Click anywhere to continue The SHARP Guided Tour Welcome to the SHARP guided tour — designed to show you how the SHARP approach works in practice. By the end of the tour you should be able to see how you could use the SHARP approach with either: X undergraduates studying for a vocationally oriented degree qualification, or X experienced practitioners engaged in programmes of continuing professional development (CPD). Note that all the information in this tour is covered in more detail elsewhere in the SHARP web site, but please stay with the tour — we will give you links at the end. Slide 1 of 4

Click anywhere to continue What is involved in running a SHARP style programme? To run a SHARP programme you must set up an asynchronous multimedia conference (AMC) where programme participants, tutors (and perhaps also invited contributors) can discuss and develop their understanding of working knowledge within your field. The usual starting point for discussion in the AMC is one or more short video clips representing some aspect of working practice. Slide 2 of 4

Click anywhere to continue Who makes the video clips? Video clips for a SHARP style AMC need to be created by practitioners. X If you are working on a continuous professional development (CPD) programme, these practitioners will also be the participants in the AMC. X If you are engaged in undergraduate teaching, you will want most of the participation in the AMC to be from your students and their teachers, but you may also need to arrange for relevant contributions to be made by some experienced practitioners. Slide 3 of 4

Click anywhere to continue What does the AMC consist of? The AMC discussion itself can consist of audio, video, textual and graphical annotations to the original video clips. By participating in the AMC, students, teachers and practitioners collaborate in constructing a communal hypermedia resource whose content focuses on a set of real-world working practices. Both the process of constructing the resource, and the end product itself, are important in promoting everyone’s learning. Slide 4 of 4

Click anywhere to continue A practitioner, Sonia, has identified a practical problem relating to her work. She decides to create a video clip from her office space to capture the problem... Here is a practitioner, who provides consultancy on the design of learning materials. She uses her video camera to tell other practitioners about a specific task and its problems Click to play clip Slide 1 of 13

Click anywhere to continue Sonia uses the video clip to capture a representation of the problem, in order to share and to discuss it with other professionals who might also have encountered this problem We call this kind of representation in a video clip a ‘talking head’: more about that later Asynchronous multimedia conferencing Sonia places the video clip in the discussion space, the AMC environment, to make it available to others Slide 2 of 13

Click anywhere to continue The clip is placed in the discussion space, where others can also view it. It is one of a family of what might be called multimedia objects The AMC environment Sonia’s Video Clip Slide 3 of 13

Click anywhere to continue Another practitioner, Chris, sees Sonia’s clip and has a suggestion to make. She uses a screen capture program to make another sort of multimedia object. In this case she makes an animation clip, describing an alternative approach for handling this problem. Click to play clip Slide 4 of 13

Click anywhere to continue Chris’ animation clip is also placed in the AMC environment, connected to the video clip made by Sonia The AMC environment as an annotation Sonia’s Video Clip Chris’ animation clip Slide 5 of 13

Click anywhere to continue Another practitioner, Tom, also has a view on Sonia’s problem and decides to make a response in a text message Hello everyone, I have a different way of handling this problem that might be useful to share here … ……. Tom Slide 6 of 13

Click anywhere to continue Tom’s text annotation is also placed in the discussion space, directly connected to the video clip made by Sonia, but also related to Chris’ animation clip The AMC environment Sonia’s Video Clip Chris’ animation clip and together these create a complex multimedia object Tom’s text annotation Slide 7 of 13

Click anywhere to continue The three multimedia objects are linked by their associations to each other. It is both a physical and conceptual packaging together. The AMC environment Sonia’s Video Clip Chris’ animation clip Tom’s text annotation Annotations can add to, and elaborate upon the video clip: eg in comments/questions/etc Slide 8 of 13

Click anywhere to continue Practitioners view Sonia’s clip and its annotations. A higher- or meta- level multimedia discussion follows. For example, Sonia adds another video clip to the AMC environment Click to play Sonia’s new clip In this case, the discussion is about professional approaches to using software tools Slide 9 of 13

Click anywhere to continue Sonia’s Video Clip Chris’ animation clip Tom’s text annotation The AMC environment The complex multimedia object helps to exemplify and demonstrate a real instance of the meta-level problem. While the video clip annotates the complex multimedia object Sonia’s video clip Slide 10 of 13

Click anywhere to continue Here is Bodil’s question, as a video annotation Click to play Bodil’s clip More questions, comments and advice start from the discussion raised in Sonia’s new video clip. These contributions are also added to the AMC environment, as annotations to the video clip. They include: voice messages voice messages text messages text messages video clips video clips Slide 10 of 13

Click anywhere to continue The AMC environment Sonia’s Video Representa- tion Chris’ animation suggestion Tom’s advice message The AMC environment A voice annotation Creating a rich web of multimedia objects that demonstrate, comment, question and advise upon the problem initially posed by Sonia A text annotation Sonia’s video representation of the meta- level problem Bodil’s video question Slide 12 of 13

Click anywhere to continue The AMC environment Sonia’s Video Clip Chris’ animation clip Tom’s text annotation The AMC environment Bodil’s video annotation A voice annotation Sonia’s video clip Topic: Using software tools (Pete Smith) Response: Training time and ongoing work (Ed Chu) Response: RE: Training time & ongoing work (Ann Bell) Response: Specifying needs to providers? (Bob Evans) Topic: Keeping abreast of new tools (Helen Cross) Over time, more contributions are added to the discussion: e.g. as text-based topics and responses, in the more traditional computer conferencing sense Slide 13 of 13

Click anywhere to continue You have completed the core part of the SHARP tour. Please choose any of the following excursions : Where to now? Technology Pedagogy Making video clips Making video clips Making annotations Making annotations End the tour End the tour

Click anywhere to continue On from here Thank you for taking the SHARP tour. Please go on now to explore the rest of the SHARP web site. You can: Y Sign our [Guestbook] Y Contribute to the [Discussion area] Y Go to the [Project Office] for more details of the SHARP project. Y Look at [Events] for information on upcoming dissemination events. Y Experiment with [WebOrama], a prototype AMC tool.

Click anywhere to continue About the technology We want you to be clear about what you wish to achieve with the technology, so that you are ready to brief your technical support staff or to carry out research yourself into the technology currently available. We won’t specify technical details here as systems are changing very rapidly. To implement SHARP you need to set up the following: X Software and hardware for running an asynchronous multimedia conference (AMC) across an appropriate network. X Hardware and software for making video clips, audio clips and graphical and text annotations. Technology excursion Slide 1 of 4

Click anywhere to continue AMC software Asynchronous multimedia conferencing of the type required by SHARP is still in its infancy: you are likely to find a choice of software packages to support AMC in the very near future. The SHARP project has developed a prototype tool – WebOrama – which currently offers the basic functionality required for a simple SHARP AMC. (You can try out WebOrama on this SHARP site.) When choosing or designing AMC software, you will need to consider the following: X What types of video/audio/text/graphics will it support? X How can annotations be linked to a video and to each other? – Can you link an audio annotation to a part of a video clip? X How can a conference be structured? X How easy will the system be for participants to learn? Technology excursion Slide 2 of 4

Click anywhere to continue The network You might want to run your SHARP conference across a local area network (or intranet), or over the Internet. You will need to consider where and when your programme participants need access to the conference. You must make it easy and convenient for them to participate regularly. Technology excursion Slide 3 of 4

Click anywhere to continue Video, audio, text and graphics X Software packages for creating computer based text and graphics are now everyday tools for most computer-literate people. X The hardware and software for recording video and audio are also becoming cheap and readily available. You might choose to use camcorder-type equipment or monitor-mounted cameras and microphones. When you set up a SHARP conference you will need to identify equipment and software that is appropriate for your needs. Whilst there’s a learning curve in finding out how to operate any equipment and software, the most significant issue for you will be how to use the technology appropriately to capture good shareable representations of working practices. Technology excursion Slide 3 of 4

Click anywhere to continue You have completed the core part of the SHARP tour. Please choose any of the following excursions : Where to now? Technology Pedagogy Making video clips Making video clips Making annotations Making annotations End the tour End the tour

Click anywhere to continue Learning with SHARP: the pedagogy The SHARP approach is designed to meet a particular learning need: to enable people to acquire and improve their ‘working knowledge. This is a short excursion into what we mean by ‘working knowledge’, and how the SHARP approach can facilitate the learning process. Pedagogy excursion Slide 1 of 7

Click anywhere to continue The problem of ‘inert knowledge’ Much of what is learned in formal educational systems – schools, universities, training classrooms – proves not to be accessible outside the context in which it was learned. It is described as ‘inert knowledge’. Three possible explanations have been given: X The relevant knowledge is (potentially) available, but the learner cannot access it at the time they need it. X The relevant knowledge is structured in the wrong way (for example for recall in an examination, but not for use in solving an unfamiliar problem). X The knowledge is fundamentally situated: that is, it is unreasonable to expect it to ‘transfer’ because situations are unique, problem solving is specific and the very idea of transfer is questionable. Pedadogy excursion Slide 2 of 7

Click anywhere to continue Developing ‘working knowledge’ We use the term ‘working knowledge’ to mean the opposite of inert knowledge. It is knowledge that students have acquired and which they can use in unfamiliar, real world, problem-solving situations. ‘Working knowledge’ also connotes knowledge that is characteristic of real-world workplaces: situated, job-specific knowledge as well as more general vocationally-relevant knowledge. The SHARP approach uses asynchronous multimedia conferencing (AMC) as a way of helping: X students to develop working knowledge by giving them insights into how work is actually carried out, and X practitioners to improve their working knowledge by examining their ‘tacit’ knowledge (knowledge they use in their jobs but which is difficult to put into words). Technology excursion Slide 3 of 7

Click anywhere to continue Learning in communities of practice SHARP adopts an idea first put forward by JITOL (Lewis, Goodyear & Boder, 1992; Goodyear, 1995): if you are working on a programme of continuing professional development with experienced practitioners, you need to organise the programme for a distributed community of practice and provide it by telematics- based ODL methods. This requires that groups of university staff cluster around a community of practice (rather than around an academic discipline) and use telematics-based ODL methods to build and sustain the community. Goodyear, P. (1995) Situated action and distributed knowledge: a JITOL perspective on electronic performance support systems, Educational and Training Technology International (32,1) Lewis, R., Goodyear, P., and Boder, A. Just in Time Open Learning, Neuropelab Occasional Paper NL/1/92, Archamps, France: Neuropelab Pedagogy excursion Slide 4 of 7

Click anywhere to continue The ‘evolving knowledge base’ JITOL developed the idea of an ‘evolving knowledge base’, created from a library of the interactions between practitioners. This evolving knowledge base is seen as a way of capturing much that is topical and innovative in the working practices of the community. Although the ‘evolving knowledge base’ idea was never fully worked out in JITOL, it remains a powerful way of conceptualising how a community of practice might begin to share its working knowledge. JITOL was limited to text-based representations of working practices and working knowledge. SHARP provides an opportunity to add multimedia to the toolkit, to allow practitioners more natural and vivid ways of representing what they do and some of what they know. Pedagogy excursion Slide 5 of 7

Click anywhere to continue Representations of practice In setting up a SHARP style AMC you will be asking practitioners to make representations of their working practices. The key medium for this is the video clip. Video clips are short pieces of video, typically between 5 seconds and 5 minutes long, which represent some relevant aspect of a practitioner’s work. Pedagogy excursion Slide 6 of 7

Click anywhere to continue Using video clips to good effect Video is a vivid medium that, if used appropriately, can be closely tied to the actuality of what practitioners do. By making good use of video clips you will be able to enable your AMC to remain focused on the actuality of real world working practices. It is an idea that relates strongly to an approach presented by Bransford et al. (1990), called ‘anchored instruction’. ‘At the heart of the model is an emphasis on the importance of creating an anchor or focus that generates interest and enables students to identify and define problems and to pay attention to their own perception and comprehension of those problems. They can then be introduced to information that is relevant to their anchored perceptions. The major goal of anchored instruction is to enable students to notice critical features of problem situations and to experience the changes in their perception and understanding of the anchor as they view the situation from new points of view.’ Bransford, J. et al. (1990) anchored instruction: why we need it and how technology can help, in Nix, D. and Spiro, R., eds, Cognition, education and multimedia, Erlbaum, Pedagogy excursion Slide 7 of 7

Click anywhere to continue You have completed the core part of the SHARP tour. Please choose any of the following excursions : Where to now? Technology Pedagogy Making video clips Making video clips Making annotations Making annotations End the tour End the tour

Click anywhere to continue Making video clips The starting point when making video clips must be: how can I best capture the working practice that is to be shared? There are a number of choices to be made. Will you use: Will the practitioner(s) make the video themselves, or will they be filmed by someone else? X a hand held camcorder? X a screen-top camera? X a tripod-mounted camcorder? Video clip excursion Slide 1 of 8

Click anywhere to continue It is helpful to think of six main types of video clip: X fly on the wall X think aloud X action with commentary X talking head X prepared script X professionally acted. Types of video clips Each of these is described, together with an example, on the following screens. Video clip excursion Slide 2 of 8

Click anywhere to continue 1 Fly on the wall Here, a camera is set up to capture practice in situ. The practice unfolds with as little attention to the video capture as possible. The representation captured may or may not include speech from the subject(s) and/or physical activity. If the practice is primarily cognitive (that is, going on inside the subject’s head), it may involve little visible action or aural content. This clip illustrates a tutor in Higher Education marking a student’s assignment and making notes for feedback to the student. You might use this type of video clip with situations such as: group working one-to-one meeting an individual working on a cognitive task that is limited over time, and which you will ultimately annotate. Video clip excursion Slide 3 of 8

Click anywhere to continue 2 Think aloud Also described as ‘talking while doing’ or ‘concurrent verbalisation’, here the subject is filmed as they engage in the practice to be represented. They are prompted to ‘think aloud’ as they work. A clip can be called ‘think aloud’ (as opposed to ‘action with commentary’ (described next) if there are reasonable grounds to believe that the audio track contains a reasonable reflection of the subject’s task-related cognitive processes, and is not significantly biased by their desire to provide a tidied up account of what they are doing. This clip shows a subject exploring the Help facility offered with her web browser. You might use this type of video clip to capture a representation of a practice that is normally performed alone, or that does not normally involve speech. (Otherwise there is scope for interference and confusion between speech-in- the-task and speech-about-the-task.) Video clip excursion Slide 4 of 8

Click anywhere to continue 3 Action with commentary In this type of representation, the subject is encouraged to explain what they are doing as they work. This is different from thinking aloud because it requires the subject to create a commentary. They are creating their representation with an audience in mind, rather than being restricted to a concurrent verbalisation on the task itself. The commentary may be a continuous explanation as the practice unfolds, or it may be that the subject begins, ends or interrupts the action with a commentary. Here a subject talks about aspects of how she uses Pagemaker (the desk-top publishing program) to create a paper based document. As with ‘think aloud’, you might use this kind of clip for some types of cognitive task into which the viewer would otherwise have very little insight. Video clip excursion Slide 5 of 8

Click anywhere to continue 4 Talking head This kind of clip moves even further away from the ‘purity’ of the practice being examined. It is likely to be a more discursive and reflective account than either ‘think aloud’ or ‘action with commentary’ clips. Talking head clips may be made ‘live’ or they may be pre-prepared. Subjects need to be conscious of their audience when making this type of clip. They may use artefacts to help to clarify what they are saying. Such artefacts from the work environment can help to ‘ground’ the clip, making it harder for the subject to depart (intentionally or accidentally) from the actuality of the practice. In this clip the subject speaks to the camera about a working practice and explains aspects of it. You might use this type of clip to represent a practice involving groups; or a set of talking head representations (one from each participant) might prove useful for comparative analysis of the different perspectives upon engagement in the same practice. Video clip excursion Slide 6 of 8

Click anywhere to continue 5 Prepared script In this type of video representation, the subject prepares a description (and possibly commentary) of a practice in advance of performance. The script may be used as a prompt, or followed closely for verbatim reporting. In this clip …[need clip here]. You could use this type of clip for a single-subject activity or a planned group activity (though this would necessitate careful coordination and collaboration among the subjects). Video clip excursion Slide 7 of 8

Click anywhere to continue 6 Professionally acted In this type of clip the subject engaged in a practice is played by a professional actor who adopts the role of the actual practitioner. Professionally acted clips might involve scripting by an actual practitioner, or could be prepared by a professional writer or production team in consultation with a practitioner. Professionally acted clips are not of great relevance to SHARP-style conferences (which aim to help professionals, for themselves, to tease out tacit knowledge embedded within their own real-world practices). In this clip …[need clip here]. This type of clip is used in commercially produced training videos used to illustrate how a skill or task should be undertaken. It is probably best suited to well-understood types of practice that can be clearly explicated. Video clip excursion Slide 8 of 8

Click anywhere to continue You have completed the core part of the SHARP tour. Please choose any of the following excursions : Where to now? Technology Pedagogy Making video clips Making video clips Making annotations Making annotations End the tour End the tour

Click anywhere to continue Making annotations Annotations form the substance of the discussion within a SHARP conference. They may be: Y help to explain a representation, such as its purpose Y ask questions about a representation Y provide contextualising information to the representation, or Y discuss the representation. Y video Y audio Y graphics, or Y text. The purpose of an annotation may be, for example, to: Annotations excursion Slide 1 of 5

Click anywhere to continue How to prompt effective discussion To run a good SHARP style conference, you need to: Y establish and make explicit the goals of participation Y be pro-active in organising the AMC and encouraging contributions Y help synthesise the ideas presented Y provide ‘good’ examples of style, form, length/duration of annotations Y monitor participation and seek out (and support) those people who are making few contributions Y mark the close, as well as the opening, of discussions (for example, by summarising). Annotations excursion Slide 2 of 5

Click anywhere to continue Video annotations In addition to using video clips to capture a representation of practice, they can also be used within a SHARP conference to annotate the original clip. They are additional to, or elaborate on, the first clip. In this clip …[need clip here]. Annotations excursion Slide 3 of 5

Click anywhere to continue Audio (voice) annotations: X help the viewer to focus on the action in the clip while hearing more/different/other comments X can provide a rich expressive contribution, capturing tone, and also humour, gravity, conviction, etc. X are easy to create – they are much quicker than typing X have persistance and are permanently stored as objects, unlike real speech, so can be revisited and replayed X can simplify the interface X can be given with playback control, e.g. to replay, to move/step forward and backwards, to scan, to stop. Audio annotations Annotations excursion Slide 4 of 5

Click anywhere to continue Text and graphics will be familiar media to all participants. Making effective text annotations within a SHARP conference requires participants to be brief, to the point, and clear about how their annotation relates to the original video clip and to other annotations. The use of graphics will depend heavily on what is supported by your conferencing software. Participants may find it particularly helpful to be able to ‘draw’ directly on a video clip, or a still from it. Text and graphical annotations Annotations excursion Slide 5 of 5