Monthly Archives: April 2018

The final assignment in my EDTECH 513 class on multimedia at Boise State University focused on creating a worked example video. A worked example is basically a How-To video that uses research-based multimedia methods to create an e-learning artifact. For my video, I chose to concentrate on a topic that comes up frequently in my interactions with students at the college at which I work: peer reviewed journal articles. Many students come to the college with a working knowledge of libraries. They know we have books they can borrow, probably some videos, and maybe some reference materials. Those same students, however, do not know much about journal literature and the special place it occupies in academia. With that in mind, I went about planning for and creating my video.

First, I thought about the face-to-face instruction I provide to students on the topic of peer reviewed journal literature. I run a series of short, drop-in style lessons during the school year called Bite Size Library Lessons. The lessons are designed to be delivered in under 30 minutes, with 15 minutes being the target. This leaves time to adequately cover the topic and leave time for conversation.

Next, I created a script based on the lesson plans and conversations that take place during a typical lesson.

Third, I created some PowerPoint slides to use in providing pretraining for students on the technical terms associated with the topic, especially the term “peer reviewed”. I also discussed the differences between databases and search engines in the pretraining portion of the video. In the pretraining section of the video, I followed best practices in multimedia development including the redundancy principle (I used limited text except for the discussion of technical terms) and the coherence principle (see the visuals displayed during the What Does Peer Reviewed mean?), and the personalization principle (I am visually present in the video and use personalized language. I also used music for the intro and outro, making sure that the music did not distract the learner from the content.).

Fourth, I recorded myself working through a search, applying filters and sorting results as I went along, and finally viewing a full text, peer reviewed journal article. I used Camtasia for the creation of the video and used some of the callout features as appropriate.

By creating this worked example artifact I have demonstrated competence in AECT Standards 3.1 – Creating and 3.2 Using.  As to standard 3.1, I created a worked example video in compliance with multimedia instruction principles and research-based best practices, including adhering to the redundancy, coherence, and personalization principles. As to standard 3.2, made sound professional decisions regarding the selection of appropriate processes and resources to use in providing conditions that optimized the learning potential of this worked example artifact. I considered the learning objectives I wanted to communicate to learners, determined the best way to deliver the lesson using an approach that was solidly grounded in current multimedia theory practices.

Link to video

Link to video with a lesson

Thus far in EDTECH 513 – Multimedia, the class has focused on how to create messages using multimedia that provide meaningful visual messages and leverage modalities of information acquisition, primarily sight and audition, for the creation of effective learning artifacts. The Personalization Principle, as described by Clark & Mayer, provides a means for further customizing elearning materials to the needs of specific groups of students or a single student, depending on the situation.

What is the Personalization Principle? It is a tripartite principle that seeks to bring the human into elearning environments.

First, this personalization is achieved by promoting the use of an informal communication style and a friendly human voice in elearning. According to this tenet, instructors should strive to provide a casual communication style that is balanced with professionalism. It should be neither so casual that students fail to take the class seriously nor so formal that they feel utterly disconnected from the human instructor. Voice quality and politeness, suggesting rather than stating, for example, is also strongly supported by research. It is also important to avoid sounding monotone or robotic, as this offers a much less engaging learning environment. People prefer other people. The literature also suggests that standard accents promote learning more so than foreign accents.

Avoid sounding robotic.

The second tenet of personalization is the use of on-screen coaches to engage students and help facilitate learning. These coaches do not need to be human. Nor do they have to be animated. Coaches can look like people, or they can take the form of animated objects or fantastical creatures. The most important factor to keep in mind is what will work best for the learners. Once again, make sure the “voice” of the coach, either written or spoken, is authentic. The point is to offer an interaction opportunity with a genuine conversational quality.

The third and final tenet of the Personalization Principle is support for author visibility. In many cases, writers of educational material are encouraged to be invisible and stay out of the learner’s access to the content. However, research into personalization has revealed that a visible author provides a distinct benefit to student learning. Authors of elearning materials can reveal themselves by using an interview style instead of reporting information or by including themselves in examples. This is similar to using “I” statements in a physical classroom as you work through a live problem or activity. I do this regularly in my library instruction classes. “When I conduct a search and I do not see the results I expect, here is what I do…” is a very common thing for me to say.

As I worked through the assignment, I made sure to follow the other multimedia principles I have learned about this semester. For example, I adhered to the Redundancy Principle by keeping extraneous text to a minimum, opting instead to use still images and let the text already present in the images suffice.

There are some open questions that remain concerning personalization, but we do know that personalization helps students engage more deeply with elearning courses.

As far as this particular assignment, we were tasked with creating a digital storytelling artifact. However, since the assignment was rather flexible, I chose to create two digital stories: one lesson and one personal. The lesson teaches the Personalization Principle explicitly while following the tenets established in the principle itself and the personal story is the story of how I came to be an academic librarian. The story is mostly complete, but that is understandable given the three minute duration limit for the assignment. I will continue to develop my digital storytelling skills and incorporate this powerful tool for elearning into my role as an academic librarian.

By completing this activity I have demonstrated an understanding of and have met AECT Standards 3.1- Creating and 3.2-Using.  As for Standard 3.1 – I created a digital story wherein I presented content that was presented in a personalize (informal/casual) manner in alignment with Meyer’s description of the Personalization Principle.

As for Standard 3.2 – I created a script, researched and selected images, and learned how to use software that provided the optimal conditions for learning based on principles, theories and effective practices.

Reference:
Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning.