What is NeLCon studio?
NeLCon studio is an e-learning content development and playing tool which combines voice, images and texts to create a digital lesson. It is based on the popular MP3 format. NeLCon studio has two components i.e NeLCon Creator and NeLCon Player. NeLCon creator should be used to develop a lesson
and NeLCon Player which is a new mp3 player will play the lesson. In order to empower each school teacher in developing their own e-learning content while overcome the barriers of digital content development, NelCon Studio was developed.
Objectives of NeLCon Studio
1. Support the teaching/learning process online as well as offline
2. Support mobile learning which has become a popular mode of learning specially during Covid-19 pandemic
3. Support the teachers and students with low bandwidth Internet connections in teaching and learning
4. Empower educators (teachers/lecturers/ trainers) to develop their own digital contents with minimum efforts
5. Motivate non technical educators to create their own digital contents for e-learning by hiding the technical difficulties
6. Provide more time for lesson planning and quality assurance of digital contents
6. Provide a learning tool for students, something like Windows Media Player, to use digital learning materials
7. Promote Blended learning and Micro Teaching
Why NeLCon studio is developed ?
E-learning has become an essential method in educational context during the Covid 19 pandemic. Many schools, universities and educational institutes has tried almost every means of e-learning to deliver the educational materials to the students.
When it comes to developing e-learning contents in the educational industry in Sri Lanka, it is observed that very rarely a school teacher would develop his/her own e-learning contents due to the following reasons.
1. Lack of computer skills
2. Lack of knowledge on e-learning content development
3. Lack of resources such as equipment and internet facility in both teacher and student groups.
4. Lack of knowledge on e-learning pedagogy etc
Why NelCon Studio is unique?
1. Use of mp3 files as multimedia learning objects. The mp3 format has been a natural choice of the music industry. It has also been used in education as an audio file. However, it has never been used as a multimedia object which embeds images, text and audio into one file.
2. Multipurpose NeLCon player can be used in education as well as in the music industry. Image transition capability with the synchronization of the audio is another unique feature of NeLCon player. This capability cannot be seen in other mp3 players. Therefore, NeLCon studio can be used to create digital lessons for eLearning and music albums. It is a generic tool for any application domain.
3. It is simple. It needs the experience of using smart phones in taking photographs, voice recording and writing notes. NeLCon combines them together.
4. The simplicity of NeLCon studio allows teachers to spend more time on lesson planning and to concentrate on the quality of the lesson than focusing on learning complex technical stuff.
5. Use of extendible metadata such as title, name of the teacher, copyright gives advantages in searching and lesson management.
NeLCon Studio can be accessed through nelrc.kln.ac.lk:8080