Screencasts

I have recently been tackling a screencast of the changes in Moodle 2.3 for the DePauw community. As always, I have been following the tried and true ADDIE process. The analysis stage was fairly simple since it was a basic comparison between the features found in 1.9 and the features found in 2.3. Moving to the design phase, things began to get more complicated as I had to narrow down and specify what topics would be covered in this short video. I was able to narrow it down to the new navigation, the new file structure, the addition of the drag&drop feature, and the new activity chooser. This video has quickly become focused on the course creators, rather than the students. Because of this, I would like to create one focused on the changes from the student perspective as well... but that is for another post.

Moving onto the actual development of the video, I was quickly surprised by how difficult it is to write a script! I found myself wanting to ramble on about the technical details, rather than simply showcasing the changes. I once again narrowed my focus and wrote a script for each separate topic. I added in a screenshot to keep my focus and know what exactly I would be showing at the time I was speaking. This strategy really helped and I was able to quickly finish the script. I recorded the script separate from the screencast recording which increased my edit time significantly. Rather than editing one document with video and audio, I had to edit the audio first and then match the video and edit it second. One thing that was extremely helpful was to complete the audio edits and then play it while completing the screencasts. This prevented the video from needed significant edits. After a few more revision cycles, I will be posting the video for all to see!

-Mikah

R625: Laying the Foundation

This semester I am taking R625: Designing Instructional Systems. This course uses authentic consultation experiences to teach how to be professional consultants. The past several days I have been rattling my brain trying to come up with a legitimate project that I can use for this course. It seems that the project should be outside of our typical working hierarchy, which makes the majority of what I might consider irrelevant. Additionally, my main job functions tend to be short-term consultation and planning. Some projects to consider:

• Moodle upgrade to 2.x - I will be planning and implementing an upgrade but the timeline is too long for one semester. Rather than tackling the entire upgrade, I had considered focusing on a smaller portion of the overall project such as archival of courses, development of training materials, ect.
• Digital Storytelling Project for Civic, Global & Professional Opportunities (CGPOpps) - CGPOpps is interested in having students who return from off-campus internships develop digital stories of their experience. I would be working with them with one of my co-workers to develop a training plan for the students.
• Non-profit website creation - I had previously been approached about developing a website for a non-profit organization. They were in the planning stage and nothing concrete had been finalized. This might be a good opportunity to open the lines of communication for this project.
• Cyber Security Awareness Week (CSAW) - The last week of October is CSAW, which I and my interns will be planning a strategy for
• IS KnowledgeBase - Another possibility is working with the HelpDesk to develop materials for the IS KnowledgeBase. I currently maintain the Moodle & DyKnow material, but would be interested in increasing the instructions available. Moving into video tutorials has also been discussed.

Those are the main projects that I think could be applicable for the course. I might find that all of them won't work for one reason or another, so I am going to keep my mind open and searching for a project!