The following is a synopsis of KCSM's interactive experiment, including feedback from those participants responding to a poll on their series involvement:

Curriculum

• No class material on web site
• Students got extra lab time for taking the class
• No assignments other than watching

The Class Makeup

• 24 students signed up
• 1 could not participate technically
• 2 dropped out because of work
• 1 said they did not have time
• Only 14 students filled out evaluations
• Only 4 students filled out all 8 program evaluations
• 4 of the 14 students had never taken a visual perception class

General Comments

• Expectation of learning outcomes needs to be clear. Class was designed for the general interest student, not the photography/art major
• Curriculum must be done in conjunction with the telecourse to be able to reach desired learning outcomes
• Needs more full screen bullet point slides to reinforce learning points
• Episode 5 and 6 were the best episodes

General Comments - Photography Students

• Pace is too fast and too superficial
• Programs need more detail
• Needs more images to examine
• Narrator speaks too quickly
• No time to reflect on pictures
• Boring to advanced students
• Need more subject matter experts

General Comments - General Student

• Good overview for visual perception
• Needs more examples or images
• Some inconsistency in some episodes
• Episode 2 and 3 need to be longer

Comments on Interactivity

• Must be full screen to interact
• Dial up service disconnects all of the time
• Picture jumps with interactive elements
• Navigation is cumbersome
• Questions should be on the screen longer, and answers should be shorter
• Login time was too short
• Some questions too easy

Comments on the Technology

• Many tried to watch on 13" TVs
• How to hook up information was good, but there were no examples of what you should expect to see or what to do
• Many did not have a phone line in the same room as the TV

WHAT WE LEARNED!

• Specific improvements to the WebTV service would help our future iTV deployments
• Do a trial for connection capability before needed for the real program
• Make sure everyone has at least a 19" TV
• Make sure everyone has a phone line in the same room as the TV
• Echostar and the extra dish bit us
• DirectTV: especially good that PVR is integrated
• Develop curriculum with TV program
• Working from a common outline is difficult
• You must design interactive elements from the beginning of the process
• Back end database was more complicated than expected

Next section: User Survey

Revised Wednesday, 22-Jan-2003 14:16:43 CST - l

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