Reflection

I chose a Japanese hiragana learning lesson for my final project Reusable Learning Object
(RLO). Since this was a lesson to learn the 46 basic hiragana, I decided the best educational
strategy to use would be Drill and Practice. This strategy is very useful when the learner must
be able to recall reliably without hesitation (Horton, 2010).
Initially, I thought to include reading, writing, speaking, and listening comprehension. As the
design progressed, I realized that it would be too much material to cover in one RLO and the
objectives needed to be more focused. Additionally, I was not sure if it was possible to
incorporate the speaking and writing aspects of the hiragana using this instructional medium. I
chose to include just the reading and listening (sound recognition).
I thought a lot about how to incorporate accessibility components. Given that this was a lesson
on reading and sound, some of it seemed to work for one group, while not for another. I
incorporated a narrative for most of the textual slides giving instructions, objectives, and
introduction.
I chose a light purple background for the slides which was easy on the eyes. The background
for the RLO itself was a dark purple to contrast with the slides. There were groups of five kana
on each slide. I limited it to this so that the kana characters could be large enough to be easily
read and the slide would not be overly crowded. Each kana character has a speaker icon below
it so the learner can hear the pronunciation of the kana. Once they feel comfortable with the
material, they can proceed to the next slide, which will give them the same layout with the next
five kana.
I included a knowledge check after each ten kana. This is a formative assessment to see how
well they know the kana studied. I felt this also gave the learner a chance to practice identifying
each of the ten kana by sight and sound. If they score less than 80%, they have the opportunity
to return to the beginning of that section and study some more. I felt it was important to have
them practice frequently and ten kana at a time seemed to be a good match between frequency
and limiting the number of knowledge checks to something reasonable.
The knowledge checks were composed of two types of questions. Two matching questions were
used to test for visual identification of all ten kana studied in the section. Ten multiple choice
questions were used to test for identification of the kana sounds.
The usability test indicated that there were several areas that needed improvement. One of the
main issues was the menu system on the left. I had let Storyline create it automatically and it
was not very user-friendly because of the way I was naming my slides. It also included much
more granularity than was necessary. I made several changes to it by reducing the number of
items and adding indents to make it more readable. Some of the recorded sounds were not
clear and those were recorded again. A few more questions were added to the final summative
assessment for more complete coverage of the material.

I would like to incorporate Computer Based Training (CBT) where I work. Unfortunately, I do not
work in the documentation or training department, so I dont see this happening. As a
programmer who is solely responsible for several complex applications, I dont have any time to
pursue such an endeavor, as much as I would like to. However, I would look to incorporate
using CBT in some of the community college classes that I teach.
One of the concepts that has been a challenge for me has been the difference between CBT
and classroom training. I have had a lot of classroom teaching experience, but there are
differences because of the synchronous nature of the classroom and asynchronous nature of
computer based training. This is something I will need to consider when developing training.

Horton, W. (2010). E-Learning by Design. Pfeiffer.