Adding a learning journal to a course

Nov 12, 2014

I'm building a course in Storyline (v1 for now, as my PC hasn't been upgraded from XP!). I want to include a Learner Journal where learners can record their reflections, and complete specific activities (filling-in healthcare forms and things like that). What I'd like to be able to do is to have learners launch the Storyline SCORM module from Moodle, and for the module to have links where they can open their Learner Journal and complete an exercise/activity. 

Our LMS is Moodle 2.7. For the journal itself I was planning on using a Word doc with fillable fields where Learners can type their thoughts, the rest of the doc being protected from accidental editing. It's easy to create/edit and all our users have access to Word.

Has anyone done anything similar to this? Another option would be to have Moodle activities that are embedded in the Storyline module in web objects, but I'd like learners to be able to take away their own completed journal at the end of the course, and a Word doc seems like the easiest way to achieve this.

Sorry for the long post - I appreciate the skills and creativity on the forums!

Andy Dunn, eLearning Guy, BC Children's Hospital, Vancouver

10 Replies
Tracy Parish

We split a 2 day inclass workshop into 1 day all online and the other inclass discussion.  The online component has learners printing out activies and reflection exercises, completing them and bringing them to the inclass session.  There isn't anything that says you can't split an online course to include an analog medium. It does work well because there is an inclass discussion.

If you don't have that (and it sounds you don't) I guess it might depend of if  you are wanting private journals, or journals the whole class could see.  Some options might be to set up a Google Doc (spreadsheet/form maybe an option too).  If you have a discussion thread in your LMS you could maybe utilize that in some manner.  Maybe something like Stormboard might work (it's a brain storming/ white board kind of option).  Perhaps a Trello board could be used - one column for each topic within your course, one card on each board for each questions, users can comment on the card and keep a running journal.  Most of those would be options the full class could see, except the Google doc idea.

I recently setup a Wordpress site for an inclass course where we want the users to come back and reflect each week on the topic and answer questions.  We are using the comment area of a post as the place where learners are adding their thoughts.  Again - open to the full class so maybe that's not your answer.  

What about a Google Group - another place to chat/discuss and capture thoughts.

It's alot about thinking about tools that allow discussion/commenting and then thinking about how can you "bend them to your will" to suit the need you have.

I too am in health care and have tried several of these options for those learning initiatives that don't have confidential information that can't be shared in any public space....I'm mindful of the tool we are trying to use, what we are using it for and what we would be sharing on the space.

 

Ashley Chiasson
Holly MacDonald

Would a variation of Stephanie's solution work for you? https://community.articulate.com/discussions/building-better-courses/user-notes-that-they-can-print-and-email 

Interested to hear others' input on this too. It would be a great addition to many programs, I'm sure. Let us know how you solved it Andy.

I was thinking of Stephanie's solution as well.

Andrew Dunn

So here's what I did - pretty low-tech (I like low tech!). I built the course in the usual way in Storyline, and created a Word doc with fillable fields for the journal. Learners are directed to go to the journal at various points to record their reflections. At the end of the course they can upload the journal to Moodle for a mentor to provide feedback. We're trialling this until 5 December for a new course for healthcare workers dealing with pediatric patients at risk of clinical deterioration, so I should know whether they liked it soon.

Andrew Dunn

Hi Laura

We actually went with a slightly different approach in the end, because we were finding that users didn't tend to complete the standalone journal. So what I did was to follow Stephanie's lead and use the variables in Storyline, and a little bit of Javascript, to create a lightboxed slide where users could read their course notes and email them or print them off. The users can click on a 'Notes' button in the player menu to open their notes slide. I'm attaching one of the modules so you can see how it was done. With a bit of work, this could be repurposed as a more 'traditional' Learner Journal, I think. For now, it's a way to capture open-ended answers/reflections from learners

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