6 How to create a eLesson with eLML?
This section wants to provide a rudimentary guide for the creation of
an eLesson with the eLML structure. It gives some hints and shows how an
eLesson might be structured. This section cannot and will not give detailed
advise in using all the elements or creating really complex eLessons. Information
about each XML element can be found in chapter
4 of this documentation. Additional information might be found in the
test and demo lessons supplied with the eLML structure and also in lesson
from other projects using this structure.
6.1 First thoughts about an eLML eLesson
Assuming that you already have a topic about which you want to create
a lesson and you now what your students shall be able to learn through it
(goals/objectives) you should first think about the amount of material covered
by this topic. It is recommended that an eLesson corresponds in size to
about 1 ½ to 2 face-to-face lectures. The student should need at
most 2 hours to work through the materials provided. Therefore, you will
have to decide if your topic is about right in size, if you need to extend
it or if it might be sensible to split it into two or more separate lessons
(each of them, for example, highlighting one specific aspect of the topic).Then, a lesson can be sub-structured into up to 10 units which should all be about the same size. Additionally, you'll have to think about the structure of the unit. A unit is structured according to the ECLASS scheme and can consist of up to 10 learning objects. A single learning object deals with one small aspect of the topic in a threefold way. Ideally, it teaches this aspect with a clarify, a look and an act part. It is up to you in which sequence you use these parts and to decide if it might be needed to use one part twice.
Another important part of this first phase of creating an eLML eLesson is to think about the short and meaningful titles that the lesson and each unit and learning object will have.
What is described above is not always that easy in practice. Have a look at the following graphic which shows the structure of a lesson. You may want to create a simple word file which has several subheadings according to the different parts of lesson. In this word file you can write your first thoughts and notes about the lesson and units and sketch what (more or less) should be contained by the units.
To give an actual example, let us assume we want to create a lesson which gives an overview over the Virtual Reality Modelling Language VRML. In about two hours time we might be able to give a short introduction to VRML and show and maybe explain a little a simple VRML scene. My word file could be structure like the following (please note that the content written here are first thoughts and might need revision at a later stage):
| Lessontitle: | First Glance At VRML |
| Entry: | why was this lesson created, what will it teach |
| Goals: | - students know what VRML is and where it comes from - students have looked at a simple application of VRML and understand it |
| Unit1 – Title: | Overview and Background of VRML |
| Entry: | introduction to this unit |
| Goals: | - students know… (do not repeat lesson goals but define them finer on unit level or leave them) |
| LearningObject: | Title: What is VRML? |
| Clarify: | explain what it is, where it can be used, advantages, disadvantages (Remark: This is all combined in one clarify because this is only an overview lesson, we could also create a more detailed lesson called 'What is VRML?' and then have these topics as separate learningObjects or even separate units.) |
| Act/Look: | install VMRL Viewer, look at different examples of VRML use (Remark: This example shows that it is not always easy to distinguish exactly between the three parts clarify, look and act. Here, the parts act and look are combined in one part (later called either act or look). This is a possible and valid solution.) |
| LearningObject: | Title: Where does VRML come from? |
| Look: | A graphic showing the history and development process of VRML |
| Clarify: | Further explanations not included in the grahic |
| SelfAssessement: | Some questions about the content of the unit, student can optionally share their findings on the discussion board |
| Summary: | summarise |
| Unit2 – Title: | Simple Application of VRML |
| … | |
| … | |
| SelfAssessment: | Flash-Quiz with questions about this lesson |
| Summary: | Summarise and conclude the lesson, evt. give some outlook to further use of VRML |
| Glossary: | Make not of all terms in this lesson that will need to be explained in the glossary. |
| Bibliography: | Here, I write whatever resources I use to create the lesson. It is easiest to do it alongside to the creation of the lesson and not having to think about it at the end. |
This might, hopefully, give you some idea how you could start structuring and creating an eLML eLesson.
6.2 Tips and Tricks
Some of the following Tips and Tricks apply to eLearning in general
while other are specific to the eLML structure. More information about
eLearning in general can be found on various websites and books. Some
of them are listed in the references section of this documentation.
- Structure your lesson in quite detail before you start writing actual content into the XML structure. The structure above might even contain finalised sequences of text and graphics before you start writing in XML. This is recommended as it is easy to loose the overview and good structure of the lesson when starting to dig in details too early.
- Having short and meaningful titles for lessons, units and learning objects helps you and the student.
- Try not to copy a textbook. Think about look, act and self assessment parts that enable the student to interact with the material and to learn more deeply. This part are very important in eLearning and shall also allow the students to work together with fellow students, share their work and build a community of learners.
- Look at the XML structure as a help and guide and not as a straitjacket. The structure shall help you to create good eLearning material and not hinder you. With some experience you will figure out that the structure is much less constraining than you first thought. Actually, it is possible to develop material for many different learning scenarios within this structure. Let your imagination run wild.
- Write short, clear and meaningful sentences and paragraphs. The students learn the material on the screen and have no direct means to ask if they cannot understand the content.
- Use the explanation of XML elements in chapter 4 to understand what each element means, how it is used and how it is displayed with the standard layout.
- Create detailed metadata for your lesson. This helps you when looking later at the same lesson and gives tutors the needed information when assembling courses from different lessons.
- The bibliography section allows to list all the resources you have used to create the lesson. Keep the further reading section short and list only the resources that are really and especially recommended for reading by the students.
- …
Remark
Note that the new XML file referenced to the elml.xsd file will not validate correctly until you have not at least one reference to either a unit label, a bibliography entry or a definition/glossary entry. This is a problem of XMLSchema which cannot be solved. In a fully filled in lesson this is normally not a problem as there will be many references to either unit labels, bibliography entries or definition entries.
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