Acknowledgements

Thanks to:

• Dale Duncan @ GippsTAFE for creating the "Dave" sequences and being the voice behind the avatar.
  
• GippsTAFE library team for LibGuide support.
  
• Roland Collaro at Symmetree for creating the "Where to from Here?" sequence we used as part of our conVerge10 presentation.
  
• The people at conVerge10 who attended our presentation; especially those who approached us later with comments and questions.
  
• The Australian Flexible Learning Framework for funding support

Combining Technologies

One of the challenges of this project has been to combine two different technologies.

Initially we hoped to have our avatar fully integrated into the LibGuide. This has proved to be more difficult than originally planned so we had to develop an alternative plan. CodeBaby creates the avatar as flash files which require Java script to run. The problem we have is how to upload and reference these correctly when the LibGuide is hosted by a third party server.

At this stage we have located the avatar flashfiles and the Java script on the GippsTAFE server and we link to them from rich text boxes in the LibGuide. This means the avatar pops up in a new window separate to the LibGuide. It works but is not ideal.

We are still exploring options to overcome this problem.

CodeBaby examples

Now that the Project is completed, I just came across some information sent to me in the early days when we were first looking at CodeBaby and thought it worth sharing. It shows some examples of various ways CodeBaby (and avatars generally) can be used.

These links show a number of scenarios and interesting uses of avatar software. I was impressed with the range of possibilities and versatility it offers. With imagination and know-how, there's no end to the ideas you could explore, it seems to me!

Using character to explain the benefits of interactive characters

Delivering feedback

CodeBaby advertisement

It's also worth taking a look at Symmetree and CodeBaby e-learning showcase.

Where to from here?

This project has taught us a lot about using LibGuides, using CodeBaby and combining the two. So where to from here?

The APA Referencing guide

There are a number of things we need to do with regard to the APA Referencing Guide. We need to:

• ensure information and links remain current
• incorporate new LibGuide features as they become available
• investigate the remote script box, this may allow us to integrate the avatar into the guide in a better way
• promote the guide to teachers and students
• collect feedback from users and make changes as required

CodeBaby

We want to explore the use of combining a CodeBaby avatar with artificial intelligence. This will allow us to develop some interesting and engaging resources to use with our students.

Embedding the Technology at GippsTAFE

So far the use of avatars in online education atGippsTAFE is still in the pilot phase. Our final challenge is to extend the use of this technology to a range of online programs.

Presenting at conVerge10

We recently presented this project at conVerge10. The presentation went well and received some good feed back from the audience.

However we had so much to talk about that we ran out of time. One section we missed was some tips about using the program CodeBaby so take a look at the image to the left to see what our brains trust has to say. I realise I have included some of this information in an earlier post but I really liked this image which is based on a file from Microsoft Office clip art.

New APA referencing guide now published.

Referencing - APA Style LibGuide
Please have a look at our new guide and leave us some feedback.

Thanks to all involved involved in the development of the guide.
Project team
GippsTAFE Library staff
GippsTAFE Nursing students and staff

More on collaboration

Our team met recently via Elluminate to discuss the Project presentation for Converge 10.
Our content for this had come together seriously quickly due in no small part to use of a web based collaborative word processing tool (in our case Google Docs).

Looking back on what we had written, we agreed there was a need to shift the focus of the presentation to some extent, away from emphasis on the platform for our resource Libguides, to look more closely at the avatar element of our guide as well as the software used to make it, CodeBaby. This meant considerable reorganisation of times and people's roles in the presentation itself, a re-write of our original plan.

At GippsTAFE, the library team uses Google Docs regularly for collaboratively developing reports, research, meeting agendas and (soon) policy. So I am pretty familiar with seeing how a document builds and changes.
But this is the first time I have collaborated on a document during a meeting. In one intense 45 minutes, changes flitted all over the document, sentences gone and new ones unfolding, times and names changing and then changing again. I could see who was entering what data, so knew who to direct questions to.
By meeting end, the rewrite was done and agreed on. Fantastic!

We liked this so much we are going to try developing slides for the presentation in the same way.

CodeBaby

CodeBaby is a program that allows you to create an animated online character that can be combined with a recorded message. The program automatically synchronises the character's lips with the audio and adds hand and body movements to create an engaging, life like presentation. Check out the CodeBaby web site for more details.

CodeBaby is the tool that we are using to create the avatar for this project. Yesterday I spent some time with Dale, our multimedia creator, to talk about his experiences with this program. Here are some of his comments:

• Ensure you do your initial recording in a quiet place, If there is any background noise in your recording the avatar's lips will be synchronised to that as well as your voice.
• The automatically synchronised gestures are a good start but you may need to tinker with these especially in longer sequences as sometimes the gestures that are used may not be appropriate to what is being said. For example in one gesture the avatar points emphatically which looks silly at an inappropriate place.
• You may need to add more head movements to give the avatar a more natural look.
• The gestures the avatar makes are limited, for instance it cannot point upwards.
• The resulting file can be exported from CodeBaby as a flash movie file which allows it to be incorporated into another flash object or as a stand alone .swf file.
• If you are incorporating it into another flash animation take care not to make the project run for too long or the various parts may get out of time. 60 seconds is considered to be a long animation so consider breaking your project up into smaller parts.

There are various options to choose from when you create an avatar in CodeBaby. You can choose male or female, there are several faces to choose for each gender and different clothes to provide options for a range of situations.

On collaborative blogging

At a recent gathering of the project team there was a recognition that our project blog had not “taken off” quite as well as we had expected.

Why hadn’t it become a steady stream of chatter and reflection about our progress? Certainly there has been lots of activity and plenty to talk about.

Perhaps we assumed that once a blog was created and we had our accounts that the rest would just follow, especially since we are all active in online forums in one way or another, including other blogs and Twitter.

We agreed that early on we probably should have set some guidelines for blogging to help create a habit and get contributors comfortable in this particular space. At least initially, we might have been wise to have structured in:
• a minimum of when we would post, and how often
• a regular, agreed topic and a rough outline of the content
• allocated the task to a specific team member and then rotated the role
• one person as blog “driver”, reminding us to post, suggesting ideas for content and generally encouraging. I know that our library work team blog, in its early stages needed a driving blogger (even now it wanes and needs a return to that strategy)
• commenting on each others posts

These strategies might help overcome any personal apprehension that your post is not striking the right kind of “voice” for the group. How do I know that is a problem? Well even know I am considering checking with the team that this post is OK.

I won’t. But I will ask them to comment :)

Rollover Buttons

I have been experimenting with adding rollover buttons to our APA guide as a way of highlighting the icons we are using to start up the avatar. We wanted a second image with a message added to appear when the user pointed to the icon.

After setting this up in DreamWeaver I cut and pasted the HTML code which used some Java script into the libguide. Initially this worked well and looked great. However as soon as I started adding more rollovers there were problems. It was not until Jo put two rollovers in boxes side by side she discovered that they seemed to be connected in someway. When she put her mouse over the second icon the rollover image appeared only on the first icon. Crazy but true!!!

My understanding of HTML code and Java script is limited so we are getting around this by only using one rollover image per page at this stage. This highlights the difficulty of using the libguides where we do not have so much control as in a regular webpage.

Successful Trial

Earlier this term we trialled the resource with a group of nursing students at the Warragul campus. The feedback from this pilot was very positive.

The students found the resource easy to navigate and the information useful. They were engaged by the avatar.

The students reported that the YouTube videos included in the resource were very slow to load. We did observe this during the trial, however subsequent tests have shown that in most cases these videos commence within 30 seconds of clicking on the link so we expect that the long wait times were the result of so many students clicking on these resources at the same time.

We are now working on refining the resource ready for publication in the first week of November.

Trial Postponed

Unfortunately the trial of our resource did not go ahead yesterday as planned. The nursing students have had a busy time recently with various assignments and exams so their teachers rescheduled the session.

This was disappointing for the team however we have set a new date for a trial, Monday October 4. Given that we now have a couple more weeks to work on the resource it should be even more complete when do trial it.

Preparing to Trial the Resource

Jo and Sandy have been working very hard preparing the resource for a trial with a group of GippsTAFE Diploma of Nursing students on Monday.

Although the resource is not complete there will be enough there to trial and the feedback we get from this will provide us with valuable information as we work on completing the resource in the coming weeks. We will be using an automated survey to gather information during our trial and a link to this has been posted on the resource.

We have also added some short avatar sequences to the resource to assist the users to use and navigate the resource. Thank you to Dale for creating these. We plan to add more in the future.

Because we are using a LibGuide as a basis of for this resource we have encountered limitations in the way we can use the avatar. This quite frustrating but we are coming to terms with these limitations and working on the best way to combine the two types of technology.

Fingers crossed all will go well on Monday!!!!!

Time to update our Libguide to the Sixth Edition of APA Style

Finally... the package has arrived with all the sixth edition references for APA style.
Sandy has been waiting with great patience for this so she can get all examples updated to reflect the latest changes.
Although most aspects of APA referencing remain very similar, the Sixth Edition has seen APA style significantly revised in response to technological changes in publishing. Along with other changes there are revised guidelines for referencing electronic sources and reference examples given for a wider variety of on-line sources.

An interesting example of a LibGuide

Jo found this LibGuide

La Trobe Uni LibGuide

It is based on a template created by OIL and creates a learning sequence from a LibGuide.

Great idea!!!!

Sneak preview

It is still a work in progress but here is our resource
APA Referencing in 3 easy steps

Simplify, simplify

Having spent some time finding and adding links in our Libguide to some of the fantastic resources others have developed on APA style, I am now peeling it back a bit. Trying to get enough to be useful, but not so much as to be overwhelming and keeping those bower-bird tendencies at bay.
I am also looking to move things around within pages to get a more consistent look and more predictability in terms of where to look for information.

Issues with Version 6 of APA

One of the main challenges with putting this guide together has been making sure the information is accurate and current. We need to be consulting the 6th Edition of the APA "bible" which has some important changes from the previous edition, but we're still waiting on the book to arrive! Jo sourced a summary online which is helping. From what we can gather, DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) are one of the main updates we need to include. This will mean re-scripting the electronic sources part of the "3 Easy Steps" spiel in CodeBaby which Dale has already done...hope he doesn't mind redoing that bit!

Consulting with Nursing Teachers

Yesterday I had a meeting with the Team Leader of Nursing to discuss the material we plan to include in our online resource. We want to ensure that the information students will access is relevant to their learning and relates directly to their course.

Feedback from the Team Leader was positive so now we need to concentrate on putting all the bits and pieces together.

It feels like we are making good progress.

Everyone is Busy

Dale, our multimedia developer, is exploring how we can integrate the avatar into the LibGuide. He is also developing a learning sequence based on Sandy's resources to show students how to reference in 3 easy steps.

Sandy is writing the avatar scripts for the learning sequence for the voice behind the avatar.

Jo is putting the LibGuide together, adding the resources and activities to the guide and grouping them into sections.

I am telling the world what we are doing by keeping this blog up to date.

Online Platform

We plan to use a LibGuide as the online platform for our resource in this project.

LibGuides is a Web 2.0 tool that libraries can use to manage content, share information and bring together multimedia resources.

The GippsTAFE library has purchased a licence for this tool and have been exploring how best to use it. They have created several guides and are finding it versatile and user friendly tool.

GippsTAFE LibGuides

The Role of the Avatar

At a recent meeting we discussed the role our avatar will take. Will it act purely as a guide to direct the students around the resource or will it also take on an instructional role? We plan to explore both possibilities as the project progresses. At this stage we will identify those parts of the resource where addition of the avatar will have the greatest impact and make those the priority.

Here are two interesting sites relating to the use of avatars, or interactive animated pedagogical agents as they are also known.

• Pedagogical Agents - A Primer
• Pedagogical Agents on the Web

Why an avatar?

I have been hunting around for some studies on using avatars in presentations, training and/or education where the focus is not on virtual worlds but on the advantages of an avatar or animated character supporting progress through learning materials or tasks.

A frequently cited landmark study is...
Reeves, B. (2000). The Benefits of Interactive Online Characters. Center for the Study of Language and Information, Stanford University.

Reeves' Major Points:
(1) Human-Media Interactions Are Fundamentally Social
(2) Character Interfaces Bring Social Intelligence to Online Interactions

The Project

eNursing@GippsTAFE aims to develop a customised e-learning program for GippsTAFE's Diploma of Nursing Students.

The program will contribute directly to the following three nursing units:

• HLTEN401A - Work in the nursing profession
• HLTEN502A - Apply effective communication skills in nursing proactice
• HLTEN514A - Apply research skills

Learners will acquire new knowledge and practice specific skills using freely available interactive web sourced content.

The program will pilot the use of avatars as well as incorporating Web 2.0 technology to provide learners with a user friendly, engaging elearning solution available around the clock.

This blog will record our journey.