Major Assignment #4: Exam

Every exam I give is very intentionally designed from an instructional standpoint to be a learning experience. You will be called upon to user higher-order thinking skills to evaluate, synthesize and apply the knowledge and skills you have developed during this course.

The exam will be in two parts--a take-home portion and an in-class portion.

Part One: Take Home Exam

You will complete part of the exam on your own, using any materials or resources you choose except other persons. You can use any text, web resource, course material, etc. This part of the exam will consist of several essay questions. You will use a word processor. The questions will come from your readings in the textbooks, as well as your readings and learning experiences in this course. Some of the questions will require responses that are specific to your own instructional environment.

The exam will come to you from me via email, as an attached RTF (Rich Text Format) file that you can open in Microsoft Word and many other word processors. Instructions for what to do will be in the document.

Plan now for taking the final exam. I will email the exam to you one week before it is due, and you must turn in the exam to me at the beginning of class on the day it is due. As you will note, that gives you your choice of several evenings to complete the exam. If you like, you can work on a bit at a time, or all at once.

I prefer that you not work on the exam for an entire week. In past courses, a take-home exam like this has been perceived as an overwhelming task, and one student of mine worked on it continuously for a week, revising and worrying. I don't want you to do that. The exam is not meant to be a week-long event. I suggest completing it in one or possibly two nights. If you do all the reading and the course activities, the exam will be a much more tolerable experience than if you do not.

To best study for the exam, read and make an outline of the readings and lectures, and spend time reflecting on the design activities of the course. The questions on the exam will be essay questions, and I will give you a total word count range for your responses which you should follow.

Sample Questions

  1. Explain the commonalities and differences between content management systems and course management systems.
  2. What is "open source" software, and why is it important in learning environments?
  3. Describe one innovative way to incorporate blogs and wikis in computer-base instruction.
  4. Why is RSS important in learning environments?
  5. What makes a simulation effective?
  6. Choose a learning theory and an instructional topic, and describe how the design of a CBI product on your chosen topic would be influenced by your chosen learning theory.
  7. Some designers use HTML to create an instructional product. What is HTML designed to do? In other words, what is it good for? What is it not so good for? What are the limitations of HTML? What are the good things about using HTML for creating instructional or learning environments? What are the drawbacks? Include in your answer a brief definition and description of the class of software known as “authoring tools” and why they exist.
  8. What are the strengths and weaknesses of Flash as an authoring tool for creating stand-alone computer-based instruction? How about PowerPoint? Authorware? Director? HyperStudio?

Part Two: In-class portion

Part of the exam will be conducted in the classroom on the specified day. This will involve a basic skills test using the authoring tool Macromedia Flash. You will have two hours total to complete this exam.

These are examples of the type of skills you will need to demonstrate:

  1. Draw a series of shapes with the Flash drawing tools, similar to these we created in class. If you recall, we used the line, pen, shape, free transform, and text tools to create artwork. You should also be familiar with gradients, transparency, and other basic effects.
  2. Create a basic motion tween in which an object moves across the screen from left to right while rotating.
  3. Create a basic shape tween, turning a large letter into a large number.
  4. Create a series of three buttons in flash, which would serve as a "navigation pane" for a website. Each of these three buttons should have an "over" state. Each button, when clicked, should go to a URL, such as <http://memphis.edu>.
  5. Enable a button to cause an audio file to start playing audibly when clicked, and then stop when clicked. I will provide the audio file and the button.
  6. Publish a .FLA file within an HTML page (as a SWF) and as a stand-alone application (as a .EXE on Windows or a projector on Mac).

Note that some (and perhaps all) of these tasks can be combined into one .FLA file, but this is not required.