Developing an Online Class? Go to Disneyland

Susan Roig

Director Academic Computing

SunGardHE/Claremont Graduate School

June, 2010

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311th Sakai Conference - June 15-17, 2010

Constructivism - Type of instruction

• Promotes the mental construction of the learner's reality. • Instruction and manipulation

• The instructor • facilitates the learner's conceptual modeling.• must understand the learner's existing cognitive structures• provide appropriate learning activities that will help the learner

construct his knowledge. • Use multiple real world contexts, strategies, and coaching. • Create variety of environments for the learner, so he gets to practice

thinking in different ways. • The result will be a learner who is better prepared to handle different

situations.

• Reality to promote • The learners realities are divergent. • The learners are encouraged to develop different realities.

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Constructivism –How to design appropriate instruction?

• Analyze the tools to be used by the learner and the environment in which he uses them.

• Provide learners: • Objectives

• The instructional objectives are negotiated with the learner. • Learner incorporates this new knowledge into pre-existing mental schema. • Learner then adjusts understanding of reality to make sense of the new

knowledge. • As a result, mental schema shifts to incorporate his "new" reality.

• Learning events • Learners must ask themselves the following two questions:

• What do I need to know? • How will I solve it?

• Evaluation • Evaluation is based on performance of learner- assessment and self-

evaluation.

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Constructivism • Instruction

• All answers to problems must be embedded in authentic environments. • A narrative story is used, with anchored instruction, that all answers to the questions

are embedded in the story. • The learner is given a situation of visual representations, yet has to think and

problem-solve to figure out how to move around the and find clues.• There is no one way to figure this out. • The learner is forced to think in multiple realities in order to figure out what is

going on in this scenario. • As more information is revealed, learner weighs decisions based on the new

information, then, determines the next move. • All answers to any questions about the scenario are embedded in the story. • The learner finds the information needed to answer his questions,needs no further

guidance from the instructor. • Case based learning can be used in this situation. this involves real life cases.

(Law schools use this method). • The learner must have all the information about the cases, then puts all the

information together and uses it when relevant. • This starts the learner thinking like an expert.

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Remind Students Consistently Technology Fails;Failure Can Lead to Success

• Disneyland Park was opened to the public on July 18, 1955 with only 20 attractions.

• However, a special "International Press Preview" event was held on Sunday, July 17, 1955, which was only open to invited guests and the media.

• ABC broadcast the event live on its network; at the time, it was one of the largest and most complex live broadcasts ever.

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Remind Students Consistently Technology Fails;Failure Can Lead to Success

• The event did not go smoothly. • The park was overcrowded as the by-invitation-only affair was

plagued with counterfeit tickets. • Only 11,000 people were expected to show up, but a staggering

28,154 was the eventual population.• Movie stars and other famous figures scheduled to come every

two hours showed up all at once. • The temperature was an unusually high 101 °F (38 °C), The

asphalt that had been poured just that morning was so soft that ladies' high-heeled shoes sank into it.

• A plumbers' strike left many of the park's drinking fountains dry. • Disney was given a choice of having working fountains or running toilets

and he chose the latter.• Disappointed guests believed the inoperable fountains were a cynical

way to sell soda, since Pepsi sponsored the park's opening

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Failure Can Lead to Success

• Vendors ran out of food. • A gas leak in Fantasyland caused Adventureland, Frontierland,

and Fantasyland to close for the afternoon. • Some parents were seen throwing their children over the

shoulders of crowds to get them onto rides such as the King Arthur Carrousel.

• Walt and his 1955 executives referred to July 17, 1955 as "Black Sunday". Today, cast members wear pin badges on July 17 stating how many years it has been since the 1955 opening.

• But for the first decade or so, Disney officially stated that opening day was on July 18, 1955. For example, a 1967 Disneyland press release referred to July 17, 1955, as "Dedication Day" and not "Opening Day.

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What do you want your students to know?

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WWWD?(what would Walt do?)

• Storyboard – Beginning, middle and end – storyboard guides design

• Explore themes- What is it you want your student to end up knowing? What do you want student to learn?

• Visualize – drawing, maps, models, pictures, simulations

• Start and the end point and work backwards –World to Land to Attraction to Experience

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“To all that come to this happy place: welcome.” Disney

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Learning event; The BeginningWWWD? - Main Street

• An orientation – A safe place to return to

• Reward with exploration• See what is to come• Objective in site• Make choices in relaxed space• Only way to enter and the only way to

exit

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Trivia question #1: What year is Main Street set?

Objectives WWWD? - Weenies

"What you need is a weenie, which says to people 'come this way.' People won't go

down a long corridor unless there's something promising at the end. You have to have something the beckons them to 'walk

this way.‘“ Walt Disney, 1954

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#2 Where is Disney’s private apartment located?

Add Weenies

• Disney was a marketing genius he found endless, ways to promote his products created a blueprint from which designers can borrow.

• One of Walt's ideas: The weenie!• a visual magnet; something that draws people

from one area to the next.• A weenie makes a promise, creates mystery and

excitement, and motivates crowds to move deeper into the experience. • The term reportedly came from a boyhood memory of

luring a dog home by dragging a wiener on a string.

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Weenies

• The most obvious weenie is Cinderella's Castle, which draws Magic Kingdom visitors down Main Street, USA and into the heart of the park.

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#3 How tall is Cinderella’s Castle?

Weenies

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Having been pulled to the center of the Magic Kingdom by the striking 189-foot-tall castle, theme park guests are then propelled deeper into the corners of the park by views of the towering Matterhorn, Thunder Mountain and Space Mountain.

How weenies work

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1. Attract attention to objectives

2. Provides navigational reference point. Where you’re going where you’ve been.

3. Provides a choice between long term and short term goals

4. Provides opportunities for picture spots.

Enhancing Weenies Encourages Activities

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•Provides a goal to obtain

•Enhances goal and adds drama

•Provides an opportunity to backtrack and change direction adding to information

Trivia question #4: What year is Tomorrowland set?

Learning events WWWD? -Advertise along the way

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• Design activities for locations not just a destination• Reward learners for getting there, foreshadow

potential “dangers”• Provides excitement about options

Learning events; Freedom of ChoiceWWWD? Paths to Exploration

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Obvious path

Explore Path

Expedient Path

#5 What Happened June 14, 1959?

Power of path– illusion of freedom

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illusion of freedom

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Exploration Leads to Discovery

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Be Consistent

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Take a ride; Apply it to Learning

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Pathway = Promote the mental construction of the learner's reality

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Continue Path –Encourage learning by discovery:

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Provide directions along path – text, images, sounds.

Let discovery happen lead to what you want student to know.

Don’t just tell

Continue on Path-Create a variety of environments for the learner, to practice

thinking in different ways

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#6 How many attractions feature skeletons or skulls?

Tutorial Section - Use multiple modalities, contexts, strategies, and coaching.

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May not read or watch tutorial –Continue down path

Instructor facilitates the learner's conceptual modeling

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Map out what is to be discovered – provide help along the way allow for discovery.

Provide guidance - students have the opportunity to establish, test, and rework Patterns and Connections as they "make meaning" out

of learning situations.

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Weenies –Provide sneak peaks at future goals

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#7 How tall is Tarzan’s Tree House? How many branches?

Make first goal easy to achieve

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Use scenarios to enforce learning

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Clear the path for exit - The learners realities are divergent, encouraged learners to develop different realities.

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… bring learners to where you the instructor want the student to end up…THE GIFT SHOP

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#8 Name three things not sold at Disneyland

Now …Can it be done in Sakai?

• Home page – entry and exit point

• Wiki

• Forums

• Blogs

• Polls

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Trivia Questions Answers

1. 19102. Above the fire station on Main Street – Everyone knew when

he was there because of the light left on in the window. When he died the light stays on in his memory.

3. 77 feet looks taller due to forced perspective. It is also trimmed in 22 karat gold to glitter even on cloudy days.

4. 19865. Vice-President Nixon became the first passenger on Disney’s

Monorail.6. 127. 70 feet tall, 450 branches, 6000 leaves8. Gum and alcohol (Cigarettes too)

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Survey please submit surveyhttp://www.surveymonkey.com/s/sakai10

Susan Roig

Director Academic Computing

Claremont Graduate University/SungardHE

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