-         Culture of the organization- a medium blue (I believe this represents a professional versatile atmosphere that is relaxed)

-         Corporate Colours- These would be the darker tones i.e black, silver, with a mixture of white as well (this creates a simple but sophisticated feel)

-         Fashion- this one can be quiet tricky! I think its personal choice but in an e-learning context possible light orange, pink, and green to create a fun pastal effect that doesn’t hurt the eyes!

-         Your message- This would be in plain black to attract the learners eye and demand authority and professionalism

Colors can vary across cultures. In Australia we like to use bright colors, which is quiet different to Hong Kong. When I went to Hong Kong the majority of the clothes and advertisements did not have pastal colors but rather colors of brown, grey, black and white.

I believe that as a –learning facilitator there should not be too many bright colors used on websites as it can hurt the learners eyes and distract them from learning the important things that really need attention to..

I never really knew about webinars until the day of the presentation. It is basically a web confrenece, where people can see each other and everybody on the network can communicate simultaneously. According to Kaplan-Leiserson (2008) a                ‘webinar is a small synchronous online learning event in which a presenter and audience members communicate via text chat or audio about concepts often illustrated via online slides and/or an electronic whiteboard’.

My thoughts on the Webinar…

During the presentation the webinar was available for people to use. I found this extremely distracting as people (including my self) were writing messages to others in the classroom and not listening to the presenter. The whole point was for the learners (me) to explore the technology during the presentation.. but I found that this was an overload of multimedia and presentation occurring at the same time. I would only use it as a facilitator if everybody was on the webinar and there were no disruptions during the session, otherwise the learning defiantly gets hindered.

Kaplan-Leiserson, E. 2008, Glossary, Learning Circuits, viewed 6/06/08, < http://www.learningcircuits.org/ASTD/Templates/LC/LC_OneBox.aspx?NRMODE=Published&NRORIGINALURL=%2fglossary&NRNODEGUID=%7bA1A2C751-7E81-4620-A0A3-52F3A90148EB%7d&NRCACHEHINT=NoModifyGuest#W>.

Hyperlink: http://www.gia.edu/education/35413/continuing_education_landing_page.cfm_

By Piyare Sert

Gemological Institute of America (GIA) is a non profit organisation, which is the largest institute for gemological research and learning. The organisation is well known for the professional service of diamond grading. GIA invest money to keep the learners within the organization up to date with all information they need to know to be the best at what they do. The organization delivers information through podcast via iTunes U, so that the learners can access the information virtually anytime, anywhere.

The use of Podcast:
The Gemological Institute of America (GIA) uses podcasts to deliver continual educational information for GIA gemologist or graduate/undergraduate gemologist who enroll in the organisations continual education recognition program. Podcasts are used by a variety of students who study through distance education, on campus gemology and Jewelry Manufacturing Arts programs. GIAs’ future ambition will be to have podcasts for the School of Business. All information can be accessible via iTunes U, and students and users of the educational material can view new information immediately, as it gets updated continually.

The benefits of the Podcast in this context:
Podcasts for students and graduates are for free, and allows them to access GIA resources and useful information anytime, anywhere. GIA podcasts inform students of the material they can access on iTunesU, and informs any changes to course information that may have changed since the graduation of students. The director has stated that “as an added benefit, podcasts give us an outlet for more of the visual material we’re gathering”. (Kautsky, 2007, para. 3). Podcasting the information for students also has meant that the organisation can post new podcasts much faster than they have ever been able to, as oppose to the old procedure of putting information on DVD. Furthermore, Duncan Pay the Director of the company has stated that the biggest benefit of all is that students receive updates almost immediately, taking a few weeks unlike the old schedule of approximately 18 months (Kautsky, 2007, para. 3).
Feedback from the students, suggest that the benefit of podcasts is that the learning material comes to life. Hence podcasting the information allows the online environment to be customized to the learners needs to deliver relevant, up to date information (GIA Education, 2008, para. 6).

The challenges, disadvantages or issues of Podcast:
One of the issues I would consider to be a problem within the organisation is the lack of funding to supply iTunes U across the world for their employees and across all areas studied. The organization is expecting to supply podcast for all continuous learners, all across the world, but has not done this just yet. Some countries are not as technology savvy as others, so this may be a problem.


Kautsky, J. 2007, A ‘Revolution’ in GIA Education, Gemological Institute of Australia, Vol. 16, Iss. 3, p.1.

Gemological Institute of Australia. 2008, Education: Learn from the Worlds Foremost Authority in Gemology, viewed 1 April 2008, <____http://www.gia.edu/education /35413/continuing_education _landing_page.cfm____>

Mayer and Moreno (2003) focus on nine ways to reduce cognitive load. The nine ways are as listed:

1. Offloading- offloading needs to occur when a multimedia site has too much important information occurring on the same page. A way to reduce this is the use of narrated animation. To do this we need to get rid of any unnecessary information or data which may make the learning content look more attractive although distracts the learning process.
2. Segmenting- this occurs when both channels are overloaded with important information. The solution to this problem is o put the important information into different subdivisions, where learners can chose to either see images or documents of their choice.
3. Weeding and Signaling- Weeding is essentially only keeping the need to know information and getting rid of any information that is not necessary but there for show, reducing the information that is not essential to the learner
4. Aligning- This is a simple task where the producer of the multimedia would basically put the relevant information beside the corresponding image.
5. Synchronizing and Individualizing: the resolution as Mayer and Moreno (2003) puts it is ‘synchronize the presentation of corresponding visual and auditory material’. (Mayer and Moreno, 2003, p. 8).
6. Pretraining: This is quiet a practical element as it requires the developer or producer to teach those who are going to be using it on how to use the training system.
7. Signaling: when it is not possible to remove the unwanted information the facilitator can create cues on how to select and organize material
8. Individualization- this is basically finding out whether individuals can keep representations in their memory. High spatial learners can learn better with simulations and hold images better than low spatial learners.
9. Eliminating redundancy: this is when narration is supported for multimedia presentations as oppose to both narration and on screen text.

 Mayer, R.E. & Moreno, R. 2003, Nine Ways to Reduce Cognitive Load in Multimedia Learning in Educational Psychologist, 38 (1), pp43-52.

Multimedia technology can be seen ideally through Web 2.0. As I have mentioned before Second Life is a big user of multimedia settings to convey the audience, Facebook depends highly on multimedia setting such as images, color and graphics to operate.

If I were to be asked to create a e-learning framework I would defiantly add multimedia settings to make the learning experience more favorable, although Troupin (2000) paints a different picture to multimedia as she states ‘multimedia training development is more complex than traditional development and requires sophisticated decision making’(Troupin, 2000, para. 18). I agree to a certain level with Troupin because if multimedia is over used within an e-learning context it will cause a flood of information and overload, hindering the learning process.  

Troupin, P. 2000, The Role of Instructional Design in Multimedia Development, Learning Circuits, viewed 6/06/08, < http://www.learningcircuits.org/2000/feb2000/Troupin.htm>.

It has been mentioned that certain aspects need to be present within the instructions for learners in the constructivist approach. The aspects include: posing questions, the ability to explore possible answers, concentrate more on group work rather than individual, pursue global goals that specify general abilities such as problem solving and research skills, and to have alternative learning and assessment methods (Burns, 1995).

How could you apply constructivist learning principles in an e-learning environment?

The constructivist approach has focused the motion of ‘group work’. So I believe the most successful e-learning  stratergies are that users should be placed within groups to answer possible questions through sources such as multmedia information, or through case studies. The group work environment can be provided through Webinars, discussion boards through systems such as a blackboard, and through systems like Second-life, where they can visually see and speak to people and sk questions. I believe that second life may be the most successful constructivist learning approach as the learners are engaged with each other therefore making the learning experience more personal.

Burns, R.L. 2002, The Adult Learner at Work: The Challanges of Life Long Education in the New Millenium, 2nd edn, Allen and Unwin, Crows Nest, Australia. 

As soon as i was assigned to the project each member Googled the different companies which use podcasting and vodcasting in an educational context. The organisation that i decided to concentrate on is called Gemological Institute of America (GIA). GIA is an organisation that embraces e-learning facilities to better the knowledge and status of their employees.

My area of concentration was podcasting and the ways the company intergrates this to train and develop their stakeholders. GIA useses iTunesU to post their podcast of updates and learing material which can be uploaded via the internet and informed through RSS feeds. The advantages of using the podcast is that their employees and students are kept up to date with updates and changes in the company and course material, it is also convenient method of learning.

I actually reflected on what i learnt about podcasting and thought whether or not this would be an advantage to me in the workplace or at work. I personally would rather be taught through the classic face to face method. It is important to consider the audience that is being taught. If members prefer face to face methods then this should be a priority, although i guess it wont be a harm to provide the option of both.

Vodcasting will probably be more beneficial for me as i learn with pictures, and active movements. I believe both these devices are beneficial as it is an easy, cheap way of educating people especially those in rural areas.

 Learners in a humanist approach will learn throughout the experience of the e-learning context, as these learners are more motivated and try to achieve the self actualisation stage. As teachers we would need to consider how the learners feel about online learning, as feelings are important to the learning process.

I believe that feedback should be provided for the use of e-learning in the context to guide and make the experience for the learners more favourable as emotions are important. It is believed that humanist respond to their environment as they experience it. Once the learners experience difficulty or have questions on the course they will start asking for questions and if there is a teacher or facilitator that they can turn to they will reach what is called ’self actualisation’.

Burns, R. 2002, The Adult Learner at Work, Allen & Unwin, Crows Nest, Australia.

What effect might meaningfulness and insight have in  e-learning contexts?

Meaningfulness is when people learn through patterns and completion. This can be either a positive or negative aspect to e-learning. Students that have used any type of online learning will be able to relate to e-learning therefore drawing back on past experiences, which therefore allows the context to become ‘meaningful’. If the student has already had experience in an online environment he/she will be able to work the functionalities and problemsolve reflecting on what they have done in the past. On the contrary if the learners have never used e-learning systems in the past, the learning process may not be effective at all as students will not be able to draw on past experiences, and therefore the system becomes less meaningful for the students.

 Insight can also be a positive aspect if learners can relate to the context. If the issues, and problems seem fimiliar then the learner will be able to come up with a resolution, restructuring the system.. but if they are not fimiliar with the system they will not be able to go beyond by coming up with resolutions on how to fix a problem when encountered.

How can we use advance organisers in e-learning contexts?

Advance organisers are an ideal way to make learners recieve the optimum cognitive learning possible. In an e-learning context this will be easy to incorporate, for example before a online exam, an advanced organiser can be created to brief the topics covered in the exam so that learners can get material ready and take notes before the exam.

Will generalizing have any effect on the context to e-learning?

Generalizing the context of e-learning can either be a very positive effect to learning or the opposite a very negative effect for the learners. If the learners have had a positive experience using e-learning then they will be using the tools and the system to its full capacity, therefore increasing the learning chances. Although if learners have had a bad experience using e-learning for educational purposes, the behavourist approach would assume that they will not use this as a learning tool due to their bad learning experience.

If the learners are generalizing and not using the e-learning tools for quality learning I believe operant conditioning should be excersised. Reinforcement, punishment and feedback will need to be embedded into the students to create a positive learning context. Reinforcement will encourage learners to do the good things they are doing to occur more often as it is acceptable, and feedback will allow them to understand what is expected from them through the e-learning context. 

Burns, R. 1995, The Adult Learner at Work, Business & Professional Publishing, Sydney.