La función del estudiante

6. The captured video was first split into the shorter clips, then the audio channels were removed. To further reduce the size of the video clips, the colour channels were changed to gray scale channel in the video editing process reduced the file size [72].

The resulting video clips were short with the longest clip being 48 seconds long. The SASL video clips were renamed using the description of the instruction according to the conversation script.

Interface navigation

Creating a unit was confusing for the participant. The participant was left guessing as to which unit to add the lesson to. The new unit option was hidden in the unit list drop down box as shown in Figure 6.4 where the participant had to click on the drop down list to reveal the New unit option to rename the new unit. Familiarity with the unit structure was easily noticed and the participant was able to relate the sections of the ‘O’,‘E’ and ‘S’ lesson categories on the authoring tool to the lesson categories (Orientation, Essential and Supplementary) of the e-Learner in Chapter 3. The participant also identified the created lessons in their respective categories on the three list panels on the right in Figure 6.4, however it was not clear to the participant how to add the lessons to the units due to little guiding instruction provided by the authoring tool. The participant was then prompted to drag and drop the created lessons in the list panels into the placeholders on the workspace.

The participant pointed out there was no clear place to view the course or find where to modify the course. The interface was confusing and she commented,“Where is the course? You are creating a unit but saving a course. The two mismatch.”

The confusion arose from having both thecourse title andunit title drop down lists on the the same screen shown in Figure 6.4. The course was only viewable as a list on the left hand side of the authoring tool (see Position A in Figure 6.4). The participant could see the unit that was being created but could not see the course being saved. Two buttons namely save course and export course (See position C in Figure 6.4) confused the participant. The participant explained that she did not understand why she had to press export course button after clicking on the save button. We explained to her that the save button saved the lesson in a format that only the authoring tool understood while the export course button created the XML ready version for the mobile prototype to consume. We pointed out to the participant that the authoring tool would be for a non-programmer.

Some navigation features of the interface did not appear clear to the participant.

The button to take the participant to the interface that creates a lesson was found by trial and error. The participant clicked on a button with a plus icon assuming it was the correct button. Naming and creating of the lesson was not clear enough.

Figure 6.4: Positions of the course title (Position A), unit title drop down list (Position B) and the save and export course buttons (Position C).

The functionality was hidden in a drop down list together with pre-existing lessons shown in Figure 6.5. Choosing the category for the lesson was fairly simple for the participant who was able to locate the Lesson Type drop down list.

The participant spent considerable amount of time looking for the save button for the lesson. By trial and error, she clicked on the button with a tick and com-mented,“A tick doesn’t mean save.” The same also applied to the preview button shown in position B in Figure 6.5 where the participant made the right deduction that by clicking the button the lesson preview would appear.

Lesson creation

SASL videos recorded in Section 6.3.3 and images were used to create the lesson.

These were uploaded to the authoring tool into two panels on the right (See Figure 6.5). The participant struggled with identifying the content of the video description related to the correct video. The participant suggested adding a video player to

pre-Figure 6.5: Position A of the new lesson hidden in the drop down list circled in red.

Position B shows the preview button to view the lesson and position C highlighted by the red box shows the panel containing the images.

view the videos before adding them to the lesson would be helpful in the case where the videos were created by someone else. In addition, the participant expressed their frustration that the authoring tool window did not maximise and had to keep on scrolling up using the vertical scroll bar to reveal the new task step placeholder that was out of view. The images in the panel labeled C, circled in red shown in Figure 6.5 appeared small and some skewed and difficult for the participant to identify when compared with the images provided on the lesson resource list.

Dragging and dropping of lesson resources (SASL videos and images) onto the lesson canvas was seamless following the lesson resource list in the evaluation. The participant was able to drag the lesson resources into the placeholders marked by grey bordered squares in the lesson canvas where they were added to the lesson structure. We discovered a bug in the application that didn’t allow the participant to remove a resource once it was placed in the wrong placeholder. This was more

an inconvenience rather than crippling the progress of adding resources. The par-ticipant got frustrated when she had to scroll up to reveal a new step placeholder once the new step button was pressed.

Once the participant found the preview button, the participant managed with little effort to preview the lesson using the forward and back navigation button on the preview window. The participant however commented, “I am not sure where it starts,” stating she was not sure where the lesson preview started. We explained that the lesson preview started from the beginning of the lesson.

6.4.4 Discussion

We discuss issues highlighted in the results above.

Hidden and Absent functionality

Some elements necessary for the creation of the lesson were hidden in drop down lists instead of making them more visible to the user. The naming of the drop down listlesson Title did not also provide the participant with any hints how to name the created lesson. Visibility of the functionality would have been greatly increased by having distinct buttons and adding tool-tip pop-ups when the participant hovered over the tool using the mouse.

Previewing of the videos resources prior to dragging and dropping them in the lesson canvas was not possible, although the participant wanted the feature to be there. The participant commented that it would be useful in the case that the videos were edited by a different person. This could avoid adding a video resource to the wrong position and verify if content of the video was correct.

Functionality to name created lessons, units or a course was hidden in drop down lists that resulted in trial and error attempts. Once the participant was shown how to rename the lesson, the participant made the correct deduction to check the other drop down lists for the course and unit. A suggestion from the participant was to have the unit list drop-down box pre-populated with the existing names of the 7 units in e-Learner with an “other” option to name a custom unit.

Lesson Creation

Adding lesson resources to the lesson structure was a simple drag and drop task.

However, the view of the lesson was limited due to the authoring tool window not able to maximize and fill up the whole screen which made viewing the pic-ture thumbnails difficult. In addition the window size made scrolling the picpic-tures panel locating for the correct image cumbersome. Despite these inconveniences, the participant managed to create the lesson using the authoring tool.

A wizard to guide a first time user of the authoring tool would provide additional help to address the confusion and demonstrate the navigational features. Then with added proficiency whilst using the system, the wizard can be turned off.