Identity in Social Media: Constructions or Meltdowns

We've all read the cautionary tale about the pre-teen who is "friended" by someone who also seems to be a similarly angst-y pre-teen or "tweener" - whose middle school pressures are almost as bad as the new-found distrust of and distaste for one's parents. The "friend" turns out to be a much older predator, and the outcome is tragic.

Some may have read about or watched the film, Catfish (dir. Henry Joost, Ariel Schulman, 2010), which had to do with a young NYC filmmaker, Nev Schulman, who (along with his filmmaker buddies) decided to film himself falling in love with the older sister of an 8-year-old artistic prodigy whose paintings, while definitely in the "outsider art" realm and "realist primitivism," started to have a following on Facebook. To make a long story short, the cast of characters - the mother, the 8-year-old, the older sister -- that the filmmaker interacted with were completely fictive. The NYC filmmaker, who said he wanted to meet his new-found love on her horse farm in the upper peninsula of Michigan, claimed to be devastated (and he filmed himself finding out the truth).

Not surprisingly, the film was met with a surge of skepticism -- the filmmaker was accused of orchestrating the entire thing, and the woman, whose schizoid inventions populated the web, was viewed as a rather pathetic attention-seeker and reality avoider.

The bigger picture is this: What do you do when almost everything in the virtual world is just that -- virtual, and a construction -- and yet the feelings that are lived by the people behind the avatars are real?

This applies to online learning as well. Although you go by your own name in the online classroom, you are, in essence, creating an avatar, or an alternative proxy self by which you interact. You also go through progressive collective socialization, which may, in the end, either help you or hinder you as you make your way through the discussion boards, collaborative activities, and interactions with your instructor.

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In the virtual world, individuals often craft identities in isolation and they project them into cyberspace. They are not constrained by the reality checks of a circle of friends, family, or co-workers, and their socialization process is utterly different than in a regular community or cohort group. This is potentially liberating, but also potentially isolating.

Each person, as he or she learns to interact with people, develops identity-construction techniques as a part of the socialization process. What are these identity-construction techniques? Where are they used? Many times, the identity construction techniques are used to cope in a world that is often critical and absolute in its insistence upon conformity.

For the average person in a group environment where there is social interaction, the identity-construction process occurs via clothing, gestures, vocabulary, activities, humor, narrative and story-telling. In short, it is a living theater, and the participants and successful group members become skillful actors.

For the unfortunate ones who are not necessarily adept at acting or at picking up cues, or who lack the resources (physical, financial, or emotional) to participate in this kind of socialization, there are consequences to pay for social ineptitude. They are often ostracized or marginalized. For others who are chronically "a beat behind" when it comes to assessing the strategies used by others to modify behavior in order to conform to the dominant ethos, the ability to create a virtual identity in cyberspace becomes very appealing.

Needless to say, cyber identity-creation can become an addiction, particularly as the new "cyber-persona" meets with positive reception to others who believe and respond to the alter ego / virtual identity as though it were real. The positive reinforcement found in this activity exerts a strong pull on a naturally introverted person, and when it is coupled with the cognitive/kinaesthetic "rewards" found in the Internet via sensory stimulation, there is no doubt that the individual will be tempted to retreat even further from the "real" world.

For that reason, in ideal conditions, a student in an online course should have group interactions with people where socialization processes are occurring. In the so-called "real world," the interactions can occur either via workplace interactions or in community activities. It can be very interesting to integrate online activities with in-person activities, in order to close the separation between what can become a fantasy persona and one's real self.

With social networks, it's important to be mindful of socialization processes, and to be aware of what you need to do in order to stay in touch with your group.

It is important to realize that often the person who is "one beat behind" in being able to assess the steps necessary to mold himself or herself into the dominant ethos may be a person who has struggled with social isolation. In other words, their social rejection has not occurred without some degree of psychic pain. If the individual has been punished or subjected to verbal or physical abuse, there could be a latent desire for avenging oneself. And, if the rejection or social ostracization has occurred due to physical appearances, it is quite likely that the individual will create a cyber-persona that possesses the attributes that he or she wishes to have. As a strategy for personal empowerment, building a cyber-persona can be ultimately futile, and the identity is complex and contradictory when one desires to operate as an all-powerful, all-knowing presence who is simultaneously "cool" and indifferent to "cool," who possesses both an omnipresent in-your-face visual presence and an ability to be absolutely invisible.

The proliferation of individuals displaying these psychological characteristics (to varying degrees) is a natural outgrowth of the availability of the Internet, and the ease by which one creates a persona and is able to act out unacknowledged desires. Needless to say, the identity-construction elements, and the virtual-travel abilities (including invading the spaces of others), are most appealing to those who do not flourish in traditional social settings. Ironically, those who are most talented in the cyber-world are the least likely to be comfortable with a guide or mentor. But, they are the ones who need them most. It is imperative that society find ways to provide them with a trusted personal mentor and guide because the damage that misguided identity construction and cyber-travel (hacking, etc.) can do can be quite extensive, with far-reaching consequences.

The trusted mentor-guide presence is more important than ever given the times and current socio-economic situation of global interconnectedness. On a personal level, individuals are likely to have dysfunctional attitudes toward their identity-creation activities in our current setting of fragmenting family structures, eroding communities, disappearing support systems, and increasing isolation.

The mentor-guide in an Internet-based course is a grounding presence, and any person who decides to assume this role will have to be aware that the safety and seeming anonymity of the Internet may give rise to more trust and dependence than the mentor has been prepared for. The learner may project his/her own problems onto the mentor, become dependent, confess personal issues, and become emotionally cathected. Ironically, this can occur without either having any idea of the real appearance of the other. Usually they have never met each other in person and never will.

However frightening this prospect is, it is necessary to look at it as an indication of the positive effects that Internet-based courses can have, if they establish a strong mentor-learner relationship in a safe, guiding environment. The mentor and learner can come to experience the Internet as critical elements in an increasingly inter-dependent (rather than independent) world, which teaches, models, and reinforces mutual caring, compassion, and respect.

The fostering of a positive environment for identity-creation and guided socialization (via the Internet) is very important for successful navigation in a world increasingly focused on appearances and first impressions, where long-term commitments have been supplanted by short-term relationships based on performance and/or convenience, and where human frailty is made invisible or is consumed / cannibalized so that the strong survive.

The online learner exists in a world that mediates itself between the "real" (where the people he/she interacts with are successful actors in the roles accepted by the community), and the "virtual" (where the identities she interacts with have successfully created identities that represent their deepest desires of who / what they would like to be in the world).

Both worlds require adaptation and socialization.

One can use the virtual world / Internet to provide:

-- positive guidance via a mentor

-- increased self-awareness on the part of the learner which allows him or her to contemplate

-- what he/she would do if empowered

-- how she appears in the mirror-space created by the Internet; for the first time she is able to look deeply and see what he or she would like to be, how to be that entity, when the persona is appealing, who the created persona would like to interact with (and how), and what the persona wants to do at various times and places.

Such self-knowledge could be a lamp in a dark existence, and could help deal with deeper issues. Not only can the guide-mentor relationship create better citizens, with equipped with new skills and strategies for living in a rapidly changing world, it can also address the problems and underlying factors that give rise to cyber-criminals. Further, the mentor can guide the student to an awareness that can allow her or him to remove the barriers that have been blocking his or progress. This will give learners a new opportunity to develop a vision of themselves or of where they want to be, and to guide themselves to a new understanding of how, and when to take steps along a path to a better existence.

Interview with Peter Bray, Trivantis: Innovators in E-Learning Series

E-Learning design mistakes are insidious and often hard to identify until they’ve basically infected the entire course or program. By that time, it’s extremely difficult (and expensive) to correct. So, the time to make sure that you’re following good design principles is in the initial design of the certificate or degree program (associates, bachelors, or masters). Another good time can be when you’re conducting your periodic updates and revisions in response to instructional materials changes or upcoming accreditation reviews. Welcome to an interview with Peter Bray of Trivantis, a provider of innovative e-Learning software, including the well-known Lectora and Snap!.

What is your name and your relation to e-Learning?

Peter Bray. I am the Chief Marketing Officer of Trivantis Corporation. Trivantis is the leading e-Learning software company with our products as the e-Learning software of choice for Global 2000 companies in over 70 countries.

What are current statistics about the popularity of e-Learning?

The rise in e-Learning around the world is apparent and e-Learning software and services are constantly evolving to keep up with the ever changing industry. For instance, you can see this evolution within our company and the ways in which we introduce new and innovative tools to meet the growing demands of learners, such as Snap! by Lectora and Lectora X.5. Just last year Ambient Insight reported that the US market for self-paced e-Learning products and services reached $18.2 billion – and that revenues will reach $24.2 billion by 2015. Through harsh economic times, the e-Learning industry continues to grow along with the necessity for affordable and easy-to-use software.

Which elements are most effective in e-Learning? Can you point to any studies that support the points?

Effective e-Learning needs to be engaging and grab the attention of the learner. The developer needs to take all learning styles into account when designing a course. To be effective, courses should include various forms of activity and interaction, feedback, branching scenarios and of course, multi-media elements such as audio, video, Flash and narration.

What do most e-Learning programs do right?


E-Learning that incorporates interactivity can be highly effective.

There is software that helps enable interactive content incorporation. For example, Snap! by Lectora one such software program. It enables users to create interactive courses quickly and easily by allowing users to add audio, video, and interaction by means of an intuitive interface.

What are the top 5 mistakes that are often made in the design of e-Learning programs?

I frequently see the following issues in courses:

1. Too much content on a page. There is such a thing as information overload and seeing a long page of text can be overwhelming for learners.

2. Inconsistent navigation and user interface. Keeping the user interface consistent makes it easier to navigate through a course and makes learners feel more comfortable.

3. Clip art. Bland, boring clip art on pages is a snooze for learners…or worse yet, no visual support to the message.

4. Font issues. From font being too small to choosing a bad font style, hard to read text is no-no.

5. Not enough engagement. Too often, we just provide information, but we need to be interacting and engaging the learner.

What are the top 5 mistakes that are made in the deployment of e-Learning programs?

1. Not Considering the Technology of Your Users
. Remember the equipment your audience is using. If they do not have speakers, audio narration is not an option. Find the common denominator; if you build for the least advanced, you can be sure it works for all learners. Also, be sure you know that your audio, video and Flash content functions work correctly everywhere it is used. Plus, don’t forget about mobile!

2. Bad Design. 
When designing your course be sure you know your objective and your audience. Content needs to be designed to meet the need and also to engage the audience. Find out what your audience responds to best and design accordingly. To compensate for lack of an instructor, include easy navigation with audio narration. Also try to anticipate the questions and to provide a ‘facilitator’ to enhance the learners’ experience. Introducing an interesting story or a serious situation can set the tone and get people excited about the course. And most importantly, keep it short. Shorter courses are easier to take and are more likely to help learners retain the key content.

3. Not Enough QA and Testing
. Testing your project is a step that simply cannot be skipped. Preview each page while building your project and catch the mistakes early on. Plan for Murphy’s Law, because you never know what could go wrong – especially when it comes to technology. And, once you’ve tested, test again, because small changes can have large effects on the whole course.

4. No Follow-Up or Feedback
. Following up with the learners will allow you to learn from the course as well, and make the necessary changes for next time. Let the learners tell you how they are doing and what they think of the course. You can use whatever you have access to, but be sure to receive some type of feedback. Once you have all the feedback, act on it. Take others’ suggestions and make your next project even better.

5. Poor Content Management. 
Things change all the time so odds are that your courses will need to be updated. But, if you can’t find the files, don’t have the latest version or need to go to multiple vendors to get pieces of your courses then making changes becomes a nightmare. Keep a repository for all your content and make sure you’re using a tool that enables you to easily update your courses, like Snap! by Lectora.

Anti-Bullying E-Learning // Interview with Pavel Tchourliaev, Kiwi Commons: Innovaters in E-Learning Series

1. What is your name and your relation to e-learning?
My name is Pavel Tchourliaev, and I’m the COO of Kiwi Commons Inc. At Kiwi Commons, we feel that e-learning is essential in educating kids and raising them in a digital world. While we are very aware of the risks that surround the online world, we also feel that emerging technologies, if used responsibly, can be a great learning tool to engage students in the classroom, and an intuitive way to continue their learning at home.

Pavel Tchourliaev

2. In your opinion, what is cyber-bullying?
Cyber-bullying is the use of online technology and social media to deliver deliberate, repeated, and hostile messages and pictures (using e-mail, instant messaging, texting, or sending images via cell phones, blogs, Web pages, and/or chat rooms) by an individual or group with the intent of causing harm to someone.

3. What are common manifestations of cyber-bullying? What does it look like when children engage in it?
The most common way cyber-bullying occurs is through the use of social media where it’s easy to target people. It’s generally done through ridicule, humiliation, spreading rumours and other means that threaten a victim’s reputation and safety. It is arguably more pernicious than schoolyard bullying because it can occur at any time and its young (often anonymous) perpetrators cannot be brought to justice by traditional authority figures like teachers. To the victim’s chagrin, it can persist indefinitely.




4. How can one combat cyber-bullying?
Restricting access to social media sites until children are old enough, can help prevent the early on-set of cyber-bullying problems. ‘Blocking’ itself however, is not a solution. Parents can combat cyber-bullying through communication and education about online issues. Teaching empathy at a young age can help deter children from becoming bullies when they are older. It is also important to have open conversations about kids’ online lives and create an understanding that whatever is said in the digital world can have consequences in “real life.”

5. Are there ways that social media can help children develop empathy and courtesy? How?
Social media is a great way for children to learn what it is like to be in another person’s shoes. It can teach empathy by exposing them to the real issues that their peers might deal with on a regular basis. The lesson that needs to be taught when they come across these issues online is to not be a bystander to bullying. It takes courage to speak up against bullies, but it can make a world of a difference to a person who is being harassed.

6. What is Kiwi Commons?
Kiwi Commons Inc. is an organization dedicated to Internet safety-related topics such as cyberbullying online privacy and gaming addiction. We deliver free seminars in schools through our non-profit division - Kiwi Seminars. Kiwi Filter is a great web filtering tool for parents with kids ages 4 to 11.

Kiwi Commons itself is a blog, with a mission of educating parents and teachers about the risks that surround youth on the Internet so that they are better equipped to educate their own kids. The website also provides resources for both parents and teachers about how to deal with specific issues, hands-on.

7. How does filtering really get at the core issue of bullying? It seems to me that it would take more than simply blocking content. Please explain how you would address cyber-bullying in a more integrated, larger way.
Kiwi Filter goes beyond just blocking content because it works using a whitelist that parents can create themselves. Creation of these safe website lists encourages communication between parents and children about websites they need or want access to. Filtering is also a good deterent for cyber-bullying as it can remove access or reduce time spent on social media websites.



Since bullying is often driven by a victim’s reaction, lack of it can help prevent the escalation of the problem. An understanding of the risks and a responsible online behaviour should be established before children are allowed to use social media sites.

Kiwi provides tools and information necessary for parents to address topics such as bullying, whether they believe their child is being bullied or is a bully. You can view these resources at:
http://kiwicommons.com/resources.php

Interview with Jody Hoff, Federal Reserve Bank: Innovators in E-Learning Series

With all the recent efforts by the U.S. federal government to respond to the ongoing economic challenges, the demand for understanding the role of the Federal Reserve Bank has grown dramatically. In response, the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco (FRBSB) has developed an informative and innovative way to help learners of all levels gain an understanding of the banking crisis of 2008, in addition to ongoing current challenges.

The materials that the FRBSF has developed are appropriate for online and hybrid courses, and would fit in well in portfolios developed for many different subjects, ranging from economics to marketing.

Welcome to an interview with Jody Hoff, Senior Manager at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

1. What is your name, your organization, and your relation to elearning?

a. Jody Hoff, Senior Manager

b. Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco

c. I direct our education efforts for the 12th District which includes nine western states. An important component of our educational strategy leverages elearning approaches to reach our key audiences, including students and educators.

2. What is the Federal Reserve Bank San Francisco (FRBSF) doing in the area of elearning?

a. In the Education group, we are in the process of shifting our strategy to provide content to students and teachers in an electronic format. Examples are the Crisis and Response and What is the Fed? web resources. In addition, we are rolling out a new project called DataPost that will provide a weekly chart/visualization of the economy with a brief explanation of the story behind the data, discussion questions for the classroom, and the actual data set so that students can experiment with their own visualization or chart.

3. What is the mission of the FRBSF's educational outreach? Why? What do you hope to see in the future?

a. Our education mission is to provide meaningful learning opportunities about the Federal Reserve, economics, and the economy.

b. As an institution, the Federal Reserve is charged with implementing monetary policy to promote a healthy economy, job growth, and stable prices. We are committed to providing a variety of opportunities for people to learn about the Federal Reserve and its role in the U. S. economy.

c. The explosive growth in access to technology and information is erasing the traditional split between teachers and students. I recently witnessed two teenagers utilize a YouTube video to complete their algebra homework. They were having trouble remembering the classroom lecture from earlier in the day and rather than dig through the textbook, they pulled up a video on the exact topic, watched it for about 90 seconds and then completed the problem. We view our online resources, like the Crisis & Response site, as offering a self- serve, if you will, source of information and analysis. Our strategy is to support learning in a way that gives the user some control about how to process the information. OurWhat is the Fed? resource follows this model with text, conceptual images, discussion questions, and a monetary policy game called The Fed Chairman Game.

4. You've used a combination of video, animated graphics, and an interesting schema-building instructional strategy that allows learners to move to ever increasing levels of detail and depth. Could you describe how that happens in your site, and why you took that approach?

a. The sites are organized around essential questions and bullet point answers. We wanted to provide a way for the reader to get their arms around the big picture before diving into the specifics of the content. We also wanted to provide a variety of tools for the reader to develop their own meaning about the narrative. We used compelling data and graphs to support the bullet point answers and also created a number of conceptual images to help readers understand unfamiliar terms such as ‘macro-prudential supervision’.

b. Our approach was to frame the issues around essential questions that would tell the story of the economy without completely overwhelming the reader. We wanted to experiment with an approach that didn’t just drop you in the deep end of the pool and hope you could swim. Rather, we wanted to provide an entry point to the story that you could follow to increasing levels of complexity.

5. Cause and effect plays a big role in the fundamental narrative and logic structure of your site and the approach you take. It seems extremely effective and appropriate given the economic crisis and the need to untangle the basic "why's" and "how's" of what occurred. Could you discuss how you settled on which major issues to address?

a. Because of the challenge of synthesizing the complexity of the crisis into a concise, essential question format, our most senior economists wrote the narrative. And, we spent a great deal of time thinking through the story of the crisis and how best to contextualize the issues.

6. What are your plans for the future? Do you have any plans to encourage banks to put in links in their online banking portals? If so, how do you see your role in relation to local banks and also users of banking services?

a. That’s an interesting question. A direction we are exploring for the future is the use of short, immersive video “talks” to quickly and directly pull the viewer into a look at the economy from the perspective of a research economist. Our goal is to share new understanding and insight about economic processes. These efforts are focused primarily on educators, students, and the general public.

7. Please discuss an aspect or two of your philosophy of elearning.

a. My philosophy of learning is based on the constructionist perspective that places the learner at the center of the action. We design content with a specific context and provide tools that support the learner’s efforts to understand and create meaning. Taking that perspective to the elearning environment, we’ve incorporated many of the instructional design principles outlined in Richard Mayer’s Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning. The Crisis and Response site is really all about trying to reduce the cognitive load for the non-expert members of the public, including teachers and students, who want to understand more about the complexity of the financial crisis. Our What is the Fed? resource and upcoming new DataPost project also incorporate these design principles.

Interview with Jill Ambrose, CourseSmart: Innovators in E-Learning Series

E-textbooks and other digital assets have become extremely important in the world of textbooks. The texts are evolving quickly, in both the way that they are delivered and in the kinds of instructional activities, materials, and collaborations that are included.

Welcome to an interview with Jill Ambrose, Chief Marketing Officer at CourseSmart.

1. What is your name and your relation to e-learning?

Jill Ambrose, chief marketing officer at CourseSmart, the world’s largest provider of eTextbooks and digital course materials. CourseSmart believes in anywhere, anytime access of course materials for everyone. Therefore CourseSmart enables and supports access to e-learning.

Jill Ambrose, CourseSmart

2. What are some of the latest trends in e-learning?

I would say the two biggest trends in e-learning right now are the push towards mobile access and learning as well as interactive course materials that improve learning outcomes.

With today’s students being more tech savvy and taking their college learning experiences beyond just the classroom, mobile access to e-learning tools has become increasingly important. CourseSmart has been committed to meeting the growing mobile needs of today’s students, and just this year, we led the industry in mobile innovations by introducing the first eReader app for Android™-based devices which joined our other industry firsts – the iPhone® and iPad® apps, launched in 2009 and 2010, respectively. We also launched an HTML5 single platform reader (another industry first) allowing users to access digital course materials online, offline or on mobile devices. And earlier this summer, CourseSmart launched the industry’s first social commerce tab on Facebook, giving students unprecedented access to eTextbooks through a site where they already spend a lot of their time.

CourseSmart is the only digital course provider that offers eResources from multiple publishers. eResources are highly engaging and interactive learning products that make faculty teaching more effective and student learning more engaging by providing immediate feedback to the student to ensure comprehension of key learnings. eResources include an automated, integrated grading system that provides real-time feedback to ensure comprehension of key learnings by the user.

It’s not just about what’s “fun and interesting” in their eTextbooks, but rather, it’s what truly helps students with learning and ultimately the comprehension of that learning experience.

All eResources are not alike but many include quizzes, tutorials, interactive exercises, videos, links to other websites and the digital text.

3. How have digital textbooks changed over the last 5 years?

First off, the content has not changed. Availability and how you interact with the content is where there have been dramatic increases.

Regarding availability, digital course materials and eTextbooks are now available through multiple channels; online, through some Publishers and the campus bookstore. The sheer volume of the CourseSmart catalog of eTextbooks continues to grow everyday and currently includes more than 20,000 eTextbooks which represents 90% of all core higher education textbooks in use today.

How you interact with the content has also changed. Mobile access is a big shift in the last few years with the increase of smartphone and tablet usage as well as emerging mobile app technology. At CourseSmart alone, almost one third of all users (faculty and students alike) prefer to read their materials on a tablet rather than on a computer. Product features have also improved significantly, as CourseSmart has continued to listen to consumer feedback, adapting our features to meet the changing needs of students. This includes improved highlighting and note-taking functionality, the ability to cut and paste sections of text, email select content to classmates, etc.

4. What do you see as some of the main trends in cloud-based digital texts?

An important element that CourseSmart recognizes in the use of digital texts is the ability to access texts when needed, without limiting storage to only one device or access through multiple devices, as well as creating the ability to synchronize notes and highlights when you are working between computers and devices. This is where the case for cloud-based digital textbooks becomes especially relevant to our customers. The availability and portability of cloud-based applications, such as CourseSmart’s library of eTextbooks and digital course materials, means that students and faculty can access the texts and course materials anytime, anywhere. Access is available from any web-enabled device or through one of CourseSmart’s downloadable apps. Our cloud-based model perfectly fits with the on-the-go lifestyle and need for portability without the burden of carrying around heavy textbooks. Even notes on the texts, if entered within CourseSmart’s interface, are portable!

The cloud-based nature of eTextbooks and digital resources also eliminates the need for costly investments in storage and infrastructure by schools and students to store loads of downloaded materials. While CourseSmart eTextbooks and digital course materials can be accessed offline, they remain stored on the cloud, taking advantage of the efficiency of cloud storage.

5. How well do CourseSmart texts integrate with learning management systems?

They integrate extremely well. CourseSmart is dedicated to providing a streamlined teaching and learning experience for faculty and students. CourseSmart Solutions for instructors and institutions can be fully integrated with various learning management systems like Pearson LearningStudio, Blackboard® and Desire2Learn, allowing instructors and students to access their course materials in their current daily workflow. Current solutions may be found at Arizona State University, University of Michigan and Western Governors University to name a few.

6. (Revised) What kinds of multimedia do you typically bundle with an e-text? Do you have standalone audio (mp3 format) that students can download to their portable devices, or do they have to access the e-text through the CourseSmart portal each time they want to watch a video or listen to an audio podcast?

Publishers determine the content that should be offered as an eTextbook or an eResource. The publisher also determines appropriate content that should be bundled with eTextbooks. There are various forms of multimedia used with titles offered by the publishers. Again, these are determined by the publisher. The types of multimedia selected are based on how well they support the concepts being taught.

All of CourseSmart’s eTextbooks are stored within the cloud and are accessible to students and faculty anytime, anywhere via a Web-enabled device connected to the Internet. At this time, only CourseSmart’s non-multimedia content can be accessed offline.

© 2011 CourseSmart, LLC. All rights reserved. CourseSmart® is a registered trademark of CourseSmart, LLC. All other names may be trademarks of their respective owners.

Interview with Joe Landsberger, Website Study Guides and Strategies

Welcome to an interview with Joe Landsberger, who has put together extensive online study guides and study tools to meet the needs of students everywhere. While courses can be relatively easy to find and OpenCourseWare more prevalent, it is often difficult to find effective study tools, particularly in different languages.

Joe Landsberger:

For the past 16 years, I have researched and authored content, as well as developed and financially supported its Website Study Guides and Strategies. This stemmed from my professional and educational background in assisting learners and developing training modules in a university setting, as well as discovering the educational potential of the Internet back in the early 1990’s. In a chance encounter with an academic support professional at a conference, I discovered that a Website should be a useful tool delivering study strategies in a learning center environment. With publication of those first pages in a Website, I immediately began to receive appreciation from developing countries. A cadre of dedicated volunteer translators and collaborations also emerged to where its resources are translated in 39 languages.

Joe Landsberger

Study Guides and Strategies

Over 250 topics in content have been developed. Some have been developed as part of a logical sequence, some by chance encounters identifying a need, and even a few by request. They include options in learning as types, in the classroom, with others, online; time and project management; test preparation and taking; reading and writing guides. Each Webpage adheres to a similarly bulleted style and format in a consistent design and navigation template, which is of course reversed for right-to-left text as Arabic, Hebrew, and Persian.

Initially the content was verbal without images, but as capabilities progressed more were illustrated. In 2003 Flash was deployed in order to facilitating engagement with content, and over 100 interactive exercises are now online as well. Aside from developing these exercises, another effort toward enhancing the effectiveness of the resource has been made to group, and even sequence topics. One limit to the singular nature of the Website, is that there is no institutional affiliation, which impedes research into determining effectiveness or in terms of outcomes, and also limits my opportunities for funding (while a public service, the organization is not non-profit, just without profit!). However, over 60,000 (educational) institutions link to the site worldwide, and traffic has continued to grow each of its 16 years, currently increasing at 23% in 2011 to over nine million visitors.

Due to the anonymous nature of the Internet, it has been difficult to gauge characteristics of visitors, whether student, teacher, support professional or parent. Alexa.com however presented this profile (December 2010): "Compared with internet averages the site's audience tends to be aged under 25 and 55-65; they are also disproportionately low-income, moderately educated, childless women browsing from school and home." English accounts for about 80% of pages accessed. Interestingly, only about 5% of visitors use handheld/mobile devices.

Approximately 51% of traffic originates in the US, 6% the Philippines, 4% Canada, 3.6% Mexico, 3.5% India. Over the years the international traffic has increased as more guides are translated. One curious source of traffic originated in a developing country. When I inquired from a researcher the reason, he stated that the guides seemed research-based, freely accessible, and that his country did not have the resources either to develop them, or to provide academic support in school settings.

Aside from adding topics, translations, and exercises future projects will respond to advances in technology. Recognizing the limitations of Flash and evolving standards and specifications for web-based e-learning (SCORM), I eagerly await HTML5, as well as other applications and developments in promoting interactivity for the topics and content of the Website.

Currently all 1500 pages of content are being migrated into CSS, with 20 of 39 languages completed. This effort has magnified the limitations of myself as developer. I had to dedicate several months of time not only to assess the next iteration, but also, lacking any collegial environment, teach myself the development and implementation. This last has involved a line-by-line review of not only code, but also the content itself. Foreign languages presented a unique challenge that was remedied by machine translators and Internet searches to verify and optimize text!

Interview with Allen Partridge, Adobe Systems: E-Learning Innovators Series

The iPad is becoming increasingly friendly for any time / any place learning, ranging from K-12 to graduate programs. Welcome to an interview with Dr. Allen Partridge, the eLearning Evangelist for Adobe Systems, who discusses some of the new technologies that make it possible to convert different formats to play on the iPad, including HTML5 and HTML5-enabled Captivate.

1. What is your name and your relation to e-learning?

Dr. Allen Partridge is the eLearning Evangelist for Adobe Systems Inc. In addition to his work for Adobe Systems, he continues to serve on the doctoral faculty in the Communications Media and Instructional Technology program at Indiana University of Pennsylvania. Allen has written several books and a host of articles on topics ranging from 3D game development to Instructional Design for new technologies. He is active in explorations of Immersive Learning as well as traditional multimedia enhanced eLearning and rapid eLearning. Allen works closely with the eLearning Suite and Captivate teams at Adobe, providing a channel to customer needs and concerns and helping facilitate communication among team members.

2. What are some of the exciting new directions you've observed in elearning?

Most of the movement lately has been in the expansion / ease of access to creating great content with limited experience working with software. We’ve been focusing a lot of attention over the past couple of cycles on modernizing Adobe Captivate and the Adobe eLearning Suite to modern standards. Most eLearning online uses Adobe Flash to deliver the content in a web browser played back using the Adobe Flash plugin. About five years ago Adobe made dramatic improvements to Flash technology and adopted a new programming language commonly called AS3 (ActionScript 3). All of Adobe’s eLearning software is now fully AS3 compliant so it all runs better, smoother, and much much faster using the full strength of Flash.

In more recent months we’ve been extending Captivate’s reach on mobile devices. Captivate users can already publish content to Apple iOS using the App Packager that comes with eLearning Suite, but we wanted to add the option to produce HTML5 compatible content easily from a Captivate SWF.

3. Where do you see some of the most innovative uses of tablets (iPad, etc.) in elearning?

We’re offering the HTML5 converter free to the public on Adobe Labs while it is still in development. We feel strongly that this open forum will provide users with a relevant voice as we rollout new features and seek to meet the needs of users for this rapidly growing platform. While for a long time, we saw little statistical evidence that eLearning content was being created for mobile platforms, the introduction of mobile tablets had dramatically altered the playing field for educational content developers. This does a number of things. 1. It creates a strong need for touch based interactions that anticipate the differences between clicking a mouse and touching an application with your fingers. We addressed a lot of those issues with the release of Captivate 5.5 – most notably adding special interactions to quizzes that made it much easier to deliver successful quizzes on mobile devices.

The addition of another export format (HTML5) further extends Captivate’s reach as the industry leader in eLearning authoring. This thing is really pretty cool. You just feed it a Captivate SWF – like an application capture demo, and it spits out HTML5. Then post the HTML file.

4. In the past, the fact that some technologies do not run on iPad operating systems has been a problem. What is being done to address that?

We’ve seen a variety of approaches from various companies. Some rely on third party technologies, others have developed proprietary solutions and some of the companies who had traditionally used older technologies like HTML, found that they could easily support HTML5. Adobe was among the first to offer a robust solution, and was the first to create a Flash to App converter which was released with Adobe Flash Professional CS5. There were however some difficulties, because Apple altered the terms of their developer’s license shortly before the CS5 software was released, and that alteration prevented authors from using the Application Packager from Adobe. Shortly afterward, Apple reversed course, and re-enabled the use of the Packager. So people can use it now, and many do. In fact many large games for iOS devices are Flash games, converted with the App Packager.

5. What is HTML5?

Well that depends on who you ask. Some will tell you it’s a clever marketing campaign. HTML is Hyper Text Markup Language. It’s the standard used by web browsers for the past 20 years to display text and graphics (and sometimes other stuff) on web pages. The number 5 is the version number. HTML5 is not yet complete, none of the browser companies display the content in the same way, or use the same technologies to display that content. So think of it as the next version of the web language. The excitement comes because it will be able to do a lot of interactions and animations, video etc. that weren’t possible before. That said, it’s not at all a silver bullet. It has a lot of limitations, and won’t really effectively replace the kinds of things we see in eLearning today, but we feel it goes far enough that we can do a good job of converting most of the features of Captivate and making it much easier to get rich interactive content created for iOS devices.

6. What are some of the Captivate products, and what are they used for?

Adobe Captivate is a super simple to use eLearning authoring platform. It’s used by more eLearning developer than any other eLearning authoring tool and people love it for creating all kinds of eLearning content. It’s famous for interactive screen / application captures. It also does a great job with PowerPoint conversion, allows authors to easily create custom interactions without any programming, and makes branched projects –like scenario based training simple to pull off.

7. Specifically, what does it mean that Captivate products can now be converted to HTML5?

The converter is an Air Application that takes an Adobe Captivate SWF and exports a web page (HTML) that complies with the HTML5 standard. It has been optimized to perform best on Apple iOS devices including Apple iPhone, iPad & iPod. Especially on iPad, this will give eLearning authors the ability to quickly and effortlessly convert their content into a format that will play in the browser of an iOS device and will not require them to duplicate their efforts, building a separate version from scratch just to accommodate users on iOS devices.

OpenPlan for Film/Literature: Sample Lesson

Incorporating media in an online course is extremely useful, whether it be for a film / literature course, or a course (undergraduate or graduate) that uses movies, television, and other media to illustrate aspects of the content (leadership, business ethics, and history come to ind).

In this post, we look at film and consider it as a part of the OpenPlan series for teaching different topics, subjects, and disciplines online. This OpenPlan is for developing strategis for viewng film.

OpenPlan for Film: Where the Truth Lies (dir. Atom Egoyan, 2005)

Overview / Analysis

If you take the plot alone, or simply analyze the various subplots, you're likely to be very disappointed in Where the Truth Lies (Dir. Atom Egoyan, 2005) about a 1950s comedy duo, Lanny Morris (Kevin Bacon) and Vince Collins (Colin Firth), who broke up at the pinnacle of their success. (Spoiler Alert! This article contains information about the plot.)


However, Egoyan uses the plot to create a complex rendering of perception in the same manner as in his utterly brilliant Exotica (1994).

In Where the Truth Lies, the action begins fifteen years after the duo's breakup when a writer, Karen O'Connor (Alison Lohman), wishes to chronicle their story. We come to find out that the reason for the breakup was the attempt by a young journalism student, Maureen O'Flaherty (Rachel Blanchard), to blackmail them when, during an encounter in a hotel room involving the three of them, the "straight man" of the duo reveals he has been physically attracted to his partner and begins to act on it, only to be rebuffed. Seizing on the information as a way to pay for her future, the budding extortionist stays in their suite that night, just to turn up dead the next morning.


There are many ways to develop the plot, and Egoyan's process is slow and sometimes painful as he unveils each character's defining weaknesses, fears, and desires, which are jarringly discordant with their smooth, polished, often ethereally beautiful surfaces. This is metafictive noir at is finest (and most agonizing for some viewers).

Egoyan is never simply cerebral, and his mise-en-scene suggests perceptions of time present and time past are relentlessly mediated by a body that bridges fantasy and reality. The film moves back and forth from 1957 and 1972, both are gorgeously, impeccably true to the times and the feeling of privilege and glamour. There are noir elements in Egoyan's film, with edgy ambivalence about women and women's physicality: one can be drawn to them, but they will inevitably lead one to one's demise.


It's not too surprising that the tree planted by the mother of the the young femme fatale extortionist who was murdered in the hotel room turns out to be an apple tree, its limbs hanging heavy with bright red apples, ready for Eve's temptations. When the duo attempt to re-enact the "badger game" and pressure the writer to stop writing the memoir by taking photos of her in a compromising situation with a female (supplied by the duo), the effort backfires. Vince commits suicide (in a poetic way) after Karen tells him how she knows he had something to do with the murder.

Egoyan's approach to cinematography is very structural, and all his core shots and scenes are repeated and echoed often in four or five separate scenes in order to build interpretative possibilities that are both complex and undeniable.

The scenes are not perfect echoes of each other, however, and the disconnects and incongruities can frustrate the viewer who craves verisimilitude, while they delight those who welcome a hallucinatory bending of reality in order to tease out the underlying fears and psychological archeoliths -- the "truth" embedded in the lies one tells oneself.

Even texts do not truly represent: while Karen seeks to write the definitive story of the duo, they themselves are writing a "tell all" memoir. Instead of staying together as a full, cohesive text, Karen receives chapters. It is not clear who wrote the chapters, who sent them to her, or even if they are complete. But, even the "truth" in the text they are writing cannot be trusted, and it is never quite clear who is responsible for the writing of it, and then the sending / delivery of it. In a similar way, beingness itself breaks apart, along with attempts at a linear unfolding and narrative denouement. In the fragmented reality, the only remaining touchpoints are emotions and ambition.

In this case, the lies involve the nature of Lanny and Vince's friendship, and their vexed relationship with females, which is masked by their aggressive womanizing. It does not seem too coincidental that all three seducing women (Karen, Maureen, and "Alice") in the film are femmes fatales who physically resemble each other. It is also not too surprising that Karen, who claimed to have overcome polio through force of mind demonstrates a no-holds-barred will to power in her dealings with Lanny and Vince.

Perhaps the most poignant potential message in the film is embodied in Kevin Bacon's performance: all the strength, passion, anger, loyalty, and good fortune in the world do not knit reality into a seamless, understandable fabric.

To use another image to represent Egoyan's approach to narrative, reality, and perception: think of a big, rotating, mirrored ball, where all is fragmented, infinitely repeating and reflecting, but not ever quite knowable, slowly, slowly revolving.

Personal Viewpoint: While this film is not the brilliant Exotica, it contains the elements that made me love Egoyan's directorial vision, and it is well worth watching.

WORKSHEET QUESTIONS (for discussion board and reflective journal)

How to practice "active viewing" while watching films for courses:

1. Camera Work: What types of establishing shots are used? When are they used? What are they followed by?

2. Are there any tight-angle shots? How are they used? Any strange angles?

3. What is the narrative structure? What does it do to the film?

4. When do you see two-shots and tight close-ups? How do they make suggestions about the relationships of the people in the film?

5. How are different times, worlds, or emotional landscapes differentiated from each other? Are there differentiating sets? lighting? colors? How, when, and where? List at least two scenes.

6. What is the basic narrative flow? Jump cuts? Different narrators? Unreliable narrators telling their stories?

7. What do the spaces look like where the protagonists spend their time? Are they open? claustrophobic? elegant? down at the heels?

8. How does the cinematography emphasize certain behaviors that the protagonists engage in. How does the approach suggest a moral value judgement?

9. How do the costumes, soundtrack, and sets contribute to the idea that reality is often nothing more than a hallucination; that the truth is not in the appearance of things or unfolding of events, but in the fears, desires, and taboo attachments that one might have.?

10. Discuss the nature of the memoir that is being written. Who is writing it? Who is sending the chapters? Where? When? To whom? If anything, by fragmenting the text, it suggest fragmentation in the narrative, the lives, and also the explanations...

Moodle 2.0 Multimedia Cookbook: A Review

Packt Publishing's Moodle 2.0 Multimedia Cookbook solves a number of problems that Moodle users often encounter, especially online programs (graduate and undergraduate) that foreground collaborative, interactive learning environments.

The multimedia cookbook addresses two core challenges. The first challenge is that of creating relevent, effective, nicely-sized and ready-to-use multimedia. The other has to do with the integratability of the learning objects.

To step back a moment, let's take a look at Moodle's core contributions to the learning management arena. Moodle's discussion-based approach to learning fosters a dynamic, interactive elearning space, which is one of Moodle's huge drawing points. Another is the fact that it is a friendly environment for incorporating other Open Source embeds and elements. This means that you can plug in, for example, elements you've built with Wordle or smooth slide presentations from Xerte. There are also opportunities to incorporate multimedia elements -- providing, of course, you're able to build the multimedia elements.

One of the frustrating things about using Open Source software is that it often feels that you're constrained to a single template or approach, and it's all too easy to break the template when you try to make alterations. To overcome the limitations, it's tempting to become a template collector, but that is often like hammering pieces from five different jigsaw puzzles together to make a single puzzle.

What is needed is an object-oriented approach that allows you to build and customize objects that fit together seemlessly.

The nice thing about the cookbook approach is that it's completely seamless and it allows you to develop reusable components and building blocks that are unique, customizable, and imminently functional.

Here are my responses to a few of the chapters and their contents.

Chapter 1: Creating Interactive User eXperiences

I like the fact that there are opportunities to learn how to create True and False quizzes and integrate them in Moodle. I'm not a big fan of T-F quizzes, but I suppose they do have their place. There are also mazes and ways to match activities with scenes and opportunities to link external 2D and 3D interactive activities. These are, in essence, mashups (integrated apps). Like all mashups, if one app dies, the whole thing dies, so you might need to proceed with caution.

Chapter 2: Working with 2D and 3D Maps

This chapter gives you a way to use resources like Google maps in a very interactive and meaningful way (far beyond simply linking to a location or embedding a screenshot). Using Google maps to locate European bridges is one example that makes one think of military applications and/or emergency preparedness courses. At any rate, what I like about this chapter is that it encourages the designer to think of ways learners can situate their learning / knowledge.

Chapter 4: Integrating Interactive Documents

The heavy reliance of this chapter on Open Office documents creates a very big caveat in my mind, since Open Office is not always the easiest, most compatible solution for all users. The other caveat I have is that using Google Docs is great for collaboration (and is often used in conjunction with LMS's like the University of Delaware is using Google Docs with Sakai). That said, there are inherent security risks, so be sure to talk to your IT team before jumping into this solution.

Chapter 5: Working with Audio, Sound, Music, and Podcasts

This chapter has great tips for building mp3 files using open source software and also incorporating existing audio. It's a great tool and very useful for people who want to have material they can play on multiple devices and to have a truly mobile solution.

Chapter 6: Creating and Integrating Screencasts and Videos

In the last two years, YouTube has become an incredibly robust solution for creating educational videos which are also compliant with regulations that ask for subtitles and annotations. I'm not sure I'm as convinced about using Dailymotion videos -- I'm not sure how permanent the files are. Like any solution, the more you rely on outside websites, the more likely it is that you'll have to update content and links on a regular basis. That said, these "recipes" are easy to use.

Chapter 9: Designing and Integrating E-portfolios

This chapter brings together many of the learning objects and integrates them under the umbrella of the e-portfolio. I have just one quibble here. While I really like the idea of using Googld Docs for the portfolio, I'm not sure about using a Box.net portfolio. Box.net is not open source, and while there is a free version, it's very light and I'm not sure it's good for the purposes intended. How is it different than, say, adrive.com and other cloud storage options? Rackspace is one that's not free, but trusted.

Interview with Bryce Bertola, Park City Independent; Innovative Education Providers Series

Welcome to an interview with Bryce Bertola, of Park City Independent, an accredited online high school which provides online courses to students who wish to take courses not offered by their local high school. It also offers middle school courses and courses for adults who would like to complete their high school diploma rather than obtaining a GED. One of the benefits of having a bona fide high school diploma is that it enables individuals to go on for a bachelors and then graduate programs.

1. What is your name and your relation to e-learning?

My name is Bryce Bertola and I'm the webmaster for Park City Independent, an accredited online high school. I'm completing my bachelors degree in Information Systems at the University of Utah with a mix of online and traditional classes. I've used a variety of high school and college level e-learning solutions, and have done very well within the virtual classroom setting.

2. What are the new directions in elearning that interest you most?

What interests me most is the increasing access to specialized topics through e-learning, as well as the convenience of a self-paced course schedule. You don't have to have a topic expert within your school district in order to learn about something, instead you can turn to an online provider and it can then be reflected on your transcripts.

Bryce Bertola, Park City Independent

During high school, I desperately wanted to learn about web publishing and design, but there wasn't a teacher on staff that was qualified to teach such a program. Instead I had to learn things the hard way, by myself, through a variety of web based instructional sites. I'm excited at the prospect of a wide array of specialized courses that high school students could earn credit for taking.

3. What are some of the problems in today's world that e-learning can address?

One of the major problems today is the rising cost of higher education. As tuition rates continue to rise, students are getting priced out of the market: Many of them opting to discontinue their education entirely. In addition to an increasingly expensive education, limited access to advanced courses also creates significant barriers. e-Learning is a much more cost-effective method of delivering course content, and there is no limit to the course material an instructor might choose to provide.

4. How has e-learning changed in the last 5 years? How has it improved and where?

People are waking up to the idea that e-learning is a legitimate source of knowledge. 5 years ago, what I saw as the perception of e-learning really downplayed its effectiveness in favor of a hands-on instruction. Since then the vehicles for delivering quality content have improved, and as people gain more exposure to online learning, and more web based educational services come about, that perception has faded away.

5. How are e-learners changing? What are their emerging needs?

It's a tough economy, and many people have a lot on their plate. Todays e-learners are seeking flexibility above and beyond what the traditional classroom can offer, otherwise they wouldn't be able to fit everything into a normal week. With a years-long recovery ahead of us, I think that funding for public education will remain low, and schools are going to be forced to explore more affordable options.

6. What do you think e-learning will look like in 5 years?

I think that in 5 years, e-learning will be a necessary part of a standard high school curriculum, and that colleges will rely on e-learning tools for much of their standardized courses. Not only that, but individual topic experts will start providing their own specialized courses, either through public or private outlets.