ELRC 7505: Module 6—Segmenting and Pretraining Principles

Description of Worked Example 

With the shift of doing everything digitally, it’s becoming more and more relevant that something so easy to operate is also something we’ve blindly dismissed in how to troubleshoot.  The worked example topic I chose to describe was how to troubleshoot volume settings, and the audience is directed towards users operating a windows device.  In the video, I have six steps listed and each step is presented on a new screen to draw the learner's attention (p. 255).  However, all six of these steps do not need to be completed every single time.  I viewed this worked example in a way that if the previous step does not work to solve your problem, continue forward to the remaining steps until you reach a solution.

Skills Developed Along the Way 

The worked example I provide aligns with the principles Clark & Mayer have shared throughout the semester.  I believe I incorporated elements of each of the principles we have learned about so far, but I  focused on the personalization principle, multimedia principle, and modality principle the most because I use a casual description of events through my narration, relevant visuals with audio alone, and very limited text (p. 253-254).  For the purposes of the worked example, I was really fond of the active observing technique.  I chose record with Screencast-O-Matic because through this method, “learners could solve problems as they observed the video” (p. 252). 

Challenges

A challenge I struggled with in completing this project was contemplating adding background music or not.  When looking back at previous assignments I have completed, I find that my preference of adding background music it’s dependent on the program I use to create the work.  The way I created this assignment was different than the previous digital story project in last week’s task, but for whatever reason, I always find myself warry of not wanting to use background music in Microsoft PowerPoint presentations.  I’ve been doing video responses for my discussion posts throughout the master's program, and seriously I don't think there's a time I put music in my Microsoft PowerPoint Presentations!  I’m curious on how to proceed, please tell me what you think!

I have a video embedded on the 2^nd slide if you are curious about the example video I selected and I also have a video embedded on the 10^th slide that is a short 30 second clip of the entire process.

Here is a link to the Google Slides presentation:  Click Here

Here is a link to the Worked Example YouTube video:  Click Here

ELRC 7505: Module 5—Personalization Principle

Welcome to week 5 in ELRC 7505!  This week’s theme covers the personalization principle.  Below I will share a link to the assignment —a digital story.  This multimedia project includes:  audio, narration, static images, overlays, transitions, and GIFs.  I hope you enjoy!   

Who is it for?

This digital story is a brief reflection of how simple and routine greetings can positively affect the language learning process.  By using the phrase “How are you” and following up with “why”, Bloom’s Taxonomy is in motion between the teacher, student, and their classmates.  It’s an easy way to reinforce learning on a daily basis and keep the students actively engaged.  Within the digital story, I provide two examples and a rationale for what each option offers.  The video also references findings from Clark & Mayer (2016) to support its language enhancement capabilities.  Although the focus is English education, the idea of a simple and routine activity can be applied to many disciplines to help expand knowledge in within the field.

Challenges

This is my second time creating a digital story, so I continued to use a program I was familiar with—WeVideo.  The first time I created a digital story, I was very excited—BUT—I had absolutely no idea how time consuming it could be.  The second time around, I felt more comfortable because I knew roughly what to expect, so I could dedicate more time to the process. 

Other than having to familiarize myself with the program again, it was definitely a smoother experience overall, but there were some new challenges I faced.  One problem I struggled with was trying to rearrange the order of having multiple media on a single frame—in my case a gif and a static image.  The second problem I encountered was trying to add an overlay to a frame.  Some overlays were easier to edit than others and are present in the final cut, however there was one in particular I really wanted to have but ultimately decided to cut since the flow seemed interrupted.  The third challenge I struggled with remains in the finished work, and it’s how I inserted a GIF to represent a pedagogical agent.  I wanted to do more with it and the original goal was to make it an animated character for a real immersive feeling.  I kept thinking about the reading and how “adding a motionless full-body agent does not have a substantial effect on learning” (p. 196).  I was undecisive and felt like the GIF could be both a pro/con.  Perhaps with more experience and the next digital story I create, I will branch out and try a new program and see the benefits it has to offer.  

Personalization Principle

Here is a link to my first digital story from a previous class, Language Around the World.

Here is a link to my second digital story for this assignment, Routine & Warmups for ESL.

Please look at both!  When I compare the two, there’s quite a big difference in the final product and a lot of it is due to what we’ve learned from Clark & Mayer (2016).  Major differences are noted in duration of the digital story as well as the use between conversation and formal wording.  Even though I mentioned it as a challenge, the frame with the GIF was still an improvement that revolves around politeness theory and embodiment.  By noticing it's eye-blinking, swaying side-to-side, and smile, that allowed to the learner to have freedom of action to work cooperatively with the agent (p. 188).  The personalization principle, along with modality and redundancy principle, are present in the second digital story.  Some components used from the personalization principle that are present in this video are listed below.  Please let me know what you think—I appreciate any comments or feedback!

·       Conversational narration

·       Polite wording

·       First/second pronouns

ELRC 7505: Module 4—Coherence Analysis Project

Coherence Principle:  Weeding Out the Extra

Welcome to week four and my coherence analysis project!  In this week's assigned reading, we were introduced to the coherence principle.  It aims to exclude irrelevant words, graphics, audio in e-learning materials.  This blog post is a bit shorter on content than previous weeks, but I have included a link of my paper below that includes my interpretation of this new principle.  The reading and assignment was something that resonated with me because during this asynchronous learning experience, it's reflected in my writing and multimedia discussion posts. During my time in the master's program, there have been many opportunities for me to improve on clarity and brevity with written assignments and projects.  This semester  however, has been quite different than previous semesters because I'm learning so much about practice.  The reading provided intriguing results on student performance from aligning and misaligning to coherence principle recommendations.  In my paper I reflect on successful and unsuccessful examples of the principle, relationships to other principles, and it's limitations.  

(Andrew DeBell, n.d.) 

Thanks for checking out the blog! Click the hyperlink for the Google Doc ~