Projects: New Practices in Flexible Learning: XML Educational Tool Suite

This project explored the use of Peer-to-Peer technology to provide teachers and students an effective and efficient online learning environment through which "online courses" can be created almost immediately without any organisational or external IT assistance or technical infrastructure required. As part of the project an additional tool for Groove was created called the RolePlayControlTab tool. A number of documents have been prepared to provide potential users with information on the use of Peer-to-Peer technology including: Benefits of Peer-to-Peer technology Organisational impact of Peer-to-Peer technology How to set up collaborative e-learning environments Educational tools for Peer-to-Peer technology How to use the Groove Workspace Technical specifications and user manual for the role-play tool.

Steve Fisher TAFE Queensland Centre for Innovation and Development Download a video overview of the project - QuickTime (12.1Mb) or MPEG (7.56Mb) Read transcript (20Kb, Word)

In addition a project report outlines the development of the project, use of Groove to develop the RolePlayControlTab tool and the implications of the tool for the VET environment. Specifically, this document highlights the various steps involved with the design and development of the tool throughout the project. It includes details about the implementation phases, user case scenarios, database schema and test cases used during the development of the RolePlayControlTab tool. It also includes administrative details such as reporting mechanisms, problems faced and future recommendations for improving the tool.

The role-play tool is an educational application designed to allow a role-play to be carried out within a Groove Workspace. The tool was carefully designed with flexibility in mind to allow any role-play to be carried out within the tool.

Some of the important functionalities that are catered for using the role-play tool are as follows.

It allows the workspace manager to:

• build a cast of characters and assign them to current members of the workspace
• assign the roles of a director to any of the space members (or assign himself a role of the director for the role-play), and
• build the prologue to set the role-play then they will build the required scenes.

Further information on the role-play tool is provided in the user manual and the project report.

There are multiple audiences for this 'New Practice':

• teachers and trainers looking for an easy to use, economical collaborative learning environment
• current users of Groove looking for an additional tool to use in the education sector
• learning resource developers, instructional designers, IT professionals
• managers and CEOs, particularly of smaller RTOs.
  

The project resources available on-line through the links above, as well as additional video footage, sound and images have been developed into a multimedia resource of 'new practices'. This CD-ROM is available and can be ordered through your local Framework communication officer by completing the online order form.

Order a New Practices in Flexible Learning CD-ROM.