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Interactive e-learning materials: How to prepare and use it properly?

Conference Paper · June 2010

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 MIPRO 2010, Computer in Education: 33rd International Convention, May 24-28, 2010, Opatija, Croatia, pp: 77-80

Interactive e-learning materials: How to prepare and use it properly?

M. Duh, M. Krašna
Faculty of Education, Faculty of Arts
University of Maribor
Koroška cesta 160, 2000 Maribor, Slovenia
Phone: (386) 2-2293 600 Fax: (386) 2-2185 180 E-mail: [email protected]

Abstract - During last decade the advances in the computer

science and web technology have changed the perception of
the ideal e-learning material. New learning material must be
interactive and actively involve students into the learning
process. The idea is generally good but the implementation
sometimes falls behind. During the analysis of the e-learning
materials that are publically available we discovered that
everything is prepared in "mouse click" fashion. This has led
us to believe that we need to make a break and perform a
mental rethink what we actually want. We definitely do not
want our children to think that learning is just clicking the
mouse. In our article we want to explain how to involve
students into the learning process. What are the right ways to
use interactive technologies? How much should we automate
and where should we stop? It is said that students rapidly lose
dexterity and understanding of the text in the manual.
Figure 1: Fields of computer application in education
I. INTRODUCTION
Technology evolution always brings the question of
evolution of education. Are we capable to replace the
teacher with the contemporary technology? This question
was asked over and over again whenever the new
technology becomes available. Until now we have find out
that the answer is still the same and it is negative.
Technology as far as we can see into the feasible future is
unable to replace the teacher. Artificial intelligence for a
machine to become a teacher must be much more advanced
than for some other intelligent tasks.
Advanced technology brings us better e-learning
materials. This statement is often true but the required
effort to produce better e-learning materials are often so
huge that we still lack of high quality e-learning materials.
In recent years the situation improves significantly but as
always we have to know that this should not be regarded as
project it should be a program.
Figure 2: Educational networks
From the old study of application of computer (see
Figure 1) in education we know that the production of e-
learning materials is a component in educational networks
[1]. Further refined it is a matter of educational software From the constraints implied in the specifications we
and judging from the review and analysis of the current find out that this is the only way. The authors, designers
available e-learning materials most of them are refined and developers need to follow the curriculum. V&V
version of programmed learning units (see Fig 2). The last (verification and validation) is covered with the outside
century knowledge still holds. Improvements are visible in reviewers. In theory the process is proved and should
the mixture of multiple strategies and increased produce high quality e-learning materials. But there are
interactivity of basically the same programmed e-learning some minor issues that are not fully covered in the process.
units. Do we want this is the question that we should ask What kind of review should be undertaken? From the
ourselves? theory we have content reviews and technical reviews.
Two different reviewers should perform these actions and
gives guidelines how to improve the e-learning materials.
What to do if the two suggestions are mutually excluding?
It is simple one of the reviewer gives bad grades of the e-
learning materials.
Interactivity is the issue of many misunderstandings [2].
What is interactive element and what is not is still not
 MIPRO 2010, Computer in Education: 33rd International Convention, May 24-28, 2010, Opatija, Croatia, pp: 77-80

defined. Never the less this is not the topic of this article.
The implications of these issues are the real problem. III. MOUSE CLICKING GENERATION
One of the competences acquired by student (future
II. KNOWLEDGE AND COMPETENCES teachers) is also digital competences. We could say that
In modern upbringing and education the term digital competences coincide with ICT competences. For
competences is frequently used [3]. Various explanations teachers this means knowing and application of ICT in
what the term actually means give rise to certain direct pedagogical work. Teachers need to understand
misunderstandings. In pedagogical area the term contemporary e-learning materials to effectively use them
competences bears more than one meaning as well. From a in educational processes and they could actively participate
pedagogical point of view it is thus necessary to look for a in the development processes. We must forget the technical
multidisciplinary definition. We can talk about school requirements of e-learning materials. Screens must have
competences, principal or teacher competences or certain number of interactive and multimedia elements.
student/pupil competences. With the latter we can identify Each screen should have at least two interactive elements
certain competences, regardless of terminology and one multimedia element according to its content. The
differences, that are the result of a complete personality requirements about the audio and video elements on the
development comprising cognitive, emotional and psycho- screens are also defined. It is mandatory to have audio-
motoric levels. video elements lasting 10 seconds for every 5 screens and
From the point of view of the teacher we could define audio-video elements lasting 20 seconds for every 10
the theoretical construct named competences as screens. Interactive elements are defined as markings,
hypothetical psychological processes that include selections, movement, grouping, providing feedbacks and
cognitive, emotional, motivational, social and behavioural testing the answers. Multimedia elements are defined as
components that teachers obtain to a certain extent through sound, picture, video and animation. Each of multimedia
learning process. Generally speaking, a competence elements must be related to the content of e-learning
»includes a complex system that is a combination of materials. In most cases customer specifies only technical
knowledge and abilities, but also strategy and routine, requirements and omits creative and/or aesthetical aspect
necessary for the use of knowledge and abilities in addition of e-learning materials despite it is known that this topics
to certain emotions and points of view and efficient self- significantly increase the quality of the e-learning
regulation of such competences.« [4] materials. Analyzing the text of public tenders of the
Regardless of the different interpretations of required customer's (Ministry of Education and Sport of Republic of
competences, we can summarize some features of generic Slovenia), we can see that they are focused entirely to the
and subject-specific competences which are independent of content and technical aspects. Those requirements are
teacher’s years of practice or the level of education. Let us mandatory in the development process. Customer's
name some of subject-specific competences: being familiar requirements for the e-learning materials are compatible
with the curriculum, good expert knowledge of the subject, with the curriculums and encyclopedia knowledge.
teaching, being familiar with the contents of teaching, Especially the requirements for 100% covering the
knowledge of a particular subject, being acquainted with curriculum may be the non productive.
subject contents and methodology. According to TESE-II Student gain knowledge using always better computer
[5] we can define competences as a combination of equipment and increasingly higher quality e-learning
knowledge, understanding, skills, capabilities and values. materials mainly by the mouse clicks. Richness of
Competences are also expressed as the use of one’s computer screen and virtual coverage of curriculum and
knowledge, capability of judgement, grasping interactive elements will alienate the students from the real
communication skills and skills which they require for goals of the school (education). Using too many e-learning
further learning. In different subjects of the study materials and virtual self-learning students will
curriculum students gradually gain their competences. dehumanize them and educational processes would lose
They are expected to develop a wide array of generic and their pedagogical aims. Will interactivity of e-learning
subject-specific competences which will guarantee success materials change the interaction between teacher and
in their future work as teachers. Teachers that are student? Will the individualism in handling e-learning
pedagogically competent are expected to integrate their materials and computer outcast common healthy
professional (pedagogical) knowledge, skills and collectivity in the classroom? Will be able to achieve any
capabilities into their work. Possessing personal features of emotional upbringing goals or educational goals? It is
such as empathy, creativity, cooperativeness, ethics etc., know that in contemporary curriculums for primary
they become a positive role model for their pupils to schools include much ballast (redundancy) yet e-learning
identify with [6]. Competent teachers thus become materials need to cover them perfectly. Even teachers
authority which their pupils eagerly follow. They should using these e-learning materials find out that we cannot
not merely use the expert knowledge produced by others achieve functional knowledge using only one source.
but rather produce such knowledge themselves. Teachers Students become bored using the same learning materials
are facing new tasks that require additional training so as all the time. It is nice to have them and use them
to develop a reflective approach to their teaching [7]. EU occasionally. Another question that applies here is: "Can
documents also strongly underline lifelong learning as one we achieve successful upbringing and education with the
of the development priorities [8]. “Thus we expect that mouse only?" We still think that this is a black scenario
teachers possess an interdisciplinary academic education and we must prevent it to happen.
as well as the necessary qualifications to creatively engage
in complex problems in education and schooling
processes.” [9].
 MIPRO 2010, Computer in Education: 33rd International Convention, May 24-28, 2010, Opatija, Croatia, pp: 77-80

IV. REAL WORLD EXPERIENCES

We are going to show the e-learning material we use for

start in the discussion of e-learning material misuse. Topics
about the technical requirements and comments from the
reviewer will be given.
Technical requirements for the e-learning materials
specify that e-learning is packed in SCORM packages (see
Fig 3) and is easily transferable to another LMS [10] [11].
The reviewer has complaints that we did not provide the
links between different SCORM packages. Inside the
package the navigation is self-explanatory and clearly
visible (see Fig. 4). From the technical viewpoint this is
possible to achieve but we sacrifice the portability. We
could pack everything into one giant SCORM package and
suffer severe response time prolongation. Probably anyone
who would use the materials would say that it is not
working. This is the issue that we were unable to solve.
Figure 4: One topic of e-learning materials. We see the
navigation with different color on the button and we see where
we are inside the chapter on the header.

Free text in the spreadsheet gives students the necessary

freedom of expression. On the other hand teachers have
more active role since they need to check the creative work
of their students. Teachers have different opportunity to
gather the assignments from their students. Documents can
be uploaded to the LMS, send by e-mail or printed and
discussed in the classroom. Anyway we wanted our
students to get familiar with the digital forms.

Fig. 3: The structure of the e-learning materials in Moodle

We wanted to surpass the mouse clicking therefore we

include the worksheets which have to be filled. We used
the form type document that is used extensively in the
project applications and ministry forms (see Fig 5).

Figure 5: Worksheet that needs active student involvement and

not just mouse clicking. This type also involves teachers into the
active role of reviewing the students' assignment.

We have to include the help despite the fact that any

student knows how to use the material except the reviewer
(see Fig. 6).
 MIPRO 2010, Computer in Education: 33rd International Convention, May 24-28, 2010, Opatija, Croatia, pp: 77-80

for self-education without the teacher's guidelines. We

have found out students actually like such materials but not
in a long run and for whole curriculum. Probably today's
generations needs different stimuli and require different
looks of learning materials. Developing learning materials
with different looks seems unprofessional therefore we
need to have different types of learning materials and
teachers will use them according to the social climate in
the classroom. Teachers must have active role in guiding
student through the e-learning materials and prevent
students to get wrong impression that learning means
mouse clicking. Quizzes are for self-evaluation and must
not be trivial. In our opinion the best results in the students
intellectual stimuli gives open text. Teacher have active
role in the review of students' responses and needs to check
and penalize the deviation where students may just apply
copy/paste text from the web.

Figure 6: Help screen. Needed just because of the reviewers

REFERENCES
For self testing purposes we introduce the quizzes.
Quizzes should be bit harder to solve and it is not desired [1] GERLIČ, Ivan. Multimedia in education - Slovenia
project. Computers in education: Opatija: MIPRO, 1999,
that answers are trivial. In this case we prevent the student
pp. 63-67.
to leave the quiz and search for the right answer at the [2] Duh, M., Krašna, M. (2009). Aesthetic Principle in
same time. If it wanted to leave the quiz the system locks Design of Distance Learning Material. In Computers in
the entry to the quiz again. Education, 32nd International Convention. (pp.155-158).
MIPRO, Rijeka
[3] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-
//EP//NONSGML+TA+P6-TA-2006-
0365+0+DOC+PDF+V0//SL
[4] Pušnik M (2005). Od znanja h kompetencam. In Od
opazovanja do znanja, od znanja h kompetencam.
Ljubljana ZRSŠ
[5] Tuning Educational Structures in Europe II, Universities'
contribution to Bologna Process. (2005). Final report –
Phase 2- Gonzales, J., Wagenaar, R. (Ed.). Socrates.
[6] Ljubetić, M., Arbunić, A., Kovačević, S. (2007). Osobine
učitelja – studentsko iskustvo. In Zbornik radova Osmi
dani Mate Demarina. Pula, Sveučilište Jurja Dobrile u
Puli.
[7] Oonk G. H. (2004). European integration as a innovation
in education. European Platform for Duch Education.
Almere, Plantjin Casparie.
[8] European Report on Quality Indicators of Lifelong
Learning (2002). Brussels: European Commission. (p7.)
[9] Duh, M., Herzog, J., Batič, J. (2009). Expectations in
prospective training of classroom teachers in light of art
education. In The teaching based on the Bologna Process.
Figure 7: Quiz College of Nursey School Teachers-Subotica.
[10] Krašna, M., Bratina, T., Kaučič, B. (2009).
Implementation of Distance Learning Materials. In
Problems that may occur are not the flawed e-learning Computers in Education, 32nd International Convention.
materials. We applied LMS that works with the cookies. (pp.149-154). MIPRO, Rijeka
Some users set their browsers to disables cookies therefore [11] Ministry of Education and Sport of Republic of Slovenia.
they need to put our servers to the trusted domain. Others Retrieved January 21. 2010
(http://www.mss.gov.si/si/okroznice_razpisi_in_javna_na
prevent the new window opening. This is the problem
rocila/javni_razpisi/?tx_t3javnirazpis_pi1%5Bshow_singl
since we could not open the e-learning materials in its own e%5D=941).
window. Users should address this problem which is local
to them.

V. CONCLUSION
E-learning materials will not replace teachers in the
education for a foreseeable future. The recent development
of e-learning materials just looks like they could be used

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