doing. All cursor movements and vocal instruction can be recorded for later use.
Analysis of Elluminate
Elluminate is an effective tool for synchronous discussions or demos taking place during an online class. It is not an effective tool for preserving interactions that occur during an in-class demo and then making those interactions available in an interactive way for students to use later. It includes no support for asynchronous communications, except as far as allowing students to view the online class session as a video later. There is no way for students or instructors to post questions or edit videos of class sessions after the class session has been recorded.
Camtasia is a screen-recording tool used in education primarily for capturing lectures and tutorials. It supports some degree of interactivity, such as quizzes. If an instructor is doing a tutorial for Dreamweaver, for example, a hotspot can be created over the relevant area that the student should be focusing on or clicking on, to make the student’s experience more like working with the actual program. Camtasia also supports adding notes that appear as pop-ups during relevant parts of the lecture of tutorial. The activity on the instructor’s screen can be recorded along with a video or audio of the instructor him or herself. In the College of Pharmacy, Camtasia is most often used to record lectures as they occur live, but it can also be used to record lectures in advance. Lectures or tutorials that are captured can be edited and made available in Flash formats or for use with an iPod.
Analysis of Camtasia
Camtasia can meet many of the needs of students and instructors outlined in this research. However, it is designed mostly to capture lectures or present Powerpoint-type slides with an accompanying webcam or voiceover. It was not designed to make available an in-class demo for later review. So, while it is possible for an instructor to add notes that pop up when students will likely need to see the definition of a term or have a link to relevant external material or documentation, interactivity is limited. There is no support for allowing students to post questions to the demo that are timestamped to a particular part of the demo, for example.