Technology of E-Learning

Screencast

A screen cast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration. Although the term screen cast dates from 2004, products such as Lotus Screen Cam were used as early as 1993. Early products produced large files and had limited editing features. More recent products support more compact file formats such as Macromedia Flash and have more sophisticated editing features allowing changes in sequence, mouse movement, and audio.Just as a screen shot is a picture of a user's screen, a screen cast is essentially a movie of what a user sees on their monitor.

Electronic Portfolio

An electronic portfolio, also known as an e-portfolio or digital portfolio, is a collection of electronic evidence assembled and managed by a user, usually on the Web. Such electronic evidence may include inputted text, electronic files such as Microsoft Word and Adobe PDF files, images, multimedia, blog entries, and hyperlinks. E-portfolios are both demonstrations of the user's abilities and platforms for self-expression, and, if they are online, they can be maintained dynamically over time. Some e-portfolio applications permit varying degrees of audience access, so the same portfolio might be used for multiple purposes.

An e-portfolio can be seen as a type of learning record that provides actual evidence of achievement. Learning records are closely related to the Learning Plan, an emerging tool that is being used to manage learning by individuals, teams, communities of interest, and organizations. To the extent that at Personal Learning Environment captures and displays a learning record, it also might be understood to be an electronic portfolio.

Electronic Performance Support Systems

An electronic performance support system can also be described as any computer software program or component that improves employee performance by -

  • Reducing the complexity or number of steps required to perform a task,
  • Providing the performance information an employee needs to perform a task, or
  • Providing a decision support system that enables an employee to identify the action that is appropriate for a particular set of conditions.

Electronic Performance Support Systems can help an organization to reduce the cost of training staff while increasing productivity and performance. It can empower an employee to perform tasks with a minimum amount of external intervention or training. By using this type of system an employee, especially a new employee, will not only be able to complete their work more quickly and accurately, but as a secondary benefit they will also learn more about their job and their employer's business.

However, an EPSS must be distinguished from a traditional online help system. In her book, Glory Gery points out that on-line help usually supports a single software application and is not necessarily focused on the entire range of job tasks (which may involve multiple applications), but just that specific software. With online help, cross-referencing is often not available and the information provided is limited and rarely combined with procedures or complex tasks. Perhaps most critically, on-line help can not be customized to the user or the job task; in fact, the same software screen may require different inputs depending on the user and job task.

EPSS must also be differentiated from e-learning simulations that replay a series of steps on-demand within a software application. Simulations are more closely associated with on-demand training, not just-in-time support, because of the longer time considerations, complexity, and media restrictions for playing a simulation. Ted Gannan (2007) describes this differentiation and states that an EPSS can be considered a part of the e-learning category, as it is on-demand learning, and notes that the EPSS modality fits more within the informal learning definition.

From a business perspective, a former Nortel Networks executive, William Bezanson (2002) provides a definition linked to application usability and organizational results:

A performance support system provides just-in-time, just enough training, information, tools, and help for users of a product or work environment, to enable optimum performance by those users when and where needed, thereby also enhancing the performance of the overall business.

Personal Digital Assistant

Personal digital assistants (PDAs) are handheld computers, but have become much more versatile over the years. PDAs are also known as pocket computers or palmtop computers. PDAs have many uses: calculation, use as a clock and calendar, accessing the Internet, sending and receiving E-mails, video recording, typewriting and word processing, use as an address book, making and writing on spreadsheets, scanning bar codes, use as a radio or stereo, playing computer games, recording survey responses, and Global Positioning System (GPS). Newer PDAs also have both color screens and audio capabilities, enabling them to be used as mobile phones (smartphones), web browsers, or portable media players. Many PDAs can access the Internet, intranets or extranets via Wi-Fi, or Wireless Wide-Area Networks (WWANs). Many PDA's employ touch screen technology.

Digital Audio Player

More commonly referred to as an MP3 player, a digital audio player or "DAP" is a portable, handheld digital music player that stores, organizes and plays MP3 and often other audio files. Most DAPs are powered by rechargeable batteries, some of which are not user replaceable. Listening to music stored on DAPs is typically done through earphones, but external speakers and docking stations are also available.

Digital audio players are generally categorized by storage media:

  • Flash-based Players - These are non mechanical solid state devices that hold digital audio files on internal flash memory or removable flash media called memory cards. Due to technological advancements in flash memory, these originally low-storage devices are now available commercially ranging up to 16GB. Because they are solid state and do not have moving parts they require less battery power and may be more resilient to hazards such as dropping or fragmentation than hard disk-based players. Basic MP3 player functions are commonly integrated into USB flash drives.
  • Hard drive-based Players or Digital Jukeboxes - Devices that read digital audio files from a hard disk drive (HDD). These players have higher capacities currently ranging up to 160GB. At typical encoding rates, this means that thousands of songs — perhaps an entire music collection — can be stored on one player. Because of the storage capacity, devices that also display video and pictures are often hard disk drive based. Such multi-media devices are usually called Portable Media Players or Personal Media Players (PMPs).
  • MP3 CD Players - Portable CD players that can decode and play MP3 audio files stored on CDs.

Web-based Teaching Materials

Web-based teaching materials are a subset of computer-based training (CBT) or electronic learning (eLearning) used to leverage the World Wide Web for the delivery to instructional materials.

Several teachers and institutions provide access to Web-based teaching materials through links on Web pages. An example is how Columbia Education Center provides access to supplemental Web-based Teaching Materials.University professors and departments often provide similar resource pages to augment learning opportunities for their students. These resources are especially helpful when they provide an extension beyond what is covered in the classroom (i.e. materials on specific disciplines for Education majors who may be have deep knowledge in a specific discipline).

Several companies and cooperative efforts have emerged to provide online access to Web-based teaching materials. These entities range from companies producing their own edutainment media to sites provided to aggregate links to other existing content. While the missions of these organizations may differ, they all focus on furthering the World Wide Web as the delivery medium for teaching materials.

Web-based teaching materials emerged as elements on personal Web sites with the proliferation and adoption of the Internet in the early to mid-90s. Beyond personal publishing, Web-based teaching materials were often published online as samples and supplemental materials by commercial entities experimenting with the World Wide Web.

Sites devoted to specific topics began aggregating links to these resources in efforts to capture educator audiences in the late 90s. These concepts were then extended to the Learning Management System (LMS) and Learning Content Management System (LCMS) as a way for instructors to organize and provide access to learning materials already available online. These systems also contain authoring tools that allow pieces of entire courses (including Web-based teaching materials) to be published online.

Hypermedia

Hypermedia is a term created by Ted Nelson, and used in his 1965 article Complex information processing: a file structure for the complex, the changing and the indeterminate. It is used as a logical extension of the term hypertext, in which graphics, audio, video, plain text and hyperlinks intertwine to create a generally non-linear medium of information. This contrasts with the broader term multimedia, which may be used to describe non-interactive linear presentations as well as hypermedia. Hypermedia should not be confused with hypergraphics or super-writing which is not a related subject.

The World Wide Web is a classic example of hypermedia, whereas a non-interactive cinema presentation is an example of standard multimedia due to the absence of hyperlinks.

The first hypermedia system was the Aspen Movie Map, while the first truly universal hypermedia was Hypercard. Most modern hypermedia is delivered via electronic pages from a variety of systems. Audio hypermedia is emerging with voice command devices and voice browsing.

Multimedia

Multimedia (Lat. Multum + Medium) is media that uses multiple forms of information content and information processing (e.g. text, audio, graphics, animation, video, interactivity) to inform or entertain the (user) audience. Multimedia also refers to the use of (but not limited to) electronic media to store and experience multimedia content. Multimedia is similar to traditional mixed media in fine art, but with a broader scope. The term "rich media" is synonymous for interactive multimedia. Multimedia means that computer info can be represented through audio, graphics, image, video and animation in addition to traditional media(text and graphics). Hypermedia can be considered one particular multimedia application.

Internet Forum

An Internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting user generated content. Internet forums are also commonly referred to as web forums, message boards, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups, discussion forums, bulletin boards, fora (the Latin plural) or simply forums. The terms "forum" and "board" may refer to the entire community or to a specific sub-forum dealing with a distinct topic. Messages within these sub-forums are then displayed either in chronological order or as threaded discussions.

Such forums perform a function similar to that of the dial-up bulletin board systems and Internet newsgroups that were numerous in the 1980s and 1990s.Early web-based forums such as UBB.classic date back as far as 1996. A sense of virtual community often develops around forums that have regular users. Technology, computer games and/or video games, fashion, religion, and politics are popular areas for forum themes, but there are forums for a huge number of different topics. Internet slang and image macros popular across the internet are abundant and most widely used in internet forums.

Collaborative Software

Collaborative software is software designed to help people involved in a common task achieve their goals. Collaborative software is the basis for computer supported cooperative work.

Such software systems as email, calendaring, text chat, wiki belong in this category. It has been suggested that Metcalfe's law — the more people who use something, the more valuable it becomes — applies to such software.

E-mail

E-mail (short for electronic mail, often also abbreviated as e-mail, email or simply mail) is a store and forward method of composing, sending, storing, and receiving messages over electronic communication systems. The term "e-mail" (as a noun or verb) applies both to the Internet e-mail system based on the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) and to X.400 systems, and to intranet systems allowing users within one organization to e-mail each other. Often these workgroup collaboration organizations may use the Internet protocols or X.400 protocols for internal e-mail service. E-mail is often used to deliver bulk unsolicited messages, or "spam", but filter programs exist which can automatically delete some or most of these, depending on the situation.

Blog

A blog (a portmanteau of web log) is a website where entries are written in chronological order and commonly displayed in reverse chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particular subject such as food, politics, or local news; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blog combines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other media related to its topic. The ability for readers to leave comments in an interactive format is an important part of many blogs. Most blogs are primarily textual, although some focus on art (artlog), photographs (photoblog), sketchblog, videos (vlog), music (MP3 blog), audio (podcasting) or sexual topics (Adult blog), and are part of a wider network of social media. Micro-blogging is another type of blogging which consists of blogs with very short posts.

Wiki

A wiki is a medium which can be edited by anyone with access to it, and provides an easy method for linking from one page to another. Wikis are typically collaborative websites, though there are now also single-user offline implementations. Ward Cunningham, developer of the first wiki, WikiWikiWeb, originally described it as "the simplest online database that could possibly work".One of the best-known wikis is Wikipedia.

Synchronous Conferencing

Synchronous conferencing is the formal term used in science, in particular in computer-mediated communication, collaboration and learning, to describe text chat technologies. It has arisen at a time when the term chat had a negative connotation. Today it is occasionally also extended to mean audio/video conferencing or instant messaging systems, given they provide a text-based multi-user chat function. The word synchronous in this case is not to be considered a technical term, but rather describing how it is perceived by humans - chat happens in realtime before your eyes.

Typical synchronous conferencing technologies include :

  • Internet Relay Chat (IRC)
  • Jabber (XMPP)
  • MUDs
  • Protocol for SYnchronous Conferencing (PSYC)
  • Webchats

Educational Animation

Educational animations are animations produced for the specific purpose of fostering learning.The popularity of using animations to help learners understand and remember information has greatly increased since the advent of powerful graphics-oriented computers. This technology allows animations to be produced much more easily and cheaply than in former years. Previously, traditional animation required specialised labour-intensive techniques that were both time-consuming and expensive. In contrast, software is now available that makes it possible for individual educators to author their own animations without the need for specialist expertise. Teachers are no longer limited to relying on static graphics but can readily convert them into educational animations.

Simulation

A simulation is an imitation of some real thing, state of affairs, or process. The act of simulating something generally entails representing certain key characteristics or behaviours of a selected physical or abstract system.However, the connection between simulation and dissembling later faded out and is now only of linguistic interest.

Simulation is used in many contexts, including the modeling of natural systems or human systems in order to gain insight into their functioning. Other contexts include simulation of technology for performance optimization, safety engineering, testing, training and education. Simulation can be used to show the eventual real effects of alternative conditions and courses of action.

Key issues in simulation include acquisition of valid source information about the referent, selection of key characteristics and behaviours, the use of simplifying approximations and assumptions within the simulation, and fidelity and validity of the simulation outcomes.

Game

A game is a structured or semi-structured activity, usually undertaken for enjoyment and sometimes also used as an educational tool. (The term "game" is also used to describe simulation of various activities e.g., for the purposes of training, analysis or prediction, etc., see "Game (simulation)".) Games are generally distinct from work, which is usually carried out for remuneration, and from art, which is more concerned with the expression of ideas. However, the distinction is not clear-cut, and many games may also be considered work and/or art. Key components of games are goals, rules, challenge, and interactivity. Games generally involve mental or physical stimulation, and often both. Many games help develop practical skills, serve as a form of exercise, or otherwise perform an educational, simulational or psychological role.

Known to have been played as far back as prehistoric times, games are a universal part of human experience and present in all cultures.