Task 10. New Interactive Environments - Putting Activity Theory Into Practice

PLENK2010 and NIE compared with the help of activity theory.

PLENK2010 is a course which provides the learner a variety of tools to choose from in order to create their own content and define the content of the course rather than use materials provided by the facilitators. The course operates online and meetings between the students and facilitators take place via Elluminate live sessions. The course aims at creating a joined knowledge base on personal learning environments without forcing the students to take part in every single task that is not relevant to the learners - the latter have to select appropriate content for themselves.


Activity Theory in this case is applied the following way:
The subject of the course is the student or the student base, which is quite numerous. The subjects come from different countries and do not have to be necessarily university students.
The object of the course is the knowledge base that both the students and the facilitators provide.
The tools provided by the facilitators and the students are the following:

• course forum on Moodle
• Daily Newsletter
• RSS-feed
• Elluminate Live Chat (for discussion and weekly review)
• course wiki 
• course blog
• students' blogs
• students' twitter accounts
• delicious bookmarks
• video 
• etc.

The rules are set up by the facilitators and do not bound the subjects to the course very strictly, although they are assumed to participate with their own knowledge base. There are also dates provided for online meetings and feedback.
The community is set up by 4 facilitators, the learner base (different countries/age groups/interests, etc), and the online environment with its various tools and help.
Division of labour is divided between different parties and can be understood clearly from the website.


NIE is a course which provides the learner a lesser variety of tools from the previous course, and gives certain tasks in order to get feedback from the students. The course operates online through the course blog and the facilitators' tasks, and also a few live sessions which take place via Flashmeeting. The course aims at providing knowledge to students who in turn raise questions and analyze/criticize the topics provided by the facilitators. This is also a fully online course, similarly to the previous course.


Activity Theory in this case is applied the following way:

The subject of the course is the student or the student base, which is less numerous than the previous course's. The subjects are the students from TLU, and can be also other interested people.
The object of the course is the knowledge base that both the students and the facilitators provide.
The tools provided by the facilitators and the students are the following:

• course blog
• student's blogs
• Wikiversity page
• Doodle for scheduling
• Flashmeeting online chat
• EduFeedr for monitoring
• etc.

As you can see there are less tools than PLENK has.

The rules are set up by the facilitators and do bound the subjects to the course very strictly, a few mishaps are allowed. This is quite different from PLENK.
The community is set up by 2 facilitators, the learner base (different countries/age groups/interests, etc), and the online environment with its various tools and help.
Division of labour is divided between different parties and can be understood clearly.

Main differences between the two courses are:

• the number of subjects
• the number of facilitators
• the number of tools
• rules differ in the sense of strictness

Drawbacks concerning the activity theory applied to the two courses

First it was difficult to understand how to position the courses into activity systems, but digging into the article helped me since my previous task was left undone. I think the clear system was a great help for understanding how to classify the course information into the components of the theory. I used Figure 4: Activity System for e-commerce, which was provided in the article "An activity-theory-based model to analyse Web application requirements" by Uden, L., Valderas, P. & Pastor, O. (2008).

Õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud. Tehnoloogiad ja standardid.

Selge on see, et standardeid on vaja igasuguste seadmete ja rakenduste toimimiseks mitmetes keskkondades, mistõttu neid aretataksegi.

Meelde jäi tõetera, et tihtipeale kestab standardite arendamine kauem kui arvatakse, kuid neist on ka kasu. Mulle tuli SCORM tuttava sisupaketina ette, kuid lähemalt ma seda uurinud ei olnud.

Nii palju kui mina aru sain, sobivad mulle kõige lihtsamad standardid, mis on avatud õpiobjektide puhul kasutatavad (metaandmed, voogedastus jne).

Õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud. Õpivõrgustik

• Koosta enda jaoks raamistik, mille põhjal erinevaid õpivõrgustikke saaks võrrelda (s.t. näitajad, mille alusel kahte võrgustikku võrrelda)
• Uuri natuke lähemalt seda “õpivõrgustikku”  ja võrdle seda meie kursusega kui ühte võimalikku õpivõrgustikku.

Nagu paljud kaasõpilased on arutlenud, arvan ka mina, et õpivõrgustik on omamoodi sotsiaalne võrgustik, mis keskendub ühe eriala/aine/huvitava teema õppimisele.
Minu kriteeriumid õpivõrgustikule on järgnevad:
Juht (õppejõud, mentor, õpetaja) - võib olla, aga ei pea olema. Tema roll pigem sekundaarne, tegevuste suunamine.
Inimressurss, kes moodustab õpivõrgustiku. Minu nägemuse järgi on see õpilased või üliõpilased, kes õpivad samal kursusel või sama ainet, nemad moodustavad omaette võrgustiku. Sinna võrgustikku kuulub kindlasti ka mentor.
Keskkond, milles õppetöö toimub. Selleks võib olla ükskõik milline paik, ei pea tingimata klassiruumidesse surutud olema. Abiks interaktiivsed vahendid, mis hõlbustavad erinevates paikades elavate (üli)õpilaste õppimisvõimalusi.
Veebikeskkonnad - suletud/avatud. Õppetöö toimub veebikeskkonnas, mida on võimalik jälgida. Selleks võib olla suletud keskkond, nagu WebCT, Elgg, IVA vms, aga ka avatud, õpilase enda valitud keskkonnad (blogid, wikid, veebilehed). Avatud veebikeskkonna eeliseks on kasutatavus ka väljaspool (üli)kooli, mis toob uusi huvilisi ja uusi ideid. Keskkonnas alustab tööd kõigepealt mentor, kes annab õpilastele ülesandeid ning tagasisidet. Õpilased reflekteerivad või koostavad ise õppematerjale kursuse tulemusena.
Taoline veebipõhine keskkond peaks olema arenemisvõimeline ning sisaldama uuendatud informatsiooni.

 PLENK 2010 ja Õpikeskkonnad ja Õpivõrgustikud võrdlus.

Teema - mõlemal kursusel sarnane temaatika.
Inimressurss - PLENK 2010 hõlmab suuremat seltskonda kui opikeskkonnad.
Kättesaadavus - mõlemad keskkonnad on veebipõhised, võimalik ligipääs erinevatest maailma paikadest. Eestikeelse kursuse osaks on ka ülikoolis kohal käimise.
Veebikeskkond - mõlemal juhul avatud keskkond, esimese kursuse puhul võimalik sisselogimine.
Ressursid - Esimesel juhul erineb kursus selle poolest, et osalejad suhtlevad iganädalaselt veebis ning üldjuhul kirjutatakse foorumisse. Teisel kursusel on oluline ka inimeste nägemine vähemalt kord kuus ning blogide pidamine.

Generative Content Creation. Critical Review - Geoffrey Rockwell and Andrew Mactavish "A Companion to Digital Humanities", paragraph 10 - "Multimedia"

The paragraphs go through the definition of multimedia from different points of view in order to reach some kind of a conclusion what multimedia really is. As the conclusion defines, there are two ways of considering multimedia:

• to think about multimedia through definitions, histories, examples, and theoretical problems;
• to use multimedia to think and to communicate thought.

Multimedia is described by quite a lot of people who strive to get a clear definition for the term. Reading through various materials I understood that history has its critical part in forming different concepts, as well as different names were given for media generated for computers. Rockwell and Mactavish (2004) name some of the terms, such as new media, digital media, hypermedia, multimedia. Having known that such names exist, I had also wondered what the difference was between these terms, which brings us to definitions.
The authors explain that the term new media stresses works that are different from the existing forms of entertainment, or works that are not necessarily digital, but are new to the 20th century.
Hypermedia refers to the labyrinth of information that is accessible through hypertext, which links and makes a connection between different texts (but is not used within some types of games). All of the names refer to a different cluster of multimedia, but seems that the authors agree that the most important term integrating all the above-mentioned names is still multimedia.


The authors have taken several definitions from different sources, which they divide into different categories in order to analyze the term "multimedia":

1. Computer-based - a multimedia work is a digital work that is accessed or created through a computer;
2. Rhetorical artifact - multimedia work is a work of human expression, designed to convince, delight, or instruct the classical sense of rhetoric;
3. Multiple media - combnes different media and different traditions of production and distribution;
4. Integrated ... artistic whole - we treat multimedia as unified works that are intended by their creator to be experienced as a whole;
5. Interactive - interactivity becomes a defining feature that helps weave multiplicity into a whole.

Bolter and Grusin (1999) suggest that multimedia works are a new way of expression, but remediated forms of existing genres of expression. This is true, because quite a lot of information nowadays comes from the existing genres or works. Neveertheless, this fact is not crucial for multimedia production, because it is still in a new "package", presented differently from the old examples.

As it seems that the authors like classifying, the next one would be types of multimedia:

• Web hypermedia
• Computer games
• Digital art
• Multimedia encyclopedia

The last category came to me as a new one, because one would think that the latter included all multimedia elements: hypertext, (still) images, video, etc., but the authors explain that this is an extension of the print genre, but to my mind this is unsuitable for the classification, because it already includes some of the previously mentioned types.
They also browse the development of the term through different categories like:

• Numbers and text - the first IBM's "word processor" was launched in 1964, and by the end of 1970s personal computers already had primitive word processing programs that allowed printing and editing;
• Images - Apple Macintosh (released in 1984) was designed to handle graphics, that is why it came with programs such as "MacPaint", a mouse for painting, and a graphical user interface. These images soon had capabilities to be pasted into other documents, etc;
• Desktop publishing - together with printing and page making low-end publishing was made possible. These features evolved and soon Adobe PhotoShop enabled designers to publish more detailed publications. The authors say that this category is the precursor to multimedia;
• Authoring environments - having practised with desktop publishing tools, designers were already familiar with implementing these environments into their work. 1987 HyperCard was released by Apple, people were able to create simple animations with simple interactivity. This program based on hypertext, but also had a more difficult programming language which enabled to control other devices (audio-, CD-, videodisk players);
• Sound - during 1980s - 1990s simple sound capabilities were developed;
• Digital video - as it put a great stress on computers, some great works were still made, like the Aspen Movie Map (1978), which combined pictures in order to make the user to wonder through Aspen. The release of different video standards made it possible to manage video in digital form;
• Virtual space and beyond - In 1990s cyberspace was mentioned, which seemed as a new frontier for multimedia computing. This involved a person and technology through which it would have been possible to enter digital reality. 

These categories seem quite reasonable in order to browse through multimedia history, though are not quite thorough. There is much more history to multimedia, but other landmarks of history were greatly displayed in the other reading tasks given by the lecturer Rui Torres (e.g. Packer, Randall, and Ken Jordan. 2002. Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality, Manovich, Lev. 2001. The Language of New Media).

The last category researched by the authors is theoretical approaches considering multimedia, which involves best practices, game criticism and interactivity, and theories and histories of multimedia. The above-mentioned issues are  necessary to study the base for multimedia including other sciences in order to think about different concepts forming multimedia.

Finally the authors suggest that scholars of multimedia should take seriously the challenge of creating multimedia as a way of thinking about multimedia and attempt to create exemplary works of multimedia in the traditions.

Task seven. My Understanding of Interactivity.

Introduction

To begin with, my naïve assumption was that interactivity is something that moves around things - for example, when a person communicates with someone (or something), or when a computer program reacts to a person's touch or voice, it interacts. But as the previous articles clearly pointed out, there are more dimensions to the term than anyone could expect. What I gather from the papers, interactivity is a term that is in constant motion and improvement, so that it could be rephrased in every 5-10 years. As Kiousis quoted Jensen, it means that the two authors have already proved that it is possible to modify the term and as it is in constant alteration. The best blog I found about the question in mind is probably this one - "What is Interactivity anyway?" which perhaps unintentionally or intentionally is left blank - to everyone's own imagination (it could also be the name of the blog which seems like a post without words).

In Search of My Own Term for Interactivity

According to different sources mostly the definition of interactivity comes down to the notion of a person and computer interacting together. As communication between people has become less popular with new media's rise it is quite obvious why interactivity as a term cannot find its rest and is in constant self-search, because new media as a term is in continuous change since we do not know when.
The technology used back when the above-mentioned authors wrote their articles, was quite old and in the state of improvement, like CD-s, DVD-s, VHS cassettes, even tapes which are annoying to use nowadays. Media presentation has moved to web and there is almost no need to carry any artefacts (just in case when the Internet would not work there is a need for backup). The Internet was discovered and put into use, constantly being improved and updated. Html has changed to different programming languages, which now enables us to store our files anywhere in the "cloud" (also more available storage space and cheaper Internet connections have helped) and present them from there.
Interactivity has changed from animated gif-s to touch screens and hyperlinks to pop-up picture galleries and interactive text. People carry their interactive devices with them throughout the day and it is possible to interact with the help of machines all day long.
As I pondered on in my thoughts, I came up with the fact Google Image Search is full of static images which can turn interactive while looking at them because of people's eye traits, which means that even a non-interactive image can be transformed into an interactive one with the help of a person himself. Thus it is necessary to have at least one person and his/her imagination to be able to create interactivity, and Kiousis was correct to have added the psychological part into the discussion.

Conclusion

I do not mean to be trivial, but as far as new media is concerned, it is possible to say that interactivity is in search of its definition since peoples' imagination can come up with different solutions to improve the interactive experience of a person with the help of technology. The dimensions can grow in various directions since even Web 2.0 is changing into Web 3.0 - a semantic web. We do not exactly know what is happening in 10 or 30 years' time, so it is interesting to see what can happen to the term of interactivity in the sense of computer interaction with a person.

Sources

1. Wikipedia definitions on Interactivity
2. Whatis.com definition of Interactivity
3. Svanaes, D. (2000). Understanding interactivity - steps to a phenomenology of human-computer interaction. 
4. Nathan Sheldroff's World - What is Interactivity anyway?

Õpikeskkonnad ja õpivõrgustikud. Personaalne õpikeskkond.

Magistriõpingute alguses meeldis mulle väga, et enamus õppejõude opereerib avatud õpikeskkonnas. Tõele au andes ei ole ma vajanud väga sisselogimist, et oma õppematerjale presenteerida. Mulle tundub, et enamus sisselogimisi on siiski htk projektide raames valminud keskkondade testimisega seoses ning ka neid oleks saanud läbi viia avatud õpikeskkondades.

Sotsiaalse meedia roll minu õppetöös on märkimisväärne, kuid kogu kupatust ei ole ma kokku võtnud  mitte sotsiaalsesse järjehoidjasse ega ka vooagregaatorisse, pigem eelistan seda oma läptopist brauseri tööriistaribalt jälgida. On olemas küll Google'i vooagregaator, kuid seda ma unustan jälgida.

Põhiosa õppetööst toimub minu õpiblogis blogspot.com-i abil. Blogidel on üldse suur roll IMKE magistriõpingus, kuna rühmatööd on samuti koondatud blogidesse (kas wordpress või blogger, eelistatakse kahte varianti). Samuti kasutavad õppejõud oma blogisid õppeülesannete edastamiseks või tagasiside andmiseks.
Teine variant õppejõudude poolt on olnud wikiversity beta versioon, mis on samuti avatud õpikeskkond ning kuhu saavad liituda ka väljaspoolt tulnud õpilased, kes on huvitatud teadmiste saamisest.

Otsingusüsteeminan kasutan Google Scholarit ja tavalist Googlet, samuti erinevaid veebiallikaid, sh. materjale (pdf, doc, html, jne). Samuti ei saa mööda vaadata Youtubest Vimeost ja muudest video vaatamise allikatest, mis sisaldavad erinevaid häid õpetusi. Neid vahendeid saab vistutada ühtlasi ka blogisse.
Vistutamisega seoses tuleb meelde ka esitluste "pilv" SlideShare ja dokumendi"pilv" Scribd, kuhu on nii mõnigi vajalik materjal salvestatud või mida on õppejõu poolt soovitatud. Ühisdokumentide tegemiseks oleme eelistanud grupitööna Google docs keskkonda, samuti erinevate vormide koostamiseks. Need kõik on sotsiaalsed vahendid, mis võimaldavad kasutajatevahelist kommunikatsiooni.

Kommunikatsioonile edasi minnes on kaks põhilist vahendit skype ja msn, mida kursuse raames kasutatakse kas koolikaaslastega suhtlemiseks või probleemide lahendamiseks. Samuti eelistan vajadusel kasutada veebipõhist meebo.com suhtluskeskkonda, kuhu saab integreerida nii msni, skype kui ka facebooki ja muude keskkondade suhtlusvidinad. Otse loomulikult on kasutusse läinud ka tavaline mobiiltelefon, kui arvutit ei ole läheduses.

IMKE kusustesiseseks keskkonnaks on oma loodud wiki pbworksis, mille haldamine lükkub ideaalis põlvest-põlve edasi. See sisaldab vajalikke lugemismaterjale ning erinevat kursuste infot, sh. keskkondi, viiteid ja muud olulist. Ei või unustada ka kursusekaaslaste andmeid (nimi, meiliaadress jm). Keskkond on kinnine, et andmed lihtsalt ei lekiks ning sissepääs ainult administraatori loaga. Kursuse suhtlus toimub skypes, wiki foorumi vidin Nabble'st ei toiminud nii hästi kui oleks  lootnud.
Ainete planeerimise kalender on Google Calendari hallata, mis toob mugavalt kogu toimuva info arvutiekraanile.
Samuti on kasutuses Facebooki IMKE kommuun, kuhu saab erinevaid teateid postitada ja vestlusi pidada ning ei või ka unustada twitterit, milles erinevad kursusekaaslased olulisi uudiseid postitavad.

Kui lisada inimfaktor ja esemed personaalsele õpikeskkonnale juurde, siis Kehrwiederi kohvikus toimuvad koosolekud ja vestlused annavad õppetööle palju juurde nagu ka loengutes toimuv infovahetus, kuid sel aastal on antud faktorit veidi väheseks jäänud. Samuti käivad õppetöö juude raamatud, mida aeg-ajalt erinevalt e-materjalidest füüsiliselt raamatukokku kohale minnes laenutada tuleb.

Kokkuvõtteks peaks ütlema, et minu personaalne õpikeskkond on üsna interaktiivne, välja arvatud vooagregaator või ühisjärjehoidja. Õppetöös sees olles olen valmis katsetama erinevaid keskkondi, kuid päris mitmed on aja jooksul jäänud tähelepanuta. Põhiline toimiv õppevahend on minu peamine õpiblogi blogspotis, kuigi erinevate ainete raames oleme pidanud ka teistesse blogidesse kirjutama (grupiblogi, lepress jne).
Üldjoontes on see õpikeskkond avatud, kui välja arvata iCampus, mis nõudis sisselogimist ja oli kinnine välissilma jaoks. Ma olen enda loodud õpikeskkonnaga rahul, kuigi seda võiks koondada vooagregaatoriga, et oleks ülevaade asjadest olemas. Samas on mul võrreldes esimese aastaga vähem kursuseid, mis võimaldab kõigel silma peal hoida.