Week 12 Reflection

Advanced Features of MMB:

1. Text to Speech functions in MMb were hilarious and interesting to use! Had a good time laughing at the funny pronounciations! One feature I liked about today's lesson was the text input function where the user is able to type in whatever text that he would like to input and read it later.

2. Trayicon functions and the process of getting it to work was a tad confusing and difficult as we have to embed the file and do the scripting. It was difficult for me to achieve the correct sequence of the steps and I had difficulty handling scripts.

It was also a challenging lesson as I had to input script such as 'mytext$' etc. This is lingo which I have always had difficulty understanding.

Week 11 Reflection

Media Control - Today we learnt control of media in MMB. It was fun and interesting to se the various flash animations and sound files and import it into the programme. Music - we can play, pause, stop, loop. We could also design our own MP3 list as well as incorporate various audio visual clips in the programme directly from the internet. I still have some difficulties remembering all the steps but after a while I got used to the sequences. I cannot wait to rock and roll am I'm sure students will love this as much as I do.

Week 10 Reflection

Navigation - On the last lesson, we learnt how important it is to plan how users of the multimedia programme moves through the system and not get lost because of too many hyperlinks or branches. With navigational tools, they will not get 'lost' and will always return to previously visited sites. It is important to have 1. linear 2. non-linear navigation tools. Linear gives control Poor navigational tools - with 2 Linear navigation buttons with a large number of pages, say 200 pages, users will have to click the forward buttons again and again to locate a certain page. This is definitely ineffective, something I encounter when using the Yahoo search (images image) for example. What they have failed to include is navigational buttons with a scroll bar to facilitate ease of use to locate pg 159, for example.

An important feature learnt today is the use of menu, table of contents and concept map. It may not be necessary to include all these navigational tools in a programme as these may have similar features. Too many tools may also confuse the user. Screens should contain only necessary navigational tools and buttons for users to progress through screens in a logical path to find information.

Week 9 Reflection

Metaphors - it is really amazing how metaphors enhance the look and feel of an interface! Because we see something familiar on screen, learners will be able to learn and use it more easily. I think when students view something familiar, they will be curious to explore a particular metaphor and see if it responds as expected. This leads thhem to actively explore the programme. It is interesting to learn also that different metaphors have different interpretations in different cultures. I did not know that the tick and cross icon may cause confusion amongst easterners and westerners! Definitely an eye opener.

Would probably explore chicken coop / nest / farm atmosphere for final project on Bird Flu. Perhaps chicken clucking and flapping their wings animatedly. Its going to be fun!

Week 7 Reflection

Week 7 - Brainstorming with Joyce about our proposal for our MMB Final project was fun and we look forward to comments and critiques. Important decisions on aesthetics, navigation and learner control opportunities were further discussed with Dr Wang.

Week 6 Reflection

Week 6 - I am getting old and my ram is slowing down by the day... I have difficulty remembering the previous week's lesson on menu creation but fortunately Dr Wang was patient enough to refresh us all! Really appreciated it. That cute addycar.gif flying down was really cute, and the bouncing ball was cool!!! Had difficulty programming the x and y axis though and the "MoveTo(....) is really confusing...so is the 'url$'...(by the way what is url$???) Wish I had more chances to practice, but unfortunately, being a Mac user, my time is restricted to PC sessions only in school...nevertheless this is not an excuse...will make time wherever possible to recap and improve. I need to practice, practice, practice....

Week 5 Reflection

Week 5 - This week we learned how to design a menu and embed web pages to a MMB program. I'm really new to all this techno wizardry but I'm really excited to be able to create my own program ina step by step manner. This module makes me feel more empowered as an art educator to design much more interactive lessons for students to use in the future.

Blogger Reflection

I am no cyber person and it was definitely fun and interesting to be posting blogs and seeing other people's blogs online. It is remarkable how much you can learn with this medium of communication!!! There are many good postings from different perspectives and I look forward to participating in these online discussions.