E-Learning Concepts and Techniques

Chapter 7 – Development

E-learning development entails much more than designing appealing modules for your content with the latest authoring program. Effective development will include less popular elements such as coding, standards, and accessibility (for people with disabilities). This chapter will give you a quick overview of e-learning development:

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Bonus Podcasts

Eric Milks, a professional developer at Bloomsburg University's Institute for Interactive Technologies, gives tips for meeting aggressive deadlines in our 3-part Podcast and can be found at:

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7.1 - Leading Authoring Tools

Dave Cerreta

Using an authoring tool to create a training, educational course, Website design or basic animation is not a standalone skill. Effective authoring requires prior knowledge of additional software such as graphics programs and a working knowledge of HTML or Website development.

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Knowing Your File Types

Understanding programs such as Photoshop, ImageReady, Corel Draw, Painter or any other image enhancement programs will be extremely helpful because they will familiarize users with image types such as .jpeg, .bmp, .gif and .png. These image extensions have critical ramifications concerning bandwidth issues and overall file sizes.

The function of the photo will determine its extension. Users typically use .jpeg for photos and complex color images, .gif for images containing solid colors and/or shapes and .png for images with transparency. An experienced user will use a program such as Adobe ImageReady to edit the images and keep the file sizes to a minimum. This becomes extremely important in larger projects containing tens or hundreds of images.

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Popular Authoring Tools

Several of the programs mentioned above can aid authoring tools; here is a closer look at several authoring tools and reasons to use them.

Choosing the correct authoring tool can be a tricky process. The choice depends upon several other things such as:

As of 2006, several authoring choices exist - Macromedia Flash, DreamWeaver, Authorware, and Director; Toolbook; and Microsoft Frontpage. This is not an exhaustive list, as authoring tools have become extremely popular due to the increasing ease of use and the popularity of the effects they can produce in small amounts of time.

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How Tools Help

Before authoring tools were created, only programmers could create interactions and animations through the use of coding languages. Although most authoring tools require some coding, a lot of the work is done by the program. Thousands of people, including teens, use tools like these to create their own Web pages. Companies such as Adobe/Macromedia and most additional authoring tool companies offer free 30 day trial versions of their software. The company websites offer thousands of tutorials to help the user accomplish their goals. An excellent example is www.macromedia.com, the macromedia homepage which consists of hundreds of tutorials for Flash, DreamWeaver, Director and Authorware.

Macromedia Flash is the most common authoring tool at this particular moment. Flash is used to create anything from basic animations and website introduction to entire websites. Anything above a basic level in Flash will probably require coding, but the tool can be used easily and the coding can be minimized.

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Where do I go from here?

A great way to start is to go to the home page of Macromedia and download a trial version of Flash. Leaf through a few of the tutorials to find something simple such as a basic animation or a shape tween. Go through the tutorial step by step and then move on to something a little more challenging. Your confidence will grow with every step you take and start to expel the anxiety associated with the software.

There are more authoring users than ever before on the World Wide Web and the numbers are showing no signs of slowing down. More companies are turning to alternative, cost effective training measures, including Web-based trainings via the Web, learning management systems (LMS) and content management systems (CMS). With the future looking very bright for Web-based multimedia and training, - anyone who enjoys the Web, works in training or education should get familiar with authoring tools because they are here to stay.

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7.2 - Understanding Authoring Tools

Nathan Eckel

Any technology is only as good as the person employing it. Understanding what authoring entails and assessing your ability will give you a better idea of the capabilities of the existing technology. Your skill level and temperament determines the speed, ease, and effectiveness of a project. Being able to self-assess your abilities with the potential of the technology will save you time, energy, and aggravation.

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Learning Curve

Every authoring tool comes with its own learning curve. For the uninitiated the first programs will be crash courses in complex, unfamiliar, and awkward commands, codes, and symbols. Fortunately the deeper your knowledge grows, the more transferable the process may become with other tools. You will ultimately begin to anticipate the quirks, glitches, and oversights that may have vexed you beforehand. Knowing what the learning process entails saves you much aggravation.

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Limits & Abilities

A solid self-concept is helpful when sizing up the tools you will use. Determination, patience, detail-orientation, creativity, and a calm demeanor are great qualities to have when learning how to use authoring tools. Here are a few more:

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Importance of Instructional Design

One point should always be considered when planning an authoring project, especially with Flash and other tools with interaction potential. Assuming that an interactive, highly engaging tool will also create effective content is a mistake. The instructional design process ensures that your content is conceived, created, and implemented in an instructionally sound manner. Without it, you will have an attractive yet ineffective product.

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7.2 Summary

Understanding the learning curve, assessing your ability level, and employing principles of instructional design ensure that your products are worthwhile for your users. When authored properly, interactive e-learning modules can be a rewarding, memorable experience for your users.

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7.3 - Hearing Your Web Pages

Charles L. Chen

You can recite the 508 guidelines by heart. You've added alt tags to all of your images. You've added a skip to main content link on every last page. You've run everything through Bobby, twice. So that means you have a perfect website that can't possibly be made any more accessible, right?

WRONG!

While you have certainly been doing all the right things, there is still one more step that you can take to bring the accessibility of your site to a whole new level. That step is to put yourself into the shoes (or perhaps ears) of someone who uses a screen reader. There is simply no substitute for hearing your Web pages being read aloud by a screen reader; closing your eyes and just concentrating on listening to how it sounds can give you invaluable insights into the way that visually impaired users will experience your site. Until recently, this involved buying expensive screen reading software or putting up with the various restrictions placed on trial copies of such products. However, there is now Fire Vox, a freely available, open source screen reading extension for the Firefox Web browser. This guide will explore some of the best practices for evaluating your website using Fire Vox. Note that although this guide is aimed at using Fire Vox, the general principles and techniques apply to testing your website with any screen reading application.

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Just Because It Validates Doesn't Make It Right

This is an example of a page that validates but is completely unusable. The problem here is that although the alt tags on the images are accurate, they do not convey enough information for someone who cannot see the images. Remember, validation tools, as useful as they are, are just tools – they can't do your thinking for you and tell you when your alt text simply doesn't make sense.

Tip: When listening to what your page sounds like, try putting yourself into the frame of mind of a new visitor who has no idea of what is there. Does your page still make sense? If not, why not, and is there any information that you can add to fix it?

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Appearances Can Be Deceiving

Sometimes, there are just quirks that are not obvious until you encounter them. Usually, there is nothing in the HTML standards that says you can't do things a certain way; however, in practice, some ways of doing things are more likely to be problematic than other ways. In an ideal situation, these differences would not exist, and one would have a perfectly working Web page as long as it follows the HTML standard. Unfortunately, reality is not so simple and each browser has its own quirks. As a Web developer, you should try to choose approaches that not only obey the HTML standard but also avoid quirky behavior as much as possible.

An example of quirky behavior can be seen in the way link targets are handled in Firefox 1.5.0.2. Firefox will not place the cursor on a link target if that target is completely empty. Instead, it will scroll the window to that position and then take away the navigation caret. For screen readers that rely on the navigation caret to determine the user's position, this will cause a problem. On the surface, the skip link on this page appears to be working just fine. However, upon closer inspection by reading through with Fire Vox, it becomes apparent that there is a problem since the reader will not realize that the skip has occurred.

The moral of this story: Just because something appears to be OK, doesn't guarantee that it is. You should always double-check and go through it once just to be safe. You should not try to bend over backwards and break standards just to get things working (and you should not need to), but if a minor tweak that is just as correct makes everything smoother, then why not do it?

Tip: Creating an anchor element that has no text content can be risky. It might not always work correctly depending on the combination of browser and screen reader that the user is working with. In this case, trying to jump to a DOM node with no content caused Firefox's cursor navigation to turn itself off. An anchor element with text content is always safe, so you should always place the anchor tags around some text. Again, there is nothing in the HTML standard that says jumping to an empty DOM node is bad. However, jumping to something with content is an equally valid approach and much more likely to work correctly; hence, that should be the method that you use.

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Say What???

You may be thinking to yourself, What could possibly be wrong with the example on this page? It has nothing but text, and the entire example consists of a mere four sentences! Is it even possible to get something this simple wrong? The answer to that last question is a resounding yes, unfortunately. If you tried listening to this example, the problems become apparent; the heart shape (<3) is interpreted as less than 3, one street name is mispronounced, saint is confused with street, and none of the titles are read correctly. This content would be incomprehensible to visually impaired users who rely on screen readers since it sounds nothing like the way it would sound if a human were reading it.

Tip: If your page sounds terrible and things are not being read the way they should be, then try rewording it if possible to avoid the problematic words. For any part of it that simply cannot be said in any other way, consider using CSS3 speech module properties, especially the say-instead property. While the CSS3 speech module is not supported by every screen readers, Fire Vox is one reading tool that does have support for it. Note that different text to speech engines perform differently; some voices may say parts of your page correctly without the need for any hints from say-instead while others choke. To be safe, you should stick with using the barebones, generic voices that come by default as part of the engine. For Windows users, it would be one of the Microsoft voices (Mary, Mike, or Sam).

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7.4 - Making PDFs Accessible to Assistive Technology

Pam Berman, Livio Mondini, and Roberto Scano

Tagged PDFs

PDF can be accessible to people with disabilities. Current PDF file formats can include tags (essentially XML), text equivalents, captions and audio descriptions, and other accessibility features. Some software, such as Adobe InDesign, can output tagged PDFs automatically. Leading screen readers, including Jaws, Window-Eyes, and Hal, can read tagged PDFs; current versions of the Acrobat and Acrobat Reader programs can also read PDFs out loud. Moreover, tagged PDFs can be reflowed and zoomed for low-vision readers.

However, many problems remain, not least of which is the difficulty in adding tags to existing or legacy PDFs; for example, if PDFs are generated from scanned documents, accessibility tags and reflowing are unavailable and must be created either by hand or using OCR techniques. Also, these processes themselves are often inaccessible to the people who would benefit from them. Nonetheless, well-made PDFs can be a valid choice as long-term accessible documents. (Work is being done on a PDF variant based on PDF 1.4. The PDF/A or PDF-Archive is specifically scaled down for archival purposes.)

Microsoft Word documents can be converted into accessible PDFs, but only if the Word document is written with accessibility in mind - for example, using styles, correct paragraph mark-up and alt (alternative) text for images, and so on.

Tagged PDF are now finally also an ISO standard for archivation.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) has approved PDF/Archive (PDF/A-1) (Wikipedia, 2006 and PDF Tools AG, 2006). PDF/A-1 enables organizations to archive documents electronically in a way that will ensure preservation of content over an extended period of time and that those documents can be retrieved and rendered with a consistent and predictable result in the future.

ISO 19005-1, Document management - Electronic document file format for long-term preservation - Part 1: Use of PDF 1.4 (PDF/A-1) defines a file format based on Portable Document Format (PDF) which provides a mechanism for representing electronic documents in a manner that preserves their visual appearance over time, independent of the tools and systems used for creating, storing and rendering the files. PDF/A-1 is a subset of PDF, which is already widely accepted for the delivery of final-format documents. It is estimated that the total size of the surface Web is 167 terabytes, 9.2 percent of which consist of PDF documents.

The new international standard ISO 19005-1:2005 defines an electronic document file format for long-term preservation called PDF/A-1. This is basically a subset of PDF 1.4, with lots of nasty and dangerous stuff (JavaScript, external references, missing fonts, encryption, etc.) removed and various historic ambiguities in the PDF spec clarified.

However, Full compliance with the PDF/A-1 format requires that Tagged PDF is used, such that the underlying plaintext remains accessible for further processing.

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Preparing the Document in Word

If Word styles are used correctly, certain parts of the document will already be tagged when converting to PDF using the Adobe Acrobat application. The list of styles for Styles and Formatting can be found under the Format menu. To show all styles choose the All styles choice in the Show: drop-down list in the Styles and Formatting task pane. (Figure 1)

It is important to make sure the document is styled correctly before creating the PDF.

Figure 1: List of styles in Word

Typical styles are:

An added benefit of using Title and Heading styles is the default creation of Bookmarks when converting to PDF. Bookmarks can be used as an outline as well as for navigation in an Acrobat file. (Figure 2)

Heading styles will be converted to Bookmarks, which can be used for navigation within the PDF document.

Figure 2: Bookmarks list in Acrobat

Alternative text for graphics automatically converts from Word to PDF during the conversion process. This reduces the amount of work required to finish the document using Adobe Acrobat Professional. Alternative text for graphics can be added in Word by using Format Picture... and adding the text to the Alternative text: field under the Web tab. (Figure 3)

Alternative text is used to describe the 'message' of a non-text element such as a graphic.

Figure 3: Format Picture: Alternative text field in Word

When writing alternative text, it is important to convey the message of the graphic in the event the graphic cannot be viewed. Using the title or name of the graphic may not be enough to convey its purpose. It is important to consider why the graphic is being used in order to construct good alternative text.

If a graphic has no message, its alternative text should remain empty. However, for Acrobat Validator this is an error. If a graphic is decorative only, it needs to be marked as an artifact (in tag tree, right click on tag and select artifact).

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Finishing the Job in Adobe Acrobat

Once a Word document has been converted to PDF with Adobe Acrobat, it may be necessary to make changes to the reading flow and add text equivalents to graphics. (Figure 4)

The reading order can be adjusted and alternative text can be added to graphics in the PDF document using Adobe Acrobat Professional.

Figure 4: TouchUp Reading Order panel and Alternate Text window in Adobe Acrobat Professional

All decorative graphics must be marked as artifacts. There are a couple of ways to get to the Tags panel. The easiest way to get to the Tags tab is through the View menu: View > Navigation Tabs > Tags. Another way is to bring up the TouchUp Reading Order window through the Tools menu: Tools > Advanced Editing > TouchUp Reading Order. The TouchUp Reading Order window can also be found under the Advanced menu: Advanced > Accessibility > TouchUp Reading Order..., then click on Show Order Panel and click on the Tags tab.

Once the Tags tab is open, click on the plus signs or hold the Ctrl key and click on the plus sign next to the root tag to expand all tags. Find the tag with the object to be tagged as an artifact. Right-click on the object and Change Tag to Artifact..., then choose Layout for Artifact Type: and choose a side: Left, Top, Right, or Bottom. (Figures 5 and 6) This removes the object from the structure tree and assistive technology set up to read PDF should ignore it.

Objects tagged as artifacts are ignored by assistive technology set up to read PDF.

Figure 5: Changing a tag to an artifact in the Tags tab

Tagging an object as an artifact removes the object from the structure tree of the document.

Figure 6: Create Artifact window

It is also helpful to run a Full Accessibility Check. The Full Check can be found under the Advanced menu; Accessibility > Full check... An Accessibility Report is generated. This report contains structure errors along with a summary of the problems and how they might be fixed.

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7.4 Summary

Organizing all your electronic-based content using styles like Title, Subtitle, Headings, List Bullet, List Number, etc. and including alternative text for graphics are critical first steps toward making documents accessible to people using assistive technology.

If you have the base structure of a document, you can apply it easily to the Web. – Roberto Scano ("Interview with Roberto Scano" – part 2, 2006)

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7.4 References

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7.5 - Importance of Web Development Standards within an Organization

Judy Ohl

Internet ads entice consumers to try their Web development products, stating Anyone can create a Web page! No experience required!

While this may certainly be true in theory, when do we go overboard? Visit the website, Web Pages that Suck  http://www.webpagesthatsuck.com to see examples of enough bad Web pages to keep one internet company in business just reviewing them!

Standards for website design and development, especially within an organization, are very important ... for visual consistency and simple navigation/information gathering. It is very easy for site development within an organization to go awry when the organization is very large and there are many different areas involved in development. People have varying degrees of development knowledge and there are many different authoring tools available.

A relevant example is Web development on the campus of Bloomsburg University.

One of the many hats I wear in my profession is to assist faculty, staff and students in the development and publishing of Web pages. Anyone affiliated with Bloomsburg University is allotted space to build a Web page upon request. I come into contact with all sorts of Web developers. Some are quite good while others have absolutely no experience or knowledge in creating a Web page.

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Tools Used

Web designers on campus employ a variety of Web authoring tools with very little standardization. Most faculty, staff and students utilize Microsoft FrontPage. This is largely due to the fact that FrontPage is freely available on campus computers and this software has a fairly easy learning curve. It would not be necessary for people to learn HTML markup in order to publish a website using FrontPage. This is a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) editing tool.

A few offices, including the Office of Technology and the Department of Instructional Technology, utilize the more sophisticated WYSIWYG editing software, Macromedia Dreamweaver. This software offers more in-depth development features. Accordingly, there is a steeper learning curve that comes along with it. Both of these offices have a solid understanding of HTML markup which is of great assistance when using Dreamweaver.

The Office of Communications, the office on campus responsible for creating most of the main BU Web pages, to include www.bloomu.edu, does not use either of the above-mentioned tools. They use a freeware product called HTML-kit which can be found at http://www.chami.com/html-kit. The Office of Communications understands and implements page development using HTML markup within HTML-kit.

Most types of WYSIWYG software make development easier; however, there is a definite advantage if developers understand HTML markup. WYSIWYG software sometimes throws unexpected code into pages which may cause problems with how your pages display in browsers.

When offering support on campus I find most people do not have an understanding of HTML.

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Consistent Look and Feel ... A Necessary Thing!

Experts agree that successful sites must possess a consistent look and ease of navigation. In Top Ten Mistakes in Web Design, Jakob Nielson, who is often referred to as the king of Web usability, states Consistency is one of the most powerful usability principles: when things always behave the same, users don't have to worry about what will happen. Instead, they know what will happen based on earlier experience. The more users' expectations prove right, the more they will feel in control of the system and the more they will like it. And the more the system breaks users' expectations, the more they will feel insecure.

Jakob's Law of the Web User Experience states that users spend most of their time on other websites. This means that they form their expectations for your site based on what's commonly done on most other sites. If you deviate, your site will be harder to use and users will leave. (Flanders, 2005)

There is inconsistency in the layout of Web pages on the Bloomsburg University website. Some pages linking off the main website have no identification of even being a Bloomsburg University page! Visit the site directory  at http://www.bloomu.edu/facstaff/site_index.php to see examples of links to departmental, individual faculty, staff, or student pages.

On a positive note, an effort has been made to promote guidelines. The Office of Communications offers a publications guide called A Consistent Image.  This can be found at http://www.bloomu.edu/media/PubsGuide.pdf.

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7.5 Conclusion

It is important for guidelines to be in place across an organization before allowing just anyone to create a Web page within it.

I found the following Web standards project translation by François Nonnenmacher very interesting.

Web standards are the cornerstone and the future of the Web; considering the advantages they bring and the current trend in the evolution of browsers, all companies will come to them eventually. The adoption of Web standards in a company may require varying degrees of change depending on how well-prepared it is, its technological flexibility, the number of sites it has, the quality and quantity of existing content and software applications; this process must be studied and adapted to each case. As there is no urgency for most companies to employ Web standards, it is up to each company to consider the opportunity to do so each time it re-vamps its sites. This can be a good, gradual way to surmount the learning curve whilst getting the most from these new methods — by reducing the risk of errors and negotiating the natural resistance to change, with a sound knowledge of what benefits one can glean from Web standards. (Nonnenmacher, 2003)

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7.5 References

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7.6 - The Role of Technical Writing in E-Learning

Judy Ohl

Many companies today are looking for the most cost-effective way to train their employees. By utilizing e-learning, companies save money by lessening employee travel expenses and limiting employee time away from work.

Computer-Based Training (CBT) and Web-Based Training (WBT) are two solutions. CBT training traditionally involves use of a CD-ROM; in many cases online help is directly available with this approach. WBT is training delivered via the Internet.

With the development of e-learning, technical writers have become more in demand. They have an increasing role in the design, development and implementation of training. It is vital for a technical writer to have good writing skills, but equally important, they must have the ability to produce, test, and implement their materials using sophisticated software.

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First Steps

A very important first step for a successful technical writer is to work in collaboration with management and any involved individuals or departments to gather information. This needs to occur before writing one sentence! The technical writer must be provided the mission/goals for the project, receive input for a course outline, and understand who the target audience will be.

Once this has occurred, the writer will lay out a course outline, storyboards, and scripting, select learning activities, and produce media when indicated. The last step involves testing, evaluating, and finalizing the material.

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Development Tools

The writer will use special tools for development, including:

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Writing Skills

Good writing skills cannot be minimized! It is important to use sound guidelines and common sense:

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Evaluate and Test

Evaluate and test your material when it is complete! Ask individuals from your target audience to test your material by following the steps outlined. Many times this results in rethinking, redesigning, and possibly rewriting sections of your material.

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7.6 Summary

The role of technical writing is an expanding and vital role within e-learning development. Many resources can be found on the Internet if you have an interest in receiving training or certification.

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7.6 References

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7.7 Globalization and Learning Barriers in Synchronous E-Learning Tools

Jeffrey Border

Learning barriers and globalization issues are always something to think about when designing e-learning classes and developing new tools for learning. Most issues can be easily overlooked, especially when the designer does not understand exactly who they are designing for. Learning barriers may occur when there is a discrepancy in languages between the designer and learner, how the languages are used, and how they are emphasized. As the world moves toward more collaboration between cultures and countries, and remote learning and training becomes more typical, it is the job as instructional designers and developers to meet learner’s needs by minimizing and trying to eliminate the barriers that can hinder this wide array of e-learners.

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Language

Language has always been a barrier for communication, and there are many things to look out for when developing or designing e-learning courses. Courses need to be designed using multiple languages, or the ability to switch from one language to another if your application will be taking place in multiple countries. Because of this cultural issue, in a synchronous learning environment where the learning is taking place in real time the learner may not understand the teacher speaking in a different language. There are also problems that arise from the typed language as well. The way the learner reads the screen is even very different. In the English language, the learner reads from left to right, and top to bottom. In other languages, the learner may be reading from top to bottom, and left to right. This creates difficulties in organizing and arranging content within your presentation. The differences in languages within cultures may even hinder a learner's ability to comprehend the content being presented. Here is an example of the language barrier mentioned:

In Sweden, large multinational companies have changed their Swedish names by taking away the accent markings in the letters å/Å, ä/Ä, and ö/Ö. The original letters gave meaning to specific words in Swedish. After alteration, formerly understandable Swedish words become meaningless. In some cases, the change made a name internationally useful, a brand to market globally. For example, the construction company Skånska cementgjuteriet, founded 1887, became SKANSKA in 1984. This word has no meaning in Swedish. (Hanson, 2004).

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Symbols and Graphics

The symbols and graphics used within the content for your e-learning presentation may also need to differ because of culture and language differences. As seen from the recently controversial Muhammad picture in a Danish cartoon, certain graphics or symbols from one culture which may seem appropriate, may be considered insensitive to people from another culture.

From the Muslim point of view, actually there are two problems rolled into one:

  1. Drawing God or His Prophets is a taboo in Muslim culture, regardless of the nature of the drawing.
  2. Mocking or tarnishing a Muslim holy symbol is absolutely unacceptable for Muslims: the cartoons portrayed Muhammad as an icon of violence, and Islam as a violent religion when in fact it is not.

Islam is conservative culture with defined limits. Muslims live their religion day-to-day, whereas modern western culture has loosened its grip on religious values as a way of life and substituted them for secularism instead, seeing prophets as odd historical figures, unfit for modern life. Therefore, it expects Muslims to be good secularists when it comes to free speech, while even secular Muslims object to insulting images of the Prophet; they in turn expect westerners to join them in their reverence for religious values. (El-Nadi, 2006)

The color differences used within cultures may also represent a certain meaning. One color may represent something to one culture, while in another culture, the use of a particular color may mean something completely, and invoke an emotion that may, or may not be wanted.

Color is considered one of the most useful and powerful design tools you have. People respond to different colors in different ways, and these responses take place on a subconscious, emotional level. In our American culture, black has long been associated with death, while white is believed to signify life and purity. In the Orient, however, white is the traditional color of mourning. In the United States, black has also come to suggest sophistication and formality. Americans generally associate trust an stability with the color blue, while Koreans have this reaction to pink and other pastel colors. (Princeton Online, 2006)

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7.7 Summary

When designing and developing e-learning content and presentations it is crucial to take every aspect of the presentation into account and do the research that is needed to break down the barriers associated with cross cultural e-learning. One of the best ways to make sure the content and presentation are correct is to keep in contact with your Subject Matter Expert (SME), and getting the sign-offs needed before finalizing the content.

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7.7 References

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7.8 Where have the text-based menus gone?

Scott Paull

I'm guilty, you’re probably guilty too; creating elegant websites with your alt attributes but forgetting to include somewhere on a page, a link to a sitemap with a text-based menu, or in fact a text-based menu.

I love Flash, I'm a Flash junkie. As I learn more and more about Flash and all of its little secrets, I fall away from the training I have received. I have caught myself in the past doing a whole website for clients with no alt attributes. In my younger years, I wouldn’t care. I was looking to make a quick buck, and a little fame.

I then started to mature with the finishing of my undergrad, and then starting my master's courses. I ran into an article while researching some of the Flash detection processes. I had an epiphany! In the article the most important concept stuck in my head; assuming that everyone has their PC up to date with the latest players and plug-ins is a BIG mistake. I knew this already, but it really stuck this time.

After this happened, I began using alt attributes and I began detecting plug-ins but I was still leaving out text-based menus. My job is based on e-commerce. I had a woman call me shortly before I read the Flash article, and she said that all she saw was our website name, a gif image, and the phone number at the bottom. After getting down to the bottom of things, I found out that she did not have the newest version of Flash player. I did some more research, and found out that if other visitors have Flash disabled, they also could not see my site.

Our site rocked; there were animations, colors, and plenty of photos of work that we had done. I could not figure out how a competitor was still in business, because their site sucked. It was plain and blah. Here, the customers didn't like plain and blah but they could see their site almost all of the time.

So after learning my lesson, I implemented the detection, provided alternate content, and provided alt text for everything. What good is an alt attribute if it's not descriptive? What I went back and did was make my attributes as descriptive as possible, without writing a novel.

But back to the text links; who cares, right? Use the fancy menu I spent an hour creating. I could care less that someone might think, I want to get there as fast as possible. Sometimes menus, especially nested ones are nice. But what happens if a detection fails? Or they have Flash turned off. How can they get from point a to point b? The easiest way to get from point a to b is a straight line. To use the straight line, you can use the text based menu items at the bottom of any page.

An example of this is a website that I created last year for a local medical imaging building. I created a beautiful menu that had animation and also used alt text attributes for the Flash. I also used Flash detection, then later found out after talking to a few customers, they felt it was easier to just use text-based links to navigate the website. It's not that they did not like using the menu, it was just their preference. In two circumstances, the customers had older computers and, if they did not support the Flash menu items, the customer chose not to install the new Flash player and, as a result, did not use the website. They said that if they used the text-based links had they been available, they would have been able to find their information.

Another reason to use text-based links is that they are readable by screen readers for either a blind person or someone who has severe disabilities and does not have the use of a keyboard or mouse. They may be using voice command, which is similar to dictation method such as the one I am using right now to type my paper. But as I speak, the words are typed onto the page by the computer as it recognizes what I am saying. It is not perfect but it can be trained to be nearly perfect. As far as voice command combined with a well trained voice recognition program, a person with disability can not only hear what is on the website that they can also interact with it by using the text-based links. At this time there is no ability to access to flush the menu items that were flashed links with some form of voice command. Maybe in the near future there will be.

With all kidding aside, in my early years I did have many faults but as I am growing, both in age and wisdom, I see that laziness on my part may have caused problems for others. I am truly sorry for this and have gone back and made many updates to the previously created websites to help conform to accessibility. As I think back to the Flash article I referenced in earlier comments, a poorly created website that does not take into consideration the large majority with the minority of users, is just that, a poorly created website. The idea of it's not my problem is their's is in fact that their problems are my problems, and I need to be able to solve them or prevent them.

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7.8 References

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Last updated April 20, 2007

Graphics by David Cerreta