Final Reflections on the course: 2740 Multimedia

By Laura Sosnowski

The most important thing I learned this semester is (whether a course is taught online or face-to-face) principles of
human learning should be included in Instructional Design. Serious address of Instructional Design aka teaching, finally
happened in this Multimedia course (my last for the program) when we studies several principles of human leaning
theory.

The best learning happens:
When students use dual learning channels, visual and auditory, at the same time. This way they are less passive,
reconciling information coming in two ways. This requires learners to rearrange information into a structure that fits
nicely into long term memory with their previous learning. This is the Multimedia Principle.
When instructors resist the urge to include interesting tidbits that are not directly related to curriculum. The
presumed added value actually distracts learners from curriculum, and does nothing to reduce drop rates. In fact, even
curriculum should present limited text and only the clearest of images. This is the Coherence Principle.
When students feel they have a conversational partner to work with. Even if the partner is a computer, they will work
harder to understand when presentations are personalized with on-screen agents as guides, and professional but casual
language. This is the Personalization Principle.
When presentations are designed to reduce eye scanning. By placing limited text very near to the image or part of an
image that it goes with better connections between text and images are made. This is the Contiguity Principle.

Its hard to say what the best news of all is:
A plethora of free and varied technologies exist that I can use to make my instruction more effective, and many free
cloud technologies exist that students can use for collaborative projects.
I should excel at creating user friendly online courses using these technologies, considering my past 20 year career as
Computer Application System Designer, Programmer and Trainer. That means I have a lot of experience developing
user friendly computer systems.
The technologies that we learned to use wake up my creative side, and that will give me endless satisfaction. I will
not become bored or tired of creating them; the prospects will energize me.
Specific instructions backed by research on how to develop multimedia presentation that help students learn.
Quotable research that states a female narrator is the preferred voice for mathematics.

As I reflect on practical uses of skills learned in this class I feel more confident now that I will select an appropriate tool
for each task. I want to avoid technology learning curve overload because my content will be math, not technology. Voki
seems to be the product of choice for my students to introduce themselves to the class. (easy to use and personal voices).
Jing will be great for an easy way to personalize answers to technology questions. I love Brainshark for both instruction I
will create and student collaborative projects. Its similarity to power-point will decrease the learning curve. While I love
the result of Powtoons, it was exasperating to use and it will be saved for special circumstances like the most basic math
some students will need a non-boring refresher on.

My most important insight, as a result of the principles learned in this course, is that my personal teaching instincts are
good. For several units in this course, my presentations were one unit ahead. For example, when studying Worked
Examples, I realized that I had already used the principles of active observation and on-line agents previously. I used
myself as an online agent in my last course interspersing mathematical demonstrations or screencasts with videos of
myself highlighting key points, and also using the Personalization Principle sharing my personal feelings about how
tedious it is to graph on Connect Math.

Combine my renewed confidence in my teaching instincts, useful information about how to incorporate principles of
learning into my multimedia presentations, my experience with and love of creating user friendly computer systems, and
my inner creative self, and the result should be me as a new mathematics instructor, well prepared for the future of
teaching.