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Viewlets: Animated
Instruction on the Internet
by Jane Scales
The Washington State University (WSU) Libraries’ Library Instruction department
has recently introduced a series of animated online tutorials constructed with
Qarbon’s™ (http://www.qarbon.com/) “Viewlet Builder,” a software package which
facilitates the creation of Flash™-based animations using screen captures. These
tutorials teach by showing students how to accomplish specific tasks such as:
- Basic and more sophisticated database searches
- Filling out forms and registering for library services
- Applying research concepts in real-life situations
The construction of these online tools was made possible by a WSU-sponsored
grant (“Improving Research Skills for the Information Age”) in the Fall of 2003.
The grant’s objective was the programmatic revision of the one-credit research
course, General Education 300. The instructional viewlet project was one
component of this revision. With grant funding, we were able to purchase copies
of the Viewlet Builder software and pay student workers to help in the
development of resources.
One category of viewlets we created teaches students how to more effectively use
library services. Viewlets in this category include:
- ILLiad Registration (registering for online Interlibrary Loan requests)
- ILLiad Requests (requesting documents or books not owned by WSU)
- Using Find-It (accessing full-text resources by using SFX)
- Find Your Record (viewing and renewing library items checked out)
Other viewlets are more research-oriented and show students how to conduct
searches to locate specific types of resources. Research-based viewlets include:
- Use Proquest to findUse ProQuest to find Newspaper Articles
- Use ProQuest to find Reviews
- Use ProQuest to find Scholarly Articles
- Find an Article by Citation
- Browsing for Books
After it became clear that not all of our users were comfortable using these new
tutorials, we created an introductory viewlet entitled “What is a Viewlet?” This
viewlet shows students how to more effectively use these Flash-based tools,
specifically how information is presented to them through “posted notes,” text
balloons, cursor movement, and screen shots with highlighted or interactive,
hyperlinked areas. Students also learn how to navigate the viewlet to back up
and review earlier slides, to pause the viewlet, or replay certain portions of
the viewlet.
The viewlets have been well-received by both students and faculty at WSU
Pullman. We have found that the tutorials save librarians and instructors time
which would otherwise be spent demonstrating the same processes repeatedly.
During instructional sessions, for example, librarians can point out specific
viewlets which will be helpful to students if there is not enough time to go
into the details or explanations during class time. Moreover, the viewlets offer
our distance students a new, more visual, and experiential way of learning from
home. Moreover, the animated tutorials are “patient.” Students can view them
repeatedly, review them, start them over, pause them, take notes, and study them
at their leisure. To look at these viewlets, point your web browser to:
http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/usered/viewlets/.
Please note, you may need to hit the “refresh” or “renew” button on your browser
after the viewlets load to get them to start.
Our future plans include the promotion of these tools so they are more widely
used, as well as a grant-sponsored assessment study to measure the effectiveness
of these tools during the 2004-2005 academic year. The WSU Library Instruction
department has also begun to introduce viewlets as a component of more
traditional online tutorials to illustrate short, specific tasks within a larger
context. You can view examples of this within the WSU Libraries NetLibrary
Tutorial:
http://www.wsulibs.wsu.edu/electric/library/trainingmods/netlibrary/
Jane Scales is the Distance Learning
Librarian at Washington State University.
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