With ?MelissaGold from ExtensionCourses on how in-situ training (i.e. FlashClass and TepFlashClass ) was used in the SeaweedAnimation and EngineeringDrawing (TEP02) projects. This should be a case study, extrapolated to lessons-learned, and ideally resulting in an outline for a model.

The Role of Division of Labor in an In-situ Multimedia-training Project: a South Pacific Case Study

Paper accepted for httppresentation at ED-MEDIA 2003

Presentation Outline

Full Paper

The Role of Division of Labor in an In-situ Multimedia-training Project: a South Pacific Case Study

Christopher Robbins
The University of the South Pacific Media Centre, Fiji
mailtorobbins_c@usp.ac.fj

Abstract:

Fifteen staff at the University of the South Pacific were trained in Macromedia Flash by developing a CD-ROM for use in a distance learning course. Rather than divide the workload into specializations, as is the standard practice in multimedia production (Rutkowski, 2001; Hughes, 1999), we distributed the workload into equivalent cross-sections of the necessary skills. Our view was that the standard "assembly line" multimedia production process could impede both the training and production aspects of an in-situ training project. By creating interchangeable work units, the cross-sectional approach enabled the project to succeed in spite of a substantial staff dropout rate, and helped to provide a variety of roles for the participants, which is a critical characteristic of immersive training strategies (Herrington, 1995). However, generalization did not automatically follow this cross-sectional divisional of labor, as most participants still required additional examples within each role to generalize their skill-set.

Introduction

The University of the South Pacific serves 12 island-nations distributed over 33 million square kilometers of ocean (The University Region, 1999). Approximately half of the students study outside the main campus (USP Summary Statistics, 2001), and have significantly less access to lecturers than do on-campus students. In an effort to enrich the learning experience of these remote students, the University initiated a program to create interactive CD-ROMs in support of coursework. One of the first projects involved transferring a print-based Fundamentals of Engineering Drawing course into an interactive CD-ROM for distribution among the dozen member-nations, including 30 separate animations created in Macromedia Flash and over 100 separate audio tracks. Because I was the only staff member with significant Flash experience at the onset of the project, and as there were no funds nor time available to send staff on training courses, we needed to combine training for this project with production of the project at no cost. We designed this in-situ training project with this goal in mind. In-situ training has been used in a wide variety of circumstances: for ecological conservation in India (Badola, 1999), community media training in Africa (Mwangi, 1996), sexual abuse prevention skills in the United States (Miltenberger, Roberts, Ellingson, Galensky, Rapp, Long & Lumley, 1999), a bamboo training program in India (Bakos, 2000), an art restoration in Thailand ("The Restoration of Wat Sratong", 2000), and is even the technique proposed for a study in the training of robots with NASA (Handelman, 2002). But while In-situ training techniques clearly have broad applications, they also have many potential drawbacks. Factors such as the cost of importing the necessary equipment to the workplace (Eleftheriou, 2000), geographical isolation of trainees (Clyatt, 1998) and lack of proper planning (Badola, 1999) have all caused problems with past in-situ training projects. Because geographical and equipment-transport issues were not a factor in this case study, we focused on project-planning methodologies for in-situ training projects. In a situated learning environment, "knowledge and skills are taught in contexts that reflect how the knowledge will be used in real-life situations." (Lankard, 1995) In-situ training methods are meant to enable such experiential learning situations. According to existing literature, these situations are most effective when the learners engage in a variety of roles and have the chance to apply what they learn in the target environment (Oliver, Herrington, Herrington, & Sparrow, 1996; Herrington, 1995; Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). Past studies of in-situ training techniques as they pertain to multimedia have focused largely on the role of multimedia as an in-situ training aid through simulation (Chmielewski, Pandya, Woolford, Adolf, Whitmore, Berman, & Maida, 1998; Teo, 2000; Wilson, 1995; Chambers & Stacey, 1999). This case study examines how in-situ training can be used to teach multimedia development skills. Specifically, I focus on how division of labor can affect both the training and production aspects of an in-situ multimedia-training project. By dividing the participants’ workloads into cross-sections of the entire set of skills needed for the project, we aimed to elicit the varied roles identified by prior studies as critical to such learning situations (Lankard, 1995; Oliver et al, 1996; Herrington, 1995). Through this division of labor, we also hoped to provide "padding" on the production side by producing a pool of equivalently skilled staff who could cover for each other when necessary.

Method

Participants

Fifteen staff-members of the University of the South Pacific participated. All used computers daily, but none had used Macromedia Flash to any professional degree. Their ages ranged from 24 to 47, all but one were born in the South Pacific, and all but two had some level of undergraduate education (Appendix A). There were two men in the group.

Setting

Sessions ran for one hour twice a week, and I published notes on the Internet immediately following each session. In total we ran 16 sessions over two months. The first 10 sessions covered Flash concepts and were held in a media workshop in which only the instructor could have access to a computer. In each of these sessions I taught one concept of Macromedia Flash, and then applied it to the development of an animation for the CD-ROM. I assigned each participant one of these animations as "homework" to provide hands-on practice in their real work environment. The final six sessions took place in a computer lab in which each participant had his or her own computer. No new topics were covered during these sessions; they were held for review and to give the participants a chance to work on their projects outside of their usual work commitments. We gave participants the option to hold these final sessions at their own desks while I "roved" the office offering guidance, but they unanimously opted for the computer lab.

Procedure

Design of the interface and multimedia assets

The project consisted of 29 separate Flash animations and over 100 audio clips, all controlled by a separate interface "The Mothership" at runtime. Each Flash animation showed how to construct a different technical drawing, and was divided into several steps. "The Mothership" interface allowed the end-user to select different animations to view, and to step forward and backward through each animation. At each step, while the drawing was animated, explanatory text appeared along the bottom and was accompanied by an audio clip of a person reading the description aloud. The interface (Fig. 1) consisted of the frame and buttons, and selecting different constructions from the green pull-down menu on the top imported separate animations for display while playing the appropriate audio file.

http://www.grographics.com/fiji/insitu/fig1.gif

Figure 1. Screen shot of a sample construction within the interface at runtime

Division of Labor

Because the project was outside the regular work responsibilities of all but one participant, we anticipated a high degree of staff attrition. As such, each person’s role in the project needed to be relatively interchangeable. So, we divided the workload such that each person’s mini-project was as similar as possible to the others. That is, rather than divide the individual projects into specialties such as storyboarding, scripting, drawing, animating and coding, we divided the workload such that each individual project encapsulated all of the skills utilized in the project as a whole. We were worried that decentralizing the workload to such an extreme might increase the likelihood of discrepancies between the mini-projects, so we distributed a list of conventions to the participants at the onset of the project. Because these Flash animations were to be built by novices, we centralized the most difficult coding work into "The Mothership," which I programmed. Because each participant developed exchangeable units, I approached the programming to cater to this division of labor. As long as every participant adhered to the same set of conventions, the code could treat each unit in the same way. So, "The Mothership" served as a menu system for the organization and viewing of these self-contained units, rather than as the assembler of disparate assets into complete units that an assembly-line division would require.

Results and Discussion

Staff Attrition

As expected, there was a substantial dropout rate in this project. Of the 15 participants, eight completed their animations. In spite of the substantial dropout rate, all of the animations were completed by the deadline, and two sets of usability tests showed the final product functioning as intended. This was possible because several participants "picked up the slack" for the ones who had dropped-out. In fact, three people (20% of the total) completed the bulk (74%) of the animations. Due to the cross-sectional division of labor, all participants were doing the same kinds of work, so they could more easily turn to each other for help than if they had specialized at the outset. In a post-project questionnaire, all but one of the participants cited regular workload as the reason for missing sessions, and all who responded preferred the sessions held in the computer lab. I found no correlation between age, gender, education-level, or sessions missed to the number of animations completed (Appendix A).

Situating the skills to the work environment

Although most animations needed minor adjustments such as timing or coloring to make them adhere strictly to the conventions, none had Flash errors. That is, while the conventions were not applied perfectly (e.g. a line-segment was black where it should have been blue), the program itself was used correctly (e.g. Flash’s line-drawing tool was used to draw a line). Additionally, 28 of the 29 animations showed correct application of the Flash concepts to the animations. In other words, the animations were not only correctly assembled, but also did what was intended for the project. Only one animation displayed a brute use of Flash technique without attention to the implications on the actual animation. In this case, the animation had all the proper components of an animation (key frames, tweens, etc), while the animation itself was not acceptable for the project. This was the only case in which the general concepts of animation were learned without being properly situated in the context of this particular work project. The fact that the participants completed all but one animation correctly demonstrates that the Flash skills taught in this in-situ training project were for the most part properly applied to their work environment. The learning was situated in the authentic work environment.

Generalizing the skill set: measures taken to reduce "over-situating"

By assigning a broad set of equivalent duties to the participants, we had hoped to provide the "multiple roles and perspectives" and "collaborative construction of knowledge" that Herrington (1995) cites as critical characteristics for successful situated learning. Assigning a cross-section of skills as work-responsibilities ensures multiple roles because it forces participants to "put on several hats" within the multimedia production process. However, teaching such a specific application of the skills can introduce the risk of "over-situating" those skills (Teo, 2000). That is, while in-situ training helps assure that the skills will be applicable to the participant’s actual work environment, training for such a specific goal can hinder generalization of those skills. In other words, did we teach how to use flash for multimedia production, or merely how to animate a construction for this particular technical drawing CD-ROM? For those participants who completed animations more complex than the example used to train, it appears that these skills were generalized. During training, I used a simple construction containing only straight line-segments and arcs to demonstrate the animation process. Of the 29 animations completed, I found only one example in which the methods I taught for animating a straight line-segment were applied without modification to a more complex animation. This resulted in an awkward and unacceptable animation. All other participants adapted the specific skills they were taught to their more complex animations. Only follow-up tests could determine conclusively if the participants who completed a simple animation were able to generalize their skills. However, the comments of one participant give us some insight into this question. In this project, we used masks to animate our line-segments. A mask is a shape that acts as a window through which we can view parts of the object beneath it. Only the area of the object covered by the masking shape is visible. By enlarging the masking shape over a static line-segment, we can give the appearance of a line-segment being drawn (Appendix B). I used the example of the letter 'A’ masking a photograph as a general example of the properties of a mask (Appendix C). Only the parts of the photograph covered by the 'A’ were visible. I then showed how applying the same principles to a rectangle masking a line-segment could be used to animate the line-segment. One participant who missed this session learned this technique for animating line-segments from other participants, and applied them perfectly in her animation. However, on studying my on-line notes, this participant was confounded by the example with the letter 'A’: "I don’t see what cropping a photo with a letter has to do with animating a line." (personal communication, July 2002) Clearly, this participant had learned the specific steps for animating a line-segment using masks without absorbing the more general applications of a mask. Once I explained the link between the two examples, the participant was able to apply the mask to varied scenarios, and has even transferred this technique for use in video-editing software. From these two examples it is clear that the cross-sectional division of labor in and of itself did not guarantee the "multiple roles and perspectives" (Herrington, 1995) we sought to elicit. Participants needed to engage in multiple applications of the skills taught within these roles in order to generalize their skills.

Special considerations for the South Pacific

Having lead multimedia training projects in both the U.K. and the U.S., I found staff at the University of the South Pacific to be more reluctant to contribute to in-class discussions, or to volunteer for demonstrations. The initial sessions were held in a room with only one computer, which made it difficult to gage how much of the training was being absorbed. In order to give the participants some immediate hands-on experience, I ended up forcing the participants to build the animations in Flash in front of the class while I talked them through the process. This was an unpopular technique for which I received complaints both during and after completion of the course. The participants wanted immediate hands-on experience, just "not in front of everyone else" (personal communication, July 2002). The same is true to a degree in all cultures in which I have taught, but the reluctance to perform in front of colleagues was much stronger in these sessions than I had previously experienced. In fact, one participant cited this teaching style as the reason for leaving the project. Once we gained access to a computer lab, participants were able to follow along with their own Flash projects at the relative privacy of their own computers while I stepped them through the concepts. In this way, I was able to follow their progress without "making them nervous." (personal communication, July 2002) Holding sessions in a computer lab had the additional benefit of enabling the participants to finish their actual work during the session, cutting down on the amount of time required during their workdays. The participants expressed an almost unanimous preference for the computer lab sessions, preferring the "more hands-on practical session with each participant on a computer when each session is conducted." (personal communication, 19 November, 2002) In the future, I will hold all sessions in a computer lab. I would also like to experiment with the "roving" technique I mentioned earlier, because this method can provide supervised hands-on experience for learners at organizations without a computer lab.

Wider Applications

The lessons from this case study need to be qualified on a number of points. First, this was not a controlled experiment, but an after-the-fact analysis of a work-project. The project was run with the goal of maximizing efficiency of training and workload, so enforcing strict experimental procedure was not a high priority. Future studies with control groups for different methods of division of labor would add more quantitative evidence to this largely qualitative analysis. Additionally, a future project with the same participants in which they are given tasks that apply the skills they were taught in a different scenario will help us determine more conclusively if their skills generalize. Other than points regarding programming approach, the methods of this case study may be applicable outside the field of multimedia, and studies focusing on the wider application of these methods would be beneficial.

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Appendix A: Participant demographics, attendance and workload

http://www.grographics.com/fiji/insitu/appendixa.gif

An entry of .5 for Animations Completed denotes that an animation was shared with another participant. All data other than Animations Completed was collected from a post-project questionnaire. I found no correlation between the number of animations completed to either age, r(11) = -0.26, p >.10; gender, r(11) = 0.29, p >.10; education, r(11) = 0.21, p >.10; or sessions missed, r(11) = -0.27, p >.10.

Appendix B: Masking a line segment

http://www.grographics.com/fiji/insitu/appendixb.gif

The portion above the dotted line displays the mask with line segment, and the portion below the dotted line displays the effect of the respective masks at runtime. Note that in the column to the left, the mask does not cover the masked object, so no line-segment is visible. In the second column, the portion of the line-segment covered by the mask is visible. Progressively expanding the mask until it covers the entire line-segment gives the appearance of a line being drawn.

Appendix C: Masking with a letter

http://www.grographics.com/fiji/insitu/appendixc.gif

This is the example the participant referred to as "cropping a photo with a letter." To the left is the original photo with the letter "A" imposed over it. To the right is the final effect after the "A" has masked the photo. Although the application is different, the same concept of a mask as a revealing window is used in both this example and in Appendix B.

Acknowledgements

The project this case study follows was completed in partnership with Melissa Gold and Tokireti Tekerau, both of University Extension at the University of the South Pacific. The Project was a collaboration between University Extension and the Media Centre of the University of the South Pacific. The data presented, the statements made, and the views expressed are solely the responsibility of the author.

Last edited on March 1, 2004 5:18 pm.