The Use of Technology Tools for Distance Learning.

My next task here is to describe and explain the technology tools I selected for the Example 3 (we had a choice of three examples in the Week 3 of the DL course).

The situation: we need to design a safety course for a biodiesel manufacturing plant. It will consist of several modules of step-by-step instructions for safe operation of each piece of heavy machinery on the plant floor. This course has to be asynchronous to make sure all shifts have a chance to train. Additionally, all shift supervisors need a way to make sure the training is successful, and their subordinates can demonstrate their new knowledge.

First of all, we need an LMS for supervisors to track each employee’s engagement and progress. I assume, some kind of certification will be given to those who successfully completed each module or the whole course (depending on how extensive each module will be). At his/her best time, each employee will log in, work on a module, and take a test at the end. Depending on the results of the test, s/he will either do more work on that module or progress to the next one. Because this is a safety course, it is important that employees’ scores on each test are close to 100%, before they can graduate to the next module. The modules can be sequenced from simple to complex machines, if applicable. The machines we are dealing with, most likely belong to the category of machines not requiring extensive troubleshooting training (like computer-controlled machines would). This means, there is a single best safety set of instructions for each machine. We need to write a safety manual for each machine and, to make it easy and engaging, and of have the best learning effect, it has to be presented in multimedia format.

In my opinion, the best approach here will be a mastery training online course, where a learner can log in and continue where s/he stopped the last time. Out of four strategies for organizing online delivery (Simonson, Smaldino, Albright, & Zvacek, 2009), the 2^nd (branched programmed instruction) or 3^rd (hyper-programmed instruction) will be used, depending on whether or not the order of modules is of importance.

A training module I envision will consist of three parts: presentation, practice, and assessment. During presentation, the learners will watch an interactive two-layer animation. A step-by-step presentation of safe manipulation techniques and their effect on schematically drawn machine parts will be the core of each animation piece. Human voice will be used for explaining each step as animation unfolds. Simple interactive manipulations will be possible, such as stopping the animation, going back or skipping forward. A second layer of animation will be the actual photographic representation of the parts involved and their interaction with each other. This will be shown every time a mouse rolls over an animation frame.

The idea of the practice part came to me after I found a similar safety training example online http://www.masterytech.com/demos/g_demo/g_demo.htm .

In this part, the learner will be given choices at each step of operation of each machine. Depending on his/her choice, a different scenario might play out on the screen, until the right choice is made, and the right sequence of events plays out.

During assessment, similar manipulations will happen, plus other types of test items might be given, to make sure the learner is well trained. If the score is unsatisfactory, the learner is taken back to the practice part, to work on particular sections for which s/he gave wrong answers on the test. This goes on until the learner gets the right score. Then the system will allow the learner to progress to the new module.

Other similar animation-based industrial training programs I found here: http://www.etraininginabox.com/_flash/courseware.html. Their instructions consist of presentation, practice (using various interactive exercises), and short assessments (multiple choice or true/false test items) after each short instructional section.

References:

Etraining in a Box. (Producer). (n.d.). Industrial training course demo. [Online]. Retrieved from www.etraininginabox.com/_flash/courseware.html

Mastery. (Producer). (2011). Online training overview. [Online demo]. Retrieved from www.mastery.com

imonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed.) Boston, MA:Pearson.