DESIGNING AN E-COOPERATIVE GROUP PRESENTATION TOOL TO BE EMBEDDED IN E-LEARNING PLATFORMS: A SCHEMATIC STORYBOARD

Comparison of cognitive and affective gains between independent study and group presentations has been studied in some cases. They mostly approved the advantages of group presentation for students, enabling them to enhance their intellectual and cognitive abilities as well as their life-long learning in the specific courses. However, there is a more limited focus on e-learning environments in terms of activating these potentials in the e-learning settings of higher education. Conducting three focus groups with the related experts including 8 Irish master students, 6 academics and 6 entrepreneurs and as a part of a bigger research project, this study tries to design a specific tool for embedding in the current e-learning platforms, enabling students and tutors to organise some group presentations within their virtual classrooms. To do so, a Schematic Storyboard has been drawn after analysing the discussions and experiments of our focus groups' participants. Before drawing the storyboard four descriptive components named Functional Specifications (FS) have been written based on the participants' experiences, trying for defining different aspects of the storyboard. These FSs clarified the process of creating the groups by students or their tutors, sharing the tasks amongst the group members, preparing and revising the group slides, and finally, doing the group presentation and getting feedback. This process has been done according to one of the Software Development Models, named: Prototypic Development. Finally, the features and capabilities of this designed storyboard have been compared with the previous published literature and experiences. While the paper is written from an e-learning perspective, the issues and processes raised are applicable to any higher education system that seeks to value and reward a student-centred educational system.