Observation Reflection:

For my observation, I observed during a full day Flash MX training session titled "The Joy of Online Learning with FLASH" held for the Arlington ISD Technology Applications teachers. The class was structured and prepared by Joy Rousseau and was held on November 11, 2002.

During the observation, I was able to note the following important points:

1. All resources were provided to us in handout format. We were allowed to work off of the handouts and were expected to always keep an eye ahead. Unfortunately the teacher did not give credit for the resource of the work and immediately lost credibility from us because we were aware of the fact that project that she was providing to us was a canned project prepared by Macromedia.
2. Students were given small demonstration portions and then were required to continue the lesson from the point that was demonstrated on. This particular technique didn't bother me because I am very comfortable with Flash, but for the students that had absolutely no knowledge of the program, it was frustrating and a little too difficult.
3. Terms referring to the technology were used throughout the class. Some terms were introduced and explained in depth but others were taken for granted as understood. This was a point that I noticed threw the newer students off. No knowledge of the program made it very difficult for these students and brought the class to a grinding halt at times.
4. Digital graphic format was briefly touched on and commented on as being very important but no firm instruction was given on it. This hurt the students who never dealt in the area of image opitmization and so it made their file sizes larger than they ideally would have been.
5. Multimedia concepts and techniques were introduced and enforced in the class:
   • Students in the class that felt they had a grasp of the concept being taught were asked to demonstrate the concept on the demonstration computer for the rest of the class to benefit from. This was a good teaching technique because the teacher sometimes spoke above the heads of the students and hearing the technique in the words of another student sometimes made it easier to understand and grasp.
   • Students were expected to stay with the teacher at the majority of times unless she asked us to work at our own pace. This created a problem because the entire packet was provided to us at one time and this sometimes poses a problem with the students who are ahead of the rest. Because of the desire to complete the work, there were many students who worked ahead and were not able to be as supportive to the students around them because they were concerned with completing their own project work.
6. The multimedia concepts introduced and put into use were:
   • timeline, toolbar, stage and library usage
   • keyframes and frames
   • motion tweening
   • alpha tweening
   • sound integration
   • button preparation and usage
   • action scripts
   • previewing and testing
7. There were a few web mastering techniques introduced in the class. We went over preparation for a web page using Flash, usage of buttons in a web page and using text files for text sections in Flash. I believe that this area was very vague and could have been presented more completely. The particular area that may have been confusing for some was the use of text files for use with Flash. There are many people that have no idea of the use of a text editor like notepad for use in web pages and this was definitely an area that was not explained well at all by the teacher. This resulted in a little more confusion from the beginning teachers.

Generally, I believe that this class was more well thought-out and prepared for than the previous one held on September 16, 2002. In that particular class the teacher was prepared to teach us lessons that she had prepared specifically for Flash 5. Because of this miscommunication the class was filled with "If this was in Flash 5 the case would be..." Also, the teacher had little exposure to Flash MX and honestly was not qualified to teach the class. The class went on anyway.

I believe that in a class such as this, a teacher should have structured lessons that have been tested for accuracy and tested again. If you are going to be teaching a complicated software like Flash MX you should always be prepared for all of the little questions.

The introduction portion of the class was weak as far as I was concerned and I felt that there was so much more that the use of materials that were prepared by someone else with no credit to the creator was plagiarizing. I was not alone in this.

Overall, I do believe that I came away with some techniques and concepts that I was eager to apply to my own class, but the overall structure of the class was weak and did not keep all knowledge levels in mind. Generally, it was a good learning experience for myself because the teacher was very sure of her own skills but I'm not quite sure that she was aware of her students' skills. This is an area that all teachers should keep in mind--teach to the beginners and bring them up to speed unless you are aware that everyone already has good exposure and experience with the software and terms.