University of New South Wales - Science home

This section provides links to both technical tips on how to use various applications to create learning objects, how to produce content for education material and course evaluation of education technology. Many of these links are to the EDTeC site which has many useful resources on how to develop education technology material.

Creating Learning Objects - a technical guide to creating webpages, pdf documents, graphics, sound, video and multimedia productions.
Creating content - a guide for developing learning objectives, multiple choice questions.
Evaluation of education technology

CREATING LEARNING OBJECTS
A learning object is an entity, be it digital or non digital that may be used for education. It may be a graphic, web pages, pdf document, database application, animation, Powerpoint presentations, QuickTime movies, Flash files etc. The following will outline HOW TO DEVELOP various objects.

1. Creating web pages: A web page is created using a HTML file, containing text and codes controlling how the text will look on the screen. To create a HTML file you can use a text editor, an html editor program, or Microsoft Word:

Text editor: If you know HTML codes, a simple text editor such as Notepad or SimpleText can be used. These programs are free with Windows and Macintosh operating systems.
Microsoft Word: Documents can be created in the Microsoft Word and then saved as HTML format, simply choose File | Save as Web Page. This is one of the easiest methods but least desirable as the HTML files that Word creates are larger and take longer to load than a page made by html editor. There is also less formatting control.
HTML editor: HTML editors are usually WYSIWYG (what-you-see-is-what-you-get) Web page editors. Netscape has an editor called Netscape Composer which isn't perfect, but it's free. Other WYSYWIG programs includes software such as Dreamweaver, Front page and Homesite. These each cost money to purchase but are more powerful and useful. If you are using Dreamweaver information on creating webpages can be found at the Introduction to Web Authoring with Dreamweaver - Cornell University Academic Technology Center.

2. Creating a PDF document:
Adobe PDF is a file format that preserves all the fonts, formatting, graphics, and color of any document, regardless of the application and platform used to create it. You can convert any document which can be printed to Adobe PDF using Adobe Acrobat 5.0 software. Adobe PDF files are compact and can be shared, viewed, navigated, and printed exactly as intended by anyone with free Adobe Acrobat Reader software. Details can be found at the Adobe web site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/access_booklet.html

3. Creating OCR: Optical character recognition (OCR) is the ability of a computer to translate character images into editable text using special software. A paper based document can be scanned in as a bitmap image and then converted to editible text using OCR software to save retyping files and making the files significantly smaller. Several programs are available to do this including Abobe Capture, Omipage and Corel have software.

4. Creating Graphics:
Graphics can be created by a variety of programs and for a variety of purposes. Programs for image creation generally fall into the categories of draw or paint programs.

Draw programs are vector based files which are used to draw graphics, are represented as mathematical formulas thus enable enlargement without loss of quality and more efficient storage. Programs include Adobe Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand and Corel Draw.

Paint programs are usually bitmap images and is most often used for digital enhancement and manipulation of exisiting photographic images. Examples of paint programs include Adobe Photoshop, Corel Paint, PaintPro. Macromedia Fireworks is a hybrid of both draw and paint programs.

Acquiring images:

If a image exists in a paper format it can be scanned to a digital form. Basic tutorial on scanning is available at Berkeley: http://sunsite.berkeley.edu/Imaging/Databases/Scanning/index.html]]

Images are also available from Links to Image Databases- [[http://www.science.unsw.edu.au/et/resources.htmlhttp://www.science.unsw.edu.au/et/resources.html

Output:

Creating images for powerpoint: If the image being scanned is going to be used in powerpoint or for presentation on a monitor, it should be saved as:
- resolution:72dpi (dots per inch)
- size: 800 x 600 pixels
- format: tif, jpg, gif, pict
Creating images for print:
- resolution:300dpi (dots per inch)
- size: dependant on final print size
- format: tif, jpg, gif, pict,
Creating images for websites:
- resolution:72dpi (dots per inch)
- size: 800 x 600 pixels
- format: jpg and gif

5. Sound Production: Cornell University Academic Technology Center - Audio and Video. http://www.cit.cornell.edu/atc/materials/#av

6. Video production:
Digital Desktop Video (EDTeC) provides details on the Planning, Production, Post-production and Delivery of digital desktop video. link - http://www.edtec.unsw.edu.au/inter/dload/webmedia/web_content/media/media.ht

The Imaging Unit in the Faculty of Science offers advice and assistance for all aspects of production and delivery.

7. Multimedia production:
Multimedia packages can be developed by a variety of software packages, e.g., Authorware Professional, Director, Flash, etc. Links to sites which help in the production of this material will be added shortly. Link to Multimedia production - Cornell University Academic Technology Center. http://www.cit.cornell.edu/atc/materials/#media

8. Animations:
These can be gif animations or flash animations.

CREATING CONTENT:
1. Writing learning objectives:

This section is currently being developed.

2. Writing objective assessment questions (MCQs):

This section is currently being developed.

EVALUATION:
This section is currently being developed.

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