Practical Experience from Online Learning Tool Development

Conference: 2022 ASEE Zone IV Conference
Location: Vancouver
Publication Date: May 12, 2022
Start Date: May 12, 2022
End Date: May 14, 2022
Conference Session: Hands On Experience
Tagged Topic: Conference Submission
DOI: 10.18260/1-2--44750
Permanent URL: https://peer.asee.org/44750

Paper Authors

Abstract

This paper is a work in progress.

Web-based learning tools have reached a new relevance as teaching and learning activities have moved online in the context of the COVID pandemic. Being forced to rely entirely on them, some educators have become reluctant to go back to a world entirely unreliant on them. It has become apparent that virtual instructional tools can offer advantages over certain kinds of in-person learning for some learners, skills, and/or topics. In addition, the pandemic put the inadequacy of present online tools and infrastructure into sharp relief. The combination of these factors has necessitated the development of new online tools to fill the gap, and with such development comes new experience, ethoses, and strategies to make the development of virtual educational tools even easier

This paper shares lessons learned from development work on these tools. The author has developed prototype instructional tools for engineering and physics courses. The tools are all in the form of web applications, written in PHP and javascript, which connect to a single SQL database backend. The structure of these applications varies widely: some are essentially multiple choice tests administered online, while others are more adaptive, attempting to complement what the students know. As such, these web applications, while similar in their coding environments, offer remarkably different objectives in the process of their construction.

In addition to these web applications, physical hands-on manipulatives are being recreated (and expanded upon) in small educational simulations developed in Unity, a 3D gaming development engine. These simulations are more technically challenging and conceptually difficult, and so their development has been often inconsistent. The development of these tools has been quite different from the tools of the preceding paragraph, and, as a result, they afforded different organizational and design techniques.

It is at the confluence of these organizational differences that common threads begin to emerge. Various strategies exist to maximize the productivity of educational tool programmers, as well as to keep lines of communication open between programmers and the educators they work with. Limitations also emerge as to what the programmers can and cannot easily accomplish, as well as unexpected new avenues to make excellent educational tools. It is the author’s hope to provide a useful guide as to some of these strategies, limitations, and opportunities that have come up in producing virtual educational tools.

Citation
Format

(2022, May), Practical Experience from Online Learning Tool Development Paper presented at 2022 ASEE Zone IV Conference, Vancouver. 10.18260/1-2--44750

TY - CPAPER
AB - This paper is a work in progress.

Web-based learning tools have reached a new relevance as teaching and learning activities have moved online in the context of the COVID pandemic. Being forced to rely entirely on them, some educators have become reluctant to go back to a world entirely unreliant on them. It has become apparent that virtual instructional tools can offer advantages over certain kinds of in-person learning for some learners, skills, and/or topics. In addition, the pandemic put the inadequacy of present online tools and infrastructure into sharp relief. The combination of these factors has necessitated the development of new online tools to fill the gap, and with such development comes new experience, ethoses, and strategies to make the development of virtual educational tools even easier

This paper shares lessons learned from development work on these tools. The author has developed prototype instructional tools for engineering and physics courses. The tools are all in the form of web applications, written in PHP and javascript, which connect to a single SQL database backend. The structure of these applications varies widely: some are essentially multiple choice tests administered online, while others are more adaptive, attempting to complement what the students know. As such, these web applications, while similar in their coding environments, offer remarkably different objectives in the process of their construction.

In addition to these web applications, physical hands-on manipulatives are being recreated (and expanded upon) in small educational simulations developed in Unity, a 3D gaming development engine. These simulations are more technically challenging and conceptually difficult, and so their development has been often inconsistent. The development of these tools has been quite different from the tools of the preceding paragraph, and, as a result, they afforded different organizational and design techniques.

It is at the confluence of these organizational differences that common threads begin to emerge. Various strategies exist to maximize the productivity of educational tool programmers, as well as to keep lines of communication open between programmers and the educators they work with. Limitations also emerge as to what the programmers can and cannot easily accomplish, as well as unexpected new avenues to make excellent educational tools. It is the author’s hope to provide a useful guide as to some of these strategies, limitations, and opportunities that have come up in producing virtual educational tools.

CY - Vancouver
DA - 2022/05/12
PB - ASEE Conferences
TI - Practical Experience from Online Learning Tool Development
UR - https://peer.asee.org/44750
DO - 10.18260/1-2--44750
ER -