BBC Learning: interactive English courses for e-learners worldwide.
At a glance
- Collaboration between the BBC World Service and Anhanguera University in Brazil.
- Interactive learning modules that integrate with a Moodle learning environment.
- Easy to use producers tool enabled editors to quickly produce rich media learning activities.
- Production tool used across other areas of BBC including BBC Janala.
This project is an innovative collaboration between the BBC World Service and Anhanguera, a Brazilian university that offers e-learning resources and offline training for adult learners, to create an online interactive English course.
BBC Learning English commissioned milo to develop a set of simple interactive learning modules (computer literacy is an issue for the audience) that could be embedded anywhere on the course's pages, and a content editor for their producers to quickly knock out and edit quizzes and tests. The activities integrated with a Moodle learning environment.
Building on our previous experience with adult learners, we worked with the BBC team to prototype 5 basic interactions that are so easy to use, anyone can get them. Starting from sample exercises provided by the BBC editors, we created consistent and transparent interfaces that allow users to: Order a scrambled sentence, match words or sentences, group words or sentences, complete sentences by dragging the missing words into place, or typing in the missing words and answer multiple choice questions.
We then added media (images and audio) to the mix, so that one could for instance listen to a sentence, and then drag&drop its components in the right order, or choose the correct pronunciation, or place the stress in the right place.. the possibilities began to grow and the BBC team to get very excited.
We also developed a tool that enables the BBC team to create and maintain the large amount of exercises and quizzes required by the course. This tool is a visual editor with a simple and focused interface, allowing content producers to streamline their work-flow by creating exercise templates that they can "clone and edit". They can arrange elements on the stage, define the feedback and hints for each exercise, and then publish activities online without writing a single line of code.
The existence of this magic tool spread at the Bush House (headquarters to BBC World Service) and while still working at BBC Learning English, we were contacted by BBC Janala, the Bangladeshi section of the BBC World service, to develop a similar tool for their English course. We added a "snap to grid" functionality to increase consistency across exercises and make the BBC editors' work even easier.
