E-Books for Language Learning: Production and Best Practices

Jonathan AdamsTaehyeong Lim

McKenzie Fitzpatrick

The Project BLOOM

• BLOOM: Bridging for Language Outcomes in the Classroom

• Grant: 3 year granted by CIES

• Goal: Bridging Spanish and English vocabulary by e-books

• Target: Elementary schools in Northern Florida

Purpose

To describe a process for managing several distributed multimedia

production teams and the techniques that were developed to

organize, track and manage the production of e-books

Project Background

• 4 Principal Investigators, 16 Research Assistants

• Each year produces 30 e-books for each grade level

(kindergarten, first, and second grade)

• Project duration is July 2013 to June 2016

• E-Books are accessed by the children through a laptop computer in a classroom twice per week

Intervention

<The Intervention Room in an Elementary School>

• Currently 6 local schools with an average of 20 students per class

• E-book tracking collects the reading time per book and correct answers

E-Book Communication Structure

<Communication Paths between Distributed Teams>

Managing the Production Cycle

Project Specification

● Media properties

● File naming conventions

● Typography details

● Image sizes <Work Package in Spec>

● Positions for buttons, titles, interactive elements, and descriptions of each

digital component in e-books

Managing the Production CycleProduction Management Documents - Storyboards● Illustrate the whole structure of each e-book Including digital components

● Guide the developers who assemble the e-book into a working Captivate file

<Components assembled in Captivate>

Adobe Captivate

Managing the Production CycleProduction Management Documents -Tracking Documents

Managing the Production CycleUse of a Whiteboard to Communicate within the Production Team

Managing the Production CycleE-Books are uploaded in MOODLE, a Learning Management System

<Book Thumbnails on Homepage> <Clickable Book Covers to Launch e-Books>

Challenges• Communication

• e-mail, dropbox, face-to-face meetings

• High turnover rates

• graduate and undergraduate students

• once students graduate they are ineligible to work for the

grant

• Funding constraints

• software was not factored into the grant

• recording equipment through FSU library limited to graduate

students only

Conclusion

• A project management process is essential to managing time, cost, and scope.

• While every project has unique features and demands, project management documents can be adjusted to establish and maintain good communication among team members.

• Documentation helps to control communication, errors, and coordinate work.

Questions?