OOP (Object-Oriented Programming) Fundamentals is a responsive website that teaches young adults/adults the basic principles of object-oriented programming. Each lesson will incorporate a video lecture, an interactive element for game play, and will encourage participation in a social coding activity. Lessons will be led by “Steve,” a cartoon avatar who will guide learners though lectures and provide feedback and hints within the interactive activities. 

 

Design

In 2015, roughly 56% of internet traffic came from mobile devices, with the mobile trend projected to continue to overtake desktop usage (Sterling, 2016). Nearly two thirds of the American population own a smart phone, using them for “social networking, taking photos or videos,” and accessing the internet (Anderson, 2015 para 3). It is no wonder that the ‘mLearning,’ or mobile learning movement is gaining traction in online learning (Maniar, 2017).

 

Using mobile friendly HTML5 technologies in lieu of Flash, OOP Fundamentals is a learning resource designed to be viewed on a computer, tablet or mobile phone. The webpages are designed to be easily viewed on small screens, without the need to pinch and zoom to read text or view content. Additionally, the video segments in each lesson are short, allowing the learner to view them ‘whenever they have a moment,’ to afford ‘on-the-go’ learning (Maniar, 2017). 

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Video

The modality principle of multimedia learning states that “people learn more deeply from a multimedia message when the words are spoken rather than printed” (Mayer, 2014 p 226). Video uses a “mixed-mode (partly visual and partly auditor)” to present information (Mayer, 2014 p 226). Presenting information in a visual and auditory manner “can expand effective working memory capacity and so reduce the effects of an excessive cognitive load” (Mayer, 2014 p 227).

 

Each lesson of OOP Fundamentals starts with a video lesson that presents the learner with information. The videos illustrate the concepts of the lesson with pictures, animation and the spoken word of the narrator. This encourages the learner to “mentally represent the material in words and pictures to make the connection between the pictorial and verbal representation” (Stanic, 2014 para 2). 

 

In addition to reducing cognitive load, video affords personalization for the learner. The basic controls of pausing, rewinding, jumping ahead or re-watching a video allow the learner to learn at their own pace (Stanic, 2014). 

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Gaming/Interactive

Jane McGonigal states that the average young person spends approximately 10,000 hours of playing games by the time they reach the age of 21 (McGonigal, 2011). This statistic seems staggering, but not that surprising. Games are, after all, engaging and can be highly addictive. This drain on our youths’ time can be perceived negative, but McGonigal points out that games bring out “powerful positive emotions” like curiosity, optimism and motivation (McGonigal, 2011). It is no wonder the learning community has worked to incorporate gaming into education, creating a gamification movement (David, 2016).

   

Gamification can be described as ‘the process of applying game-related principals […] to non-game contexts such as education” (David, 2016 para 1). Gamification applications harness the “engagement that gamers experience with games” to an “educational context towards the goals of facilitating learning and influencing student behavior” (David, 2016 para 3). 

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There are many benefits to gamification, or “gameful learning” such as immediate feedback, ‘scaffolded’ learning, progress indicators, and player control (David, 2016 para 4). Jane McGonigal speaks of the ability to fail without repercussions (a bad grade or humiliation for example) in a game, and the ability to try again, which she argues is an effective, natural way to learn (McGonigal(a), 2011).

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Each Lesson of OOP Fundamentals has an interactive element that allows learners to experiment with objects and play mini games to supplement the video lectures. 

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Pedagogical Agent

OOP Fundamentals uses “Steve” as a pedagogical agent to guide the learner through the course. Steve is cartoon representation of a young man with ‘nerdy’ glasses, rolled up shirt sleeves and a bright green tie who speaks directly to the learners in a casual manner. The glasses play on the ‘smart-guy’ stereotype of a programmer, and the tie gives a professional feel to the character, making him creditable yet approachable. Throughout the lessons he poses questions, presents ideas and provides tips to the learners. 

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Although evidence suggests that pedagogical agents do not need to appear lifelike to be effective, they do need to exhibit humanlike qualities “in terms of their gestures, movements, and eye-gaze” (Clark & Mayer, 2011 p 195). Interestingly, learners know that the online agent is not a real person, but researchers have found that “learners looked at gesturing on-screen agents as they spoke, indicating that the learners were treating the on-screen agents as conversational partners” (Clark & Mayer, 2011 p 195). 

 

Aimed at making Steve as lifelike as possible, he is created using an Adobe program called Character Animator. This program affords animation, hand and arm movements, eye movement and tracks a voice recording to different mouth states, or visemes. Steve will be able to point, blink and appear to be talking, creating a human-like guide for the learner.

 

Furthermore, Richard Mayer’s personalization principle surmises that “people learn more deeply when the words in a multimedia presentation are in a conversational style rather than formal style” (Mayer, 2014 p 426). People “work harder to understand material when they feel they are in conversation with a partner, rather than simply receiving information” (Clark & Mayer, 2011 p 184). 

 

Therefore, Steve will present information to the learner as if he was engaged in a one-on-one conversation with the learner, “emphasizing the personal aspects” of the conversation by using pronouns like “I” and “you” (Clark & Mayer, 2011 p 183). This social aspect “causes the learner to engage in deeper cognitive processing during learning (by working harder to understand what the author is saying)” (Clark & Mayer, 2011 p 184).  

 

Among Steve’s lifelike qualities is his human voice. Richard Mayer’s voice principle states that “people learn better from narration with a human voice than a machine voice” (Clark & Mayer, 2011 p 188).  Steve’s voice will be recorded and brought into Character Animator where visemes will sync to the narration, giving him a lifelike human appearance with a human voice and mouth movements. 

 

Community

The forums at the end of each lesson serve as a designated space for interaction with other learners. These forums can be described as a meeting point for a community of practice, where “people share a concern or passion for something they do and who interact regularly to learn how to do it better” (Wenger-Trayner, 2014 para 5). 

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The learning resource will encourage “social coding,” which is defined as “an approach to software development that places an emphasis on formal and informal collaboration” (Whatis.techtarget.com). Popular platforms include GitHub, Altassian and Bitbucket which “implement a social network where developers are enabled to broadcast their activities to others who are interested and have subscribed to them” (Thung et al, 2013 p 323).  A developer can submit their work; other developers can “fork” it (create an editable copy), make suggestions for improvement, and engage in discussions with the author. For beginners, looking at more experienced developers code can offer an invaluable learning experience (Mesa, 2016). 

 

For each lesson, a CodePen (www.codepen.io) example will be placed on the forum with a question for learners to explore. Learners will be encouraged to “fork” the pen, modify, share and discuss.

 

References

Anderson, M (2015, April). 6 Facts about Americans and their smartphones. Retrieved From: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/04/01/6-facts-about-americans-and-their-smartphones/

 

Clark, R & Mayer, R (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. Retrieved From: https://ebookcentral-proquest-com.libraryproxy.quinnipiac.edu

 

David, L (2016, January). Gamification in Education. Retrieved From: https://www.learning-theories.com/gamification-in-education.html.

 

Mayer, R, ed. (2014, August). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

 

Maniar, S (2017, November). 8 Glories of Mobile Learning Changing the Industry of eLearning. Retrieved From: https://elearningindustry.com/mobile-learning-changing-the-industry-of-elearning-8-glories

 

McGonigal, J (2011, February). Reality is Broken, Jane McGonigal – 9781594202858. Retrieved From: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ueogo7B1xw

 

McGonigal(a), J (2011, August). Gamification of Education. Retrieved From: https://ed.ted.com/on/uk36wtoI

 

Mesa, L (2016, February). So You Want to Learn How to Code?. Retrieved From: https://sproutsocial.com/insights/learn-how-to-code/

Stanic, T (2014, March). Why you should add video to your teaching. Retrieved From: https://blog.edynco.com/instructional-design/why-you-should-add-video-to-your-teaching/

Sterling, G (2016, February). Mobile Devices Now Driving 56 Percent Of Traffic To Top Sites — Report. Retrieved From: https://marketingland.com/mobile-top-sites-165725

 

Thung, F. Bissyande, T. Lo, D. Jiang, L. (2013). Network Structure of Social Coding in GitHub. Retrieved From: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/6498480/

 

Wenger-Trayner, E & B (2015). Introduction to communities of practice: A brief overview of the concept and its uses. Retrieved From: http://wenger-trayner.com/introduction-to-communities-of-practice/

 

WhatIs.com, (n.d). Definition social coding. Retrieved From: http://whatis.techtarget.com/definition/social-coding