A Prototype Called Study in Australia - Capstone Project Example

Design ment: A Prototype called ‘Study in Australia’ BY ABDULHAMEED ALENZEI 3063677 For EDGI913 Dr. Shirley Agostinho Table of Contents I. Design Statement................................................................................................ 3 Project Title: A prototype called “Study in Australia” ..................... 3 II. Background of the Package ......................................................................... 3 III. Package Concept .......................................................................................... 4 IV. Problem Analysis......................................................................................... 5 V. Information Review ..................................................................................... 5 VI. Goals and Objectives................................................................................... 6 VII. Task and Instructional Analysis .................................................................. 7 VIII. Program Design and Structure.................................................................... 8 IX. Proposed Resources and Media Format..................................................... 9 X. Implementation Environment ...................................................................... 10 XI. Constraints ................................................................................................... 11 XII. Evaluation Procedures ................................................................................. 11 Figure I – Main Page............................................................................................... 12 Figure II – The Seven Australian Territories .......................................................... 13 Figure III – New South Wales (NSW).................................................................... 14 Figure IV – Video Clippings................................................................................... 15 Figure V – Question Task ....................................................................................... 16 References ................................................................................................................ 17 Design Statement Project Title: A prototype called “Study in Australia.” Background of the Package The prototype called “study in Australia” is a program designed to offer a democratic learning environment by making the information a bout the Australian Universities in each of the different territories in Australia available all over the world. Moreover, it offers a good opportunity for the students to choose the preferred study destinations. With the goal of increasing the number of foreign students in Australia specially from the Gulf area, the idea for designing this project is very much inspired by ‘AustraLearn – Study in Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific’ located at http://www.australearn.org/Universities/Australian_National_University/ Financially sponsored by the universities, the website of AustraLearn is designed to promote and offer valid information about a total of 31different universities located throughout the Australia, New Zealand, and the South Pacific free services to interested foreign students. It also offers the prospective students not only long-term courses but also some short-term programs like a semester or a year abroad program, opportunity to participate in a high quality internship in Australia or New Zealand, the January term, or the summer abroad program. In line with this matter, the website provides the viewers the benefits of studying at each of the listed universities. It also accepts enrolment inquiries related to degree offered in each listed universities, the step-by-step application processes, financial aid, student visa, airline tickets, accommodation, etc. The approach of my proposed program is more appropriate than the AustraLearn in terms of promoting only the different universities throughout Australia. Considering that the proposed program segregates all the Australian universities according to the geographical boundaries such as the Western Australia, Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania; there is a higher chance that the viewers would decide to enrol in one of the Australian universities instead of the universities located in other countries. Furthermore, the simplicity of my design might be conducted the students to choose or not Australia as preferred study destination. Package Concept The goal of this project is to provide the students the opportunity to choose a university based on the standard of teaching, tuition, lodging, the distance away from home, and the courses offered in accordance to their desired future career. From the educational perspective, the program will create a democratic learning environment by giving the students the freedom and opportunity to express their own ideas, views, opinions, and suggestions (Gandal & Finn, n.d.) with regards to enrolling at their preferred courses in t heir chosen Australian university. The project will develop and utilize a website which will be used in extending the services offered to prospective domestic and foreign students. Aside from being cost-efficient, the use of a website will make the information available to students 24/7 at real-time. The major features of the package includes the list of Australian universities and the benefits of studying in each of the university as categorized according to its respective geographical boundaries; a guide to each Australian university; video clippings that allows the current and previous students share their personal experiences in each respective universities; and a link to question to a task page. Problem Analysis / Needs Assessment For many years, the access to information related to Australian universities including the basic requirements and procedures that will enable the target market to pursue their further studies in Australia is very limited especially the Gulf area such as Saudi Arabia as a country. Until now, many students find difficulties to know more information about the different university, applying procedures, etc. In order to increase the number of Saudi Arabian students in Australia; the program design will bridge the gap between the students and the limited access to valid and direct information about the Oz universities. In other words, the proposed program design will be useful in offering valid information about the Australian universities in the Gulf area. A link to question task page will be applied in each page in order to give the students the opportunity to post their comments. It is also provided to improve the promotional activities on the Australian universities. A website administrator will be assigned to regularly monitor and answer the queries. Information Review The main topic area of the program design highlights the fact that Australia, an English speaking country, has the third largest number of International students all over the world. In line with this matter, the subtopic of the program includes the list of Australian universities and the benefits of studying in each of the university as categorized according to its respective geographical boundaries; each university guide; including the video clippings which is designed to allow the current and previous students to share their personal experiences in each respective universities. The subtopics will be discussed in depth in order to encourage and influence more prospective foreign students to be attracted with the kind of learning experience they could acquire from the Australian universities. Aiming to make the information effective in building the personal interests of the viewers, the program designer has applied his deign experience with the purpose of free decision making of the students to choose their study destination. Upon designing the program, the program designer conducted a research in order to gather a long list of Australian universities according to its geographical location. As soon as I have listed down all the Australian universities, I’ll utilize search engines like Yahoo and Google in order to locate the official website of each listed universities. From the official website of each listed universities, the researcher managed to make a write-up for each of the listed universities. Considering that the program designer has based all the university information from the official website of each university, there is a higher chance that the information used in the program design is of high-quality, accurate and reliable. Goals and Objectives The main goal of the program design is to create a democratic learning environment which will provide the students the opportunity to choose a university based on the standard of teaching, tuition, lodging, the distance away from home, and the courses offered in accordance to their desired future career. As part of assisting the local and foreign students in their decision making, the website offers link to question task page to allow the students to post their queries and comments. TR o support or help students look at the information provided; students could click on a specific geographic area to view a list of universities. For example, upon clicking “New South Wales (NSW)”, the student will be directed to a new page with a list of universities available in the area. . (See Figure II – The Seven Australian Territories on page 13; Figure III – New South Wales (NSW) on page 14 ) From the business prospective, the Program also might be used as a promoting guide in order to increase the number of Saudi students enrolled throughout the different Australian universities. In doing the program design, the learner was able to realize the suitable territory and university of his/her individual interest, the simple structure of web design, in-line text including the combination of colour and visual aids have been used in order to give space for the eye to rest. By doing so, I was able to focus on bridging the gap between the Australian universities, the students from Saudi Arabia, and the necessary information such as the number of international students in each territory, the types of accommodations, etc. The program design is user-friendly. Therefore, there is no need for the viewers to acquire any pre-requisite skills or knowledge in order to use this program design. Task and Instructional Analysis The program designer applied the theory of democratic approach in designing and developing the website. A long list of available Australian universities will be equally provided in order to give the viewers the benefit of choosing their own preferred university. Upon utilizing the website, the program designer will be able to achieve the goal of creating a democratic learning environment. Also, the main objective of being able to extend the necessary information related to the standard of teaching, tuition, lodging, the distance away from home, and the courses offered in each university to the local and foreign students is made possible. In order to access the website, a computer and an Internet access is required. In line with this matter, no specific off-computer tasks are incorporated. In general, the website includes a simple Australian geographic map to give the students a rough idea regarding the major seven Australian Territories; a photo of each territory to enable the students to see the beauty of each region; video clippings to extend a live testimony regarding the current and past students in each universities; and a link to question task page to give the students the opportunity to post their comments. Teachers and instructors are not required to supply any additional resources or tools for the website. Instead, teachers and instructors could help promote the website by encouraging the students and parents to visit the website. Program Design and Structure The program is designed starting with an open end question ‘A Proposal Study in Australia: A Comprehensive Guide for Australians and Foreign Students’(See Figure I – Main Page on page 12) As part of creating a democratic learning environment, it is necessary to make the website available to the local and foreign students. In order to meet the students’ needs, the program design includes a map of Australia which is divided into a total of 7 territories. (See Figure II – The Seven Australian Territories on page 13) Each territory is clickable with a link that enables the viewers to go to another page that provides the viewers some relevant information like what to expect from studying in a chosen geographic region; a list of universities located in the area together with the link to the homepage of each university; attractive places in the area; different types of accommodation scheme available to foreign students; some basic information regarding the population in the city. (See Figure III – New South Wales (NSW) on page 14) Upon clicking the NSW cities shown in Figure III, the viewers will be directed to another page where they could personally view several video clips regarding the students’ personal experiences for studying at Wollongang University located in New South Wales. This feature is designed to deliver live testimonials to prospective students coming from each of the university’s current students, faculty members, and the alumni. (See Figure IV – Video Clippings on page 15) To make the browsing easier, each page is designed with a small link directed to the NSW universities page with a video clip of previous students, and the question page. Lastly, aiming to give the students space to post their viewpoints about chosen Australian universities as preferred destination or not, a link to a paragraph tool box is included in the program design in order to gather the personal opinions of the students. (See Figure V – Question Task on page 16) Once the students’ opinion has been submitted, the access to view the comments is restricted to the controller of the program webpage. Proposed Resources and Media Format The proposed media format for this program design includes the use of both visual and audio resources such as text, images of the Australian universities, video clippings for the personal experiences of the current and former students of each Australian university, and a link to a paragraph tool box for the personal comments and suggestions of the students. The program designer has carefully planned the appropriate application of small links in each web page in order to make the browsing easier. In this program, a small link in each web page can be found aiming to direct the viewers back to the list of Australian universities page, the video clippings of the current and previous students in each university, and the question page where the viewers could enter their comments about chose Australia as preferred destination or not. The list of universities located in each geographical area includes a link to could direct the viewers to the official homepage of each listed university. Practically all the resources found in the program design will be made available for the students except for the access to the personal comments and suggestions of the viewers which will be restricted only to the operator of the webpage. Implementation Environment There is not much restriction to the access of the proposed program design. Anyone who is interested in searching of a list of Australian university could readily access the program design from home, in school, at the workplace, or any distance location provided that the students have a personal computer with an Internet access and software like Internet Explorer. For promoting purpose, the program could be adapted as website in order to let the students access the webpage and share the link with their local or foreign friends who are interested in pursue their further studies in one of the Australian universities. Since the program design is very simple and is user-friendly, there is no need for the viewers to acquire any technical knowledge in order to access the program design. Constraints There is not much technical constraint with the use of the program design. Provided that the viewers have Internet access, a computer, as well as either Netscape or Internet Explorer, the viewers could easily access the proposed program design. Evaluation Procedures Aiming to evaluate the procedures used in the development of the program design and its implementation, the program designer will conduct a formative and summative evaluation prior to the implementation of the program. (Formative vs. Summative Evaluation, 2007) As part of the formative evaluation process, I will gather a small group of technically competitive individuals to ‘test run’ the program with regards to the graphical design, a possible error in the navigational links, etc. Aiming to test the effectiveness of the program design in terms of being free from errors in the navigation link or attractiveness of the program design, the program designer will conduct a summative evaluation using survey questionnaires to measure the success of the program in terms of its reliability, free from grammatical errors, and attractiveness as a whole. Combining the result of the formative and summative evaluation will enable the program designer to determine whether or not the program design is suitable or not. It is also possible for the evaluation participants to provide some technical comments and suggestions which may improve the overall appropriateness of the program design. List of Figures Figure I – Main Page Figure II – The Seven Australian Territories Figure III – New South Wales (NSW) Figure IV – Video Clippings Figure V – Question Task References: Formative vs. Summative Evaluation. (n.d.). Retrieved September 9, 2007, from http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/edtech/etc667/proposal/evaluation/summative_vs._formative.htm Gandal, M., & Finn, C. (n.d.). Teaching Democracy. Retrieved September 12, 2007, from Freedom Papers: http://usinfo.state.gov/products/pubs/archive/freedom/freedom2.htm#school Read More