Proposal Module 1:
Online Tutorials for My Ramapo Calendar

Designer:

Trish Williams
My Ramapo/Luminis Project Co-lead
Team Implementation Specialist
Instructional Design Center
Ramapo College of New Jersey
pwilliam@ramapo.edu

Design Stage: Planning & Proposal

Proposal in Wire-Frame (concept map)

Technologies:

• HTML, CSS, tutorials will record screen capture images with accompanying text instruction.
• PDF versions available for download for printer friendly version
• Self-assessment online quiz created using Hot Potato saved as HTML/CSS

Color Choices: main background:#CCCC99 , text background: #FFFFFF, sidebar background: #999966, header background: #990000, body text: #000000, headlines #990000, #009999

See color chart visual

Font Choices: Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, San Serif

Sample FireWorks Mockup: Tutorial Sample

Inspiration Sites:
Logo Inspiration: http://my.ramapo.edu
Color Inspiration: http://my.ramapo.edu, http://www.ramapo.edu
Content Inspiration: http://my.ramapo.edu
Image Sites: http://my.ramapo.edu

 

Design Stage: Pedagogy Elements

Target lesson:

To provide online tutorials to train users in various features of the My Ramapo calendar, including some basic and advanced features.

Target audience:

Ramapo College Faculty and staff would be primary users of the calendar tutorials. Many staff are new users of the portal so may have limited knowledge of this tool. Some faculty and staff may have limited experience with technology in general. Many administrators have their secretaries co-manage their calendars, so need to be trained in advanced calendar sharing options. The College has never had a common, shared calendar application before, so some users may not be familiar with calendar applications at all, and others may be familiar with google calendar, iCal, Outlook or other calendar applications.

Ramapo College Students: Most students pick up online technology quickly on their own, so they may not be the primary audience. However, returning adult students may be potential users of these tutorials, as well as international students from countries with limited technology.

Learning objectives and teaching strategies:

I plan to teach some basic and advanced features of the calendar.

Online Tutorials - I will record screen capture of my actions navigating through the calendar screens, which will show how to perform specific functions in the portal. These HTML tutorials will have accompanying text explanation. Common uses of the tool within the context of the College setting will be touched on to provide sense and meaning to help retain information into long term memory.

I will break the tutorials into a series of short lessons so users can choose to watch just a particular tutorial lesson, or the entire calendar tutorial module. Short lessons will allow users to retain information as illustrated in the primacy-recency effect.

The tutorials will be linked and posted on the My Ramapo Web site as a new section called tutorials.

These tutorials will stand alone, as well as supplement the web-based user guide and hands-on workshops offered on campus each semester. Users can navigate through the online tutorials while they are logged into My Ramapo in a separate window. This will allow hands-on learning while doing, which has the highest retention rate. Users can work at the pace they feel comfortable with, and can use the tutorials as needed, to follow up on workshop training, or in place of workshop training.

Tutorials will hope to attain the following retention rates after 24 hrs:

• Reading 10% (text in web pages)
• Audiovisual 20% (images and colors in web pages)
• Practice by doing 75% (user can practice by logging into the calendar and practicing what is shown in the tutorials by having 2 windows open at once, My Ramapo and the tutorial)

PDF documents - calendar features in PDF to download and print for reference. Some users like to have some form of documentation in print.

Assessment - Web-based self-assessment allows user to immediately test their knowledge on the topic before or after taking tutorials. Assessment provides opportunity for feedback and re-teaching if necessary. This informal self-assessment should not be intimidating to users.

Design Stage: Mechanics and Implementation

The site will contain a tutorial homepage which will introduce the tutorials, provide links to the tutorial topics, as well as links to PDF versions of all tutorials for printing. A link to an online self-assessment will be provided for users to test their knowledge.

Individual web page tutorials will be created for each of the following calendar topics:

1. Intro to Calendar Basics

2. Managing Calendar Events

3. Managing Tasks

4. Creating & Removing Calendars

5. Subscribing to Calendars

6. Combine Calendars with Calendar Sets

7. Calendar Sharing

8. Calendar Settings/Options

This proposal is put together using the template for the tutorial pages. Links to the Tutorials and Self-Assessment are available at the top navigation bar on this page.

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Author: Trish Williams
Last updated: 3/17/08

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