Abstract:

Micro-lectures (MIL) are becoming popular with the increasing trend of online education. Researchers and online educators are using instructional models and constructivists theories for designing micro-lectures. These models and theories revolve around learning by doing (LBD) approach. Due to this, the MIL designers must attach a set of assignments with every micro-lecture. However, too many assignments kill the learning objective. To overcome this problem, we introduced the concept of micro-interrogation, which works using learning by thinking (LBT) methodology. (*note a separate paper dedicated to micro-interrogation entitled "UNDERSTANDING THE ROLE OF MICRO-INTERROGATION FOR FRAMING ASSIGNMENT FREE MICRO-LECTURES" is submitted to INTED-2021). Online educators and MIL designers can use principals listed in micro-interrogation concept for designing assignment free or low assignment intensive micro-lectures manually. This manual MIL designing/framing process is time-consuming and may introduce human errors. This research aims to solve this problem by fabricating a desktop application.

This research presents a desktop application named "Sookshm Vyaakhyaan" (SoVy) application. We fabricated this application to automate the micro-interrogation base micro-lecture framing process, which in turns help in speeding up the MIL design/framing process and eliminating the chances of manual human errors. This research presents the design issue and technical details associated with the app. This research also presents the complete reference architecture of the fabricated application. The reference architecture presented in this research highlights the application designing process. To measure the quality and usability of our app, we organized a controlled software testing program with twenty participants. The duration of the software testing program was of 1 hour 15 minutes. All participants were given 15 minutes demo on "How to use the app" and then they were asked to frame MIL's using the given application for the next 1 hour. Their feedbacks were recorded and analyzed.
They also rated the application concerning quality attributes, namely:
(a) overall performance,
(b) learnability,
(c) simplicity and
(d) usability.

We selected these quality attributes after extensive literature survey. This research also presents the feedback and rating results analysis obtained after conducting the testing program. We strongly believe that the development of such educational applications opens a new dimension concerning teaching and learning for online educators and learners, respectively. Such applications also help online educators to perform their tasks effectively and efficiently.

Keywords:

Micro-Lectures, Learning By Doing, Learning by Thinking, Instructional Models, Constructivists Theories.