23 June 2016, 13:58

Hi

We ran a workshop for a group of students who are studying Public Policy. A question came up from the lecturers on the differences between reading essay documents v.s. Mahara pages. 

Traditionally, a lot of essay type of assignments are written in word documents. The way how you read it is from the top to the bottom line by line. If the same essay is created in a Mahara page to incorporate rich media to help with expressing ideas, it's a very different way of reading information from the audience point of view.

The lecturers want to understand how the page design affects the person who reads the information. Is anyone here aware of any research around this aspect? Is there any kind of guideline we can provide to the students when they are designing their pages. ?

Many thanks

Shen

22 August 2016, 19:52

Hello,

In my experience, when a students create a page to prove or document a skill, a reflective writing is added at the top-left of the page, in a block (text block or annotation block).

Within the writing – critial thinking or relfective work of the students – they refer to other blocks on the page to sustain their claim an illustrate evidences of their learning and attainment.

This balances, tutors' needs to have a structured narrative from the students on the one hand, and provides, on the other hand, students freedom to document their learning with their evidences elsewhere on the page.

HTH

Dominqiue-Alain JAN