Research
and Education Activities (2004) of Digital Media Curriculum
Development Project*
*This material is based on work supported by the National
Science Foundation under Grant No. DUE-0340969.
Any opinions, findings and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material
are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National
Science Foundation.
A
Challenge
in Teaching Digital Media:
Rapidly evolving technology and software application tool.
One
of My Approaches
for this Challenge:
Teach students to learn how to explore application programs
to perform the generic functions and apply the basic
concepts they have learned – whatever the user
interface may be -- and will not tie student learning
to a particular
software package or version.
Education
Activities:
(1) Procedural vs. Task-oriented Approach
in Teaching Digital
Media Application
Two approaches of teaching digital
media applications were tested with about 60 students
in two lab periods of a CS intro that is for non-CS majors.
I called these two approaches procedural and task-oriented.
By procedural approach, I mean teaching students what
the specific menu items of an application do. By task-oriented
instruction, I mean teaching students the tasks independent
of applications first and then showing them how to find
the menu item in the application, including showing the
students how to use the Help to search for the task keywords.
The applications I tested with were Adobe Photoshop
and Paint Shop Pro. Students were given a preliminary
questionnaire that helped us to measure their previous
experience and knowledge of digital imaging and digital
imaging applications. About 30 students were taught with
the procedural approach and the others with the task-oriented
approach. Two different sets of lab assignments were
given in the first lab period -- one set (procedural)
contained questions of matching Photoshop menu functions
with the 'how-to use' of these tools, and the other (task-oriented)
contained questions of matching goals/tasks with Photoshop
tools. In the second lab period (a week later), both
groups were given the same lab assignment on completing
three different image editing tasks with both Photoshop
and Paint Shop Pro. Paint Shop Pro served as a new application
to the students. In contrast to Photoshop, I did not
give any overview on Paint Shop Pro or assign any practice
in Paint Shop Pro in the first lab period. The students
were asked to submit their completed image files, provide
descriptions of how they edited the images, and report
how long it took them to complete each task.
(2)
Improve Students Confidence to Learn New Digital Media
Application on Their Own
Both groups were shown how to
use Photoshop online help, by content listing or by keyword
search. To help students practice looking up information
in the online help, one of the lab assignments in the
first lab period was a guided example of searching for
a tool for a task from the online help. The students
were encouraged to look up Photoshop online Help in completing
the rest of the lab assignments for both lab periods
in the above assessment. After the two lab periods, the
students were given final questionnaires that subjectively
measured their confidence on learning new applications
and looking up online Help on their own.
Findings:
(1)
Procedural vs. Task-oriented Approach in Teaching Digital
Media Application
The performance
of both groups was compared by their choice of tools
and the timing for them to complete the assigned tasks.
Only those students who had no prior experience in
digital
image editing were taken into consideration for the
assessment results. Unfortunately, after taking out these
students,
the sample size of the two groups became too small
(only between 10 to 15 students in each group) to have
meaningful
statistical analysis. However, the average points of
the task-oriented group (based on their choice of tool
to complete the assigned tasks) were higher than the
procedural group. And, the average times for task completion
of the task-oriented group were shorter than the procedural
group, i.e. on average, the task-oriented group completed
the tasks in shorter time than the procedural group.
(2)
Improve Students' Confidence to Learn New Digital Media
Application on Their Own
In the final questionnaires
for both groups of students, regardless of their prior
experience with digital imaging applications: (i)
90% indicated the lab helped improve their confidence
in
further learning Photoshop on their own; (ii) 81% indicated
the lab helped improve their confidence in working
with other digital imaging programs that are new to them;
(iii) 73% indicated the lab helped improve their confidence
in looking up a program's help or user manual more
often
to learn how to use the program.