1. SUMMIT Virtual Labs Project Content Customization Tool
ED106- Bailey, Ryoo, Thompson, Umgelter

2. Contents
Background
Product Characteristics
Learning Analysis
Assessment
Future Opportunity

3. Background
SUMMIT
School of Medicine organization teaching medical and life-science education through innovative information technology through research and curricular project development, involving faculty, students, and research groups

4. Background Virtual Labs Why?
To change the way Biological Sciences are taught
How?
By incorporating web technology with images, interactive multimedia, animations and simulations
Allows students to participate in learning, reinforcing new concepts and ideas, and to explore experimental methodologies in physiology.
Where?
In the classroom and online
Virtual Labs
Why?
Change the way Biological Sciences is taught by incorporating web technology with media rich images, interactive multimedia, animations and simulations
How?
Allows students to actively participate in learning, to reinforce new concepts and ideas, and to explore experimental methodologies in physiology.
Where?
Used in the classroom to enhance lecture as well as online for student exploration

5. Background Virtual Labs
CCT was developed because instructors were not using Virtual Labs as a teaching tool in class
Virtual Labs
Why?
Change the way Biological Sciences is taught by incorporating web technology with media rich images, interactive multimedia, animations and simulations
How?
Allows students to actively participate in learning, to reinforce new concepts and ideas, and to explore experimental methodologies in physiology.
Where?
Used in the classroom to enhance lecture as well as online for student exploration

6. Units: Cardiovascular Cranial Nerves Gastrointestinal Renal
Respiratory
Visual System
Virtual Labs
Why?
Change the way Biological Sciences is taught by incorporating web technology with media rich images, interactive multimedia, animations and simulations
How?
Allows students to actively participate in learning, to reinforce new concepts and ideas, and to explore experimental methodologies in physiology.
Where?
Used in the classroom to enhance lecture as well as online for student exploration

7. Contents
Background
Product Characteristics
Learning Analysis
Assessment
Future Opportunity

8. Product Characteristics
The Problem
Instructors need to customize VL content in order to integrate it into their curriculum and effectively meet students’ needs
Learning/Instructional Usability Problem
The learning problem, or alternatively, the instructional usability problem identified by the client and addressed by CCT concerns the ostensible difficulty instructors have in integrating VL Library content with their curricula. Without CCT, VL’s design does not permit instructors to select and organize content to fit their particular instructional needs for a course. It is therefore unclear to instructors how to effectively use VL with their curricula. These conditions, consequently, have resulted in minimal adoption of VL for classroom use by instructors.

9. Product Characteristics
Basic Idea
Enables instructors to customize the configuration of fixed animated lessons and their constituents from VL Library Content to facilitate its integration with instructor materials and curricula.
Audience / Environment
Instructors
Students
Office, school, home
Learning Goals
Understand what VL content is available
Understand how to use VL content for instruction
Basic Idea
Interactive tool that enables instructors to customize the configuration of fixed (read-only), interactive lessons and their constituents from VL Library Content to facilitate its integration with instructor materials and curricula. (NOTE: CCT permits the customization of the textual and hierarchical representations of VL units but not of the content of the units themselves)
Audience / Environment
CCT - Instructors needing to customize VL Library Content for their curricula
VL Library Content - Students taking undergraduate-level physiology courses
Office, school, home, or wherever internet connectivity available
Architecture
Instructor sees initial HTML-based page which allows them to either enter the VL Library or CCT tool
Student enters the content pages directly to customized material the instructor has set up
CCT launches pop-up window with Shockwave file. Window takes up 60% of screen and is not re-sizeable
Learning Goals
1. For instructors to understand how to use VL visual content as a part of their instruction

10. Product Characteristics
Demo
Key Features
VL Library Units (drop-down)
VL Library Unit Item List (window)
View Selected Page (button)
Your Units (drop-down)
Your Unit Item List (window)
Preview Your Unit (button)
Add
Remove
Undo
Add Header
Adjust Entry
Revert
Save

11. Contents
Background
Product Characteristics
Learning Analysis
Assessment
Future Opportunity

12. Learning Analysis
Fostering Learning
Although CCT was not designed as a learning tool per se but as an instructional design tool, learning occurs nonetheless. And it is how learning occurs through use of CCT, whether intended or unintended, conscious or unconscious, that will now be considered

13. Learning Analysis Fostering Learning CCT Capabilities:
Interface enables flexible view of and interaction with VL Library Content
“Display” tools provide visual representations of VL Library Content
“Action” tools facilitate dynamic interaction with VL Library Content
CCT’s capabilities:
Interface enables learner to view hierarchical text representation of the complete VL library in one panel and simultaneously create from this a customized program of units (i.e., a course) in an adjacent panel.
“Display” customization tools (‘View Selected Page in Library’ and ‘Course preview’) enable learner to access visual representations of VL Library Content and created courses at several hierarchical levels.
“Action” customization tools (‘Add>’, ‘Remove’, and ‘Adjust Entry’) allow a dynamic interaction with the palette of library content. Learner interacts with, constructs, and reconstructs VL Library content in the course creation process.

14. Learning Analysis Fostering Learning Capabilities foster learning by:
Stimulating an increasingly mature, informed practice of course conceptualization and creation
Enhancing the user’s mental modeling and integration of VL Library Content with the user’s established and projected curricular models
Enabling users to experiment with content and test hypotheses to determine the optimum configuration of VL content for courses
Facilitating user understanding of how to optimize VL for instructional use and curricular development
Elevating user motivation to utilize VL and CCT
These capabilities foster learning by:
Projecting VL Library Content at different levels of abstraction leading toward an increasingly mature, informed practice of course conceptualization and creation
Enhancing the user’s mental modeling and integration of VL Library Content with the user’s established and projected curricular models
Enabling users to experiment with content and test hypotheses to determine the optimum configuration of VL content for courses
Facilitating user understanding of how to optimize VL for instructional use and curricular development
Elevating user motivation to utilize VL and CCT

15. Learning Analysis Theory Cognitive
Development, synthesis, and application of mental models
“Interactive environments for construction of understanding” (Greeno et al., 1996).
There are a number of theoretical approaches that implicitly justify CCT’s design. These approaches inform different aspects of CCT’s design with varying degrees of emphasis.
Cognitive
Emphasis on the development, synthesis, and application of mental models, or schema, within the domain of physiology in the creation of a course from VL Library content.
CCT used to create “Interactive environments for construction of understanding” (Greeno et al., 1996). Environments are “organized to foster students’ constructing understanding of concepts and principles through problem solving and reasoning in activities that engage students’ interest and use of initial understandings and their general reasoning and problem-solving abilities” (ibid).

16. Learning Analysis Theory Constructivist
High degree of learner autonomy
Open software design
Constructivist
High degree of learner autonomy in forming, elaborating, and testing candidate mental structures (i.e., course, unit, and constituent configurations) until a satisfactory one emerges (Perkins, 1991).
Open software design, devoid of content prior to interaction, serves as a “shell” primed for adaptation to user’s intended application (Language Development & Hypermedia Group, 1992).

17. Learning Analysis Theory Situative
Learning through interaction with technological system in target learning environment
Knowledge developed in context of meaningful activity
By approaching the facilitation of learning (i.e., content customization) through interaction with a technological system (i.e., CCT) that is immersed in the target learning environment, CCT suggests a situative learning environment design (Greeno et al., 1996).
Learning in context. Knowledge developed in context of meaningful activity. Knowledge develops and changes with the activity of the learner. “Learning is a continuous process resulting from acting in situations (Brown et at., 1989)

18. Contents
Background
Product Characteristics
Learning Analysis
Assessment
Future Opportunity

19. Assessment
In order to assess CCT’s value, each feature was mapped back to the needs of the user, using a “House of Quality” analysis

20. Assessment
First, we identified the user’s major needs

21. Assessment
Then we matched CCT features to these needs

22. Assessment
Then we evaluated each feature based on three criteria

23. Assessment Then we evaluated each feature based on three criteria
Scores are based on how well each feature meets the overall set of user needs
Effective Features:
Complete and flexible text-based representations of (a) VL Library and (b) user’s Customized Course in two panels.
Customization tools:
Actions: VL Library: 1. ‘Add’. 2. ‘Remove’. 3. ‘Undo’. 4. Save 5. Revert.  My Course Level: 1. Renaming unit. 2. Adding new unit. 3. Removing unit. 4. Adding header. 5. ‘Adjust Entry’ – reposition course items in hierarchy.
“Action” tools- enable learners to interact with, construct, and reconstruct VL Library content in the course creation process.  Through experimentation, learner able to reorder and prioritize the content to determine optimum configuration.
Displays: 1. Box below menu items - shows a short description of each page contents (what concepts are on each page). 2. ‘View selected page in library’ - shows the contents selected menu item in the other window. 3. Course preview – shows manipulable customized course contents in another window with ‘student view’.
“Display” tools- enable learners to see visual representations of VL Library at many hierarchical levels. Facilitates the development of relevant mental models at different levels of abstraction towards an increasingly mature practice of creation
Course archiving (future function)

24. Assessment Strengths Ability to see entire tool on one screen
Visual, hierarchical representation of the VL Library
No redundant or extraneous features

25. Assessment Challenges No guidelines for users
Not enough intended features
No constraints

26. Contents
Background
Product Characteristics
Learning Analysis
Assessment
Future Opportunity

27. Future Opportunity
Moving forward we intend to investigate areas that we suggest the designers reconsider in pursuit of a more effective solution

28. Future Opportunity Reconsiderations
Organizational functionality provides too few constraints and is neither efficient nor intuitive
Nomenclature is redundant causing confusion
Preview feature requires multiple pages and obscures view

29. Future Opportunity Reconsiderations Learning Problem Solution
Assumptions
Implications