How long does it take to make one of these learning activities?
It Depends.
The time it takes to complete a project depends on:
- the complexity of the project,
- the staff working on the project
- how many projects are due before the one you want me to build, and,
- how quickly the faculty can return completed content to me.
I’ve completed some projects in just a few days, and I have been working on others for years. The sewing machine tutorial for example took two weeks. I did the entire project myself (except taking and cropping the photos). The stage lighting project took a little over a year. The majority of the work on the stage lighting was photos/Photoshop and Actionscript programming. Both completely performed by students – who I might add took every academic break they could– a month for winter break, Spring break, Thanksgiving break, Fall break, Summer and two different semesters’ final exam week. In addition, they also only worked about 9 hours per week.
How much do these activities cost?
On the black market, they’re practically free. In reality, they are free. My department at the university (Adveanced Learning Technologies) doesn’t charge for my services or output. In return I am expected to work solely on curricular projects and not on personal/department websites, alumni websites or slideshows.
At the same time, I am expected to anticipate further use of my learning activities by other academic departments in the university and structure the programming so the content can be replaced and the activity can be reused. I have presented my methods for achieving this at several conferences. They work pretty well for me, but I am sure they can be improved. I would invite or comments in this area. Please. I may be completely missing something.
What technologies do you prefer to work with.
Adobe. Period. And, of the Adobe products, Flash hands down is my favorite. It offers so much flexibilty both with the things it can do as well as how it can be deployed. Flash Catalyst and Flex and coming up in second rather quickly though.
