EdMedia
- Technology solutions for Marketing, Training & Education Action Research Proposal
1. Area of Focus:
The purpose of this study is to investigate what
happens when we move the delivery of a 40-hour professional development
workshop from a face-to-face delivery model to an online format.
The Introduction to Macromedia Breeze is a 40-hour hands-on face-to-face institute
that is offered to teachers and staff development providers through the Santa
Clara County Office of Education. The content of the institute includes modules
covering the following topics: Overview of Macromedia Breeze, Instructional
Design 101, Script writing for Voice Over Narration, Effective Presentations,
Setting up a Digital Recording Studio, Recording High Quality Audio, Advanced
PowerPoint - Branching Techniques, Using the Breeze Plugin, and Publishing
to Macromedia Breeze. Participants go through a series of learning activities
combined with hands-on work in the lab. The deliverable product that is created
as a result of the workshop, is a high quality, instructionally sound, Breeze
presentation.
The Introduction to Macromedia Breeze institute will be converted to an online
asynchronous delivery mode in order to make it more accessible to teachers
and staff development providers who are working full time and need more flexible
access to the instruction. In addition, audio and multimedia enhancements will
be made to the instructional content of the course. This study will examine
the impact of the online course and the audio/multimedia enhancements on the
instructional outcomes and perceptions of the participants.
2. Research Question(s):
The goals for this innovation are to improve
both the quality and the accessibility of the staff development program
by providing it online and by the addition of audio enhanced and multimedia
presentations of instructional content. The research questions to be
investigated include:
- What happens when we move the delivery of a 40-hour Introduction to Macromedia Breeze staff development workshop from face-to-face to an online version?
- Is the online workshop as effective as the face-to-face version?
- Can the online workshop be delivered effectively in an asynchronous format?
- What is the perception of the teacher participants in the online workshop with regard to the quality of the online instruction, its effectiveness, and its accessibility?
- What are the participant perceptions about the audio/multimedia enhancements to the workshop? Did they enhance the instructional effectiveness? Were they more useful than the instruction comprised of only text and graphics? Was it more engaging?
3. Description of the Innovation:
An online version of the face-to-face
institute will be developed using a variety of technologies and online
learning strategies. Modules will be created for the major content areas
that will include:
- Instructional Design 101 - Applying Instructional Design Principles to Instructional Presentations
- Script writing - Writing Words for the Ear
- Effective PowerPoint Presentations
- Setting up a Portable Digital Recording Studio
- Recording High Quality Audio for Voice Over Narration
- Advanced PowerPoint - Branching, Linking, and Learner Interfaces
- Using the Breeze Plugin
- Quizzes & Surveys in Breeze
- Publishing Breeze Presentations
Each module will include the use of an advanced organizer. Learning activities will include viewing Breeze Presentations, Flash software tutorials, reading articles, practicing in PowerPoint and Breeze, and possibly responding to questions on an online discussion board.
The deliverable product that participants will create
is a PowerPoint presentation that provides instruction or information
that would be useful to them in their locus of control. The presentation
will be published to Breeze and will include a navigation scheme and
an audio voice over narration.
Current Status:
The current status of the Introduction to Macromedia Breeze training is that
it is offered only in 40 hour face-to-face workshops in a computer lab at our
County Office of Education. It is difficult for teachers and others to get
days off from their school sites to attend the face-to-face training. They
would like to be able to receive the training in a more flexible model and
have expressed interest in taking the training online if it was available.
Participant View:
Our office is interested in providing to our teachers access to our Macromedia
Breeze technology so that they may begin creating Breeze presentations. Before
a teacher or staff development provider receives a Breeze account on our server,
they must go through our 40-hour training program. As most of our participants
are full time teachers, attending a weeklong training program during the school
year is almost impossible. Teachers have expressed interest in obtaining access
to our Breeze technology, but they can't get released from their schools to
attend the raining. They have asked if they can take the training online and
submit a portfolio that demonstrates their knowledge and ability in creating
Breeze presentations.
If our office could achieve the same results from an online Introduction to
Macromedia Breeze workshop that we do in our F2F training, we could train a
larger number of teachers without the need for them to attend our face to face
training. There also may be learning activities that we can provide using technology
and teaching at a distance more effectively than in our F2F training sessions.
We are also interested in pursuing a train-the-trainer model where we can provide
the training curriculum online and support other trainers using it a their
local schools with some face-to-face components.
4. Annotated Bibliography (See attached)
- eLearning Resources
- Multimedia Resources
5. Study Participants:
The population to be studied includes teachers
and professional development providers/trainers that will be receiving
training in how to develop instructional presentations using PowerPoint
and Macromedia Breeze technology. These could be classroom teachers interested
in learning to use Macromedia Breeze technology or staff development
providers who will use the Breeze technology to create online staff development
resources and presentations. Principles might also be interested in learning
to use this technology as a way to increase school to home/community
communication through the use of technology.
Prerequisite Skills: Participants will have a basic understanding and skill
set with PowerPoint.
6. Negotiations for the Study:
The following will be needed:
- Locate and enroll study participants - teachers interested in taking the online course
- Since the course is going to offered online, I won't need to arrange for any physical facilities.
7. Timeline:
| Date | Activities |
| November '04- January '05 | Perform Literature Review |
| December '04 - June '05 | |
| January '05 to June '05 | Advertise, market the online opportunity to prospective participants |
| March '05 | Develop pre-course survey and data collection tools |
| May '05 | Enroll participants in online course and conduct pre-course participant surveys |
| June '05- July '05 | Conduct the online course over a 6-8 week period |
| July '05 | Conduct post-course participant survey |
| August '05 | Final data collection, examine participant deliverables. |
| August '05 - September '05 | Analyze Data and write report |
8. Statement of
Required Resources:
The resources that will be required to develop the online course and conduct
the study include:
- Server space on a web server
- Web page development applications such as Dreamweaver or GoLive
- PowerPoint and other presentation and multimedia development applications and equipment such as microphones, mixers, studio access, RoboDemo, Breeze and Flash.
- Graphics programs such as Fireworks or Photoshop
- Database survey application for data collection
- Optional: A threaded discussion application such as CF Forum or UBThreads.
- Optional: A learning management system such as Blackboard or WebCT
- Participants
9. Data Collection Methods:
Prior to beginning the online course, participants
will be surveyed about their knowledge and perceptions about the course
content. This would include questions about the topics to be covered
in the course including instructional design, script writing, recording
digital audio, effective presentations, advanced PowerPoint skills,
and Macromedia Breeze. Participants will also be surveyed about their
perceptions about online courses and the value of audio/multimedia
enhancements to the course. Participants may keep an online journal
documenting their thoughts, frustrations, and reflections, about the
online experience.
At the conclusion of the online course, participants
will be surveyed again on the same topics. The deliverable products created
by participants in the online course will be scored according to a presentation
rubric and will be compared to those created by participants attending
the face-to-face versions of the course.(Detailed
Data Collection Plan)
10. Trustworthiness:
In order to ensure the trustworthiness of the
action research, data will be gathered through multiple measures. A
pre-assessment survey will be conducted with the online course participants.
Participants will keep an online journal reflecting on their experience.
The researcher will document the process during the development and
will keep a journal during the implementation of the online course.
The researcher will dialog with participants during the process. External
observers will document their notes about the student postings on the
discussion board and the course in general. Rubrics will be developed
to evaluate the quality of the participant presentation that are created
during the course.
11. Validity:
Guba's Criteria for Validity framework will be
utilized to ensure research validity. Components from other frameworks
may also be used.
- Credibility - The online course will be offered over 6-8 week period. Data will be conducted before, during and after the study. While this is not an extended period of time, the research will be conducted over the life of the course.
- Transferability - The data collected from this online course will be documented and if it applies to other online courses, the lessons learned from this study can be applied in other online contexts. The context of this study will be documented and provided along with the data.
- Dependability - Data will be collected in at least two or more formats: online surveys, and participant journals. In addition, external observers will be used to observe and provide additional data. The data collection process will be well documented including examples of the surveys, etc. so that it may be replicated.
- Confirmability - Triangulation will be used. Data will be collected at multiple times and from multiple sources. Any researcher perceptions and biases will be identified and documented along with the data results. The raw data will be documented as well as the interpretations of the data.
- Democratic Validity (Anderson) - Participant perspectives about the online course, its effectiveness, accessibility and their overall impressions as well as suggestions for improving the course will be collected and documented in the research.
- Seek Feedback (Wolcott) - Feedback will be sought before, during, and after the study from external observers, university faculty, participants in the F2F version of the course.
