The workshop hosted at the College of Medicine, in Blantyre was the first workshop where we focussed our attention on teaching participants how to use Articulate Software. It was decided that the new software would cater for a more hands-on rapid development of e-learning materials, created by the academics themselves.
Workshop Objectives
- plan and structure an e-learning resource
- use Articulate software to enhance your existing PPT presentations
- identify different quiz types
- use Articulate Quizmaker to create the following:
- Multiple Choice Quiz
- Multiple Response Quiz
- True/False Quiz
- Sequence Drag and Drop Quiz
- Matching Drag and Drop Quiz
- use Articulate Engage to create the following:
- Step-by-Step instructional tutorial (Process)
- Labelled Graphic
- use Articulate Presenter to create voiceovers/narration for your PPTs.
- package all of your created materials into 1 PPT file using Articulate Presenter
- access training videos and documentation for further study
- access free image resources and understand copyright restrictions
Workshop Summary
The 3.5 day workshop was well attended by the three institutes (CoM, KCN, MCHS). The group was initially split into 2 groups based on experience of e-learning fundamentals. Many of the College of Medicine participants had worked with e-learning during previous visits and were already aware of the benefits and potential of e-learning resources.
While the group consisting of participants from KCN and MCHS were learning about the core principles of e-learning in a workshop being led by Moffat Nyirenda, the smaller group comprising of CoM participants were introduced to Articulate Software. After an introduction to the key elements of the new software the group was split into small groups and followed some handouts to try all of the different functionality in the Articulate Engage, Quizmaker, and Presenter software.
The Articulate Software workshop was then repeated on day 2 with the remaining participants from the other group. Both of the groups were able to learn the fundamentals of the easy-to-use Articulate software very quickly. Before long all of the groups were moving away from the workbooks and using the tool to create new resources to be used in their teaching.
By the third day of the workshop all of the participants were comfortable with the software and creating a range of resources using the three different elements of the software. The focus of the third day was to review the resources and raise awareness on the issue of ‘Quality Control’. Helen Cameron gave a presentation on what makes a good e-learning resource and the importance of feedback for a student. The third day also included a section that went through some of the important elements of using images that are free from copyright restrictions, and the raised the question of ethical possession of images.
The final morning was focussed on a discussion on how the new approaches to e-learning could be taken back to the institutes and continued in the near future. The groups were split by institute as they all have different requirements and allowed for realistic targets to be set by the participants.
