The Impact of Multimedia

I really like the use of video and audio in online learning and hope to incorporate both in future courses I develop. Multimedia lessons have the potential to quickly engage learners and stimulate their interest. Technology, and in particular, Web 2.0 technology, easily facilitates the use of multimedia components into online learning environments. Boettcher and Conrad maintain that “Using audio and video tools creates a richer, more interesting, and more satisfying course experience” (2010, p.140) for learners.

According to an online source, “Mayer’s cognitive theory of multimedia learning presents the idea that the brain does not interpret a multimedia presentation of words, pictures, and auditory information in a mutually exclusive fashion; rather, these elements are selected and organized dynamically to produce logical mental constructs” (www.learning-theories.com/cognitive-theory-of-multimedia-learning-mayer.html). Stated elsewhere, Mayer’s theory simply asserts that individuals learn more deeply when they process both words and pictures simultaneously, versus processing words alone. Mayer’s theory goes on to discuss dual channel processing and the notion that we receive information through our eyes and our ears (visual and auditory channels). Engaging both channels simultaneously leads to deeper learning, hence the power and appeal of multimedia in online learning.

These days it is very easy to add multimedia elements to online courses. Take YouTube for example. YouTube is such a powerhouse – a fantastic repository of almost every type of video imaginable. Currently, I am putting together the educational programming for my organization’s annual conference. Part of my work involves selecting a keynote speaker. Over the past two or three weeks I have poured over dozens of videos in search of the perfect speaker, many of which were found very easily on YouTube. (As a quick aside . . . here is the link to a YouTube video I highly recommend for you. I found this one during my search; it’s about 18 minutes long and discusses leadership in a very interesting, poignant and engaging manner. Enjoy, when you get the chance … http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qp0HIF3SfI4). We have a basic online supervisory course that I am updating; I can’t use this speaker or the video for the conference, but because of the ease of using YouTube videos, I can quickly embed this video into our supervisory course. Right now the course has no audio or video elements, so this will be a welcome addition, I am hoping.

As excited as I am about incorporating multimedia into my online courses, I do not advocate the use of media without a well-thought through plan about its purpose. In fact one of the most important considerations an online instructor should make before implementing multimedia is whether the media support the learning objectives. Most learners enjoy the interactivity and sense of authenticity afforded by multimedia. But as online instructors, we must ensure that the media add to, enhance, or support the content and the objectives of the lesson before adding the bells and whistles of multimedia with no consideration of its purpose.


References:

Learning-Theories.com. Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning . Retrieved March 30, 2011 from: http://www.learning-theories.com/cognitive-theory-of-multimedia-learning-mayer.html

Mayer, R. E.; R. Moreno (1998). “A Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning: Implications for Design Principles”. http://www.unm.edu/~moreno/PDFS/chi.pdf.

Moreno, R., & Mayer, R. (1999). “Cognitive principles of multimedia learning: The role of modality and contiguity”. Journal of Educational Psychology 91: 358–368.
Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. New York: Cambridge University Press.

A Few Considerations for Setting Up an Online Learning Experience

Setting up an engaging and interactive online learning experience requires planning and careful attention to detail. One of the first things to attend to is creating presence. In fact, Boettcher and Conrad argue that “One of the best ways to get an online course off on the right foot is to ensure the social presence of the instructor and all the learners” (2010, p. 54). Social presence gives online learners the sense that they are interacting with “real, live, breathing” people. It is the "ability of learners to project their personal characteristics into the community of inquiry, thereby presenting themselves as real people" (2010, p.76). Further, social presence is an essential component of the online community trust-building process (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010).

The second thing to attend to concerns technology. Find out what technology tools are available to you, the facilitator, and other learners. It would be an excellent and worthwhile venture for instructors and facilitators to take an inventory of the tools available to them. For example, can the course be built using a course management system (CMS)? This is important since using a CMS could prove very beneficial to instructors and students because CMS are generally feature-rich and powerful in terms of course delivery. Another question to ask is, “Can multi-media vignettes be built into the course?” Multimedia is generally highly compelling, and has the potential to quickly engage students in the learning experience. Other technology tools, especially those made available by Web 2.0 technology such as wikis, blogs, discussion groups, streaming video, and social media should be explored, and assessments should be conducted to determine how and when these tools can best be incorporated into the online course.

Of course simply taking an inventory of the technology tools currently available is not enough, although it is a good first step. After you’ve determined what is available, you must select the tools that are optimal for your learners – tools which support your learning objectives. For instance, if you’ve assigned students the task of exploring a topic through research and interviews, and have asked them to write up their findings, as well as comment on the work of their peers, a good technology tool to use would be a wiki. The optimal tool might be a blog, although both tools may support the learning objectives.

Another equally important consideration here, though, is learners’ access and comfort with the tools being used. Instructors and facilitators must determine:

1. whether students know how to access technology tools (typically accessible through the internet)

2. whether students can use the tools

As an example, we might believe that YouTube is now ubiquitous, and that everyone knows how to access videos on that site. The reality is that not everyone knows how to access videos on YouTube or through other applications even. Or it could be possible that a learner knows how to access a video, but does not have a set of speakers built into or attached to her computer. Or perhaps speakers are attached, but the learner does not know how to change the settings to get them to work properly. All of these are likely scenarios and must be taken into account when using technology tools.

Although this discussion is not a comprehensive one by any stretch of the imagination, for purposes served here the final thing to attend to when arranging an online experience involves setting up clear expectations of learners. “Clear and unambiguous guidelines about what is expected of learners and what they should expect from an instructor make a significant contribution to ensuring understanding and satisfaction in an online course” (Boettcher & Conrad, 2010, p. 55).


Reference

Boettcher, J. V. Conrad, R. (2010). The Online Teaching Survival Guide: Simple and Practical Pedagogical Tips. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Online Learning Communities

Active participation in an online learning community can impact student learning, and greatly increase satisfaction with online learning programs. An online learning community can be defined as a shared space on the Internet where students and instructors can connect with other, explore content, build knowledge and work together to addresses the learning needs of its members through collaborative partnerships (Pratt & Palloff, Wikipedia). One of the more significant ways that online communities help impact learning is by providing an open forum through which members provide professional support, correction and feedback “in a way that enhances learning and development” (Palloff & Pratt, 2010). Another way, according to Shrivastava, is that individual and group members can “voluntarily accept mutual responsibility for participating and sharing in the learning process.”

Satisfaction with online programs increases when learners actively participate in an online community. This is likely attributed to the belief that students feel part of something larger than themselves when they participate in an online learning community (Palloff & Pratt, 2010). Also contributing to learner satisfaction is the idea that online communities provide viable support systems for students. According to Wellman & Guilia), “ Students who take an interest in each other’s well being, both academic and social, will have more of a support system of peers than those who do not” (1999).

Which strategies should be used to create a successful online learning community? There are two essential strategies to employ. The first would be to foster individual social presence, which is the sense of knowing who the other persons are in the community, virtually, but in a real way. Learners who are able to get a good sense of their online partners, perhaps through a photo, or by learning interesting personal or professional tidbits about them, are more empowered to contribute freely, expressing themselves in authentic and powerful ways, thus contributing to an active and successful community. The second is fostering a sense of shared responsibility for the community. Community members must come to the knowledge and understanding that it is everyone’s responsibility to create a successful online learning community.

Building an online learning community supports effective online instruction. The online community gives learners an opportunity to contribute to one another’s learning, the community’s learning overall, and also to contribute to a specific body of knowledge. Research shows that stronger outcomes are the consistently observed results of active online community participation (Palloff & Pratt). Conrad & Donaldson (2004), report that “each learner’s actions contribute not only to individual knowledge but to overall community knowledge development as well” (p. 5). According to Vesely, Bloom & Sherlock, “The power of establishing a sense of community in online classes has been demonstrated by LaRose & Whitten (2000) who found a statistically significant relationship between students’ sense of community and the positive achievement of learning outcomes in the online setting” (2007). Could it be that a successful, fully active online learning community, in which members are highly engaged, involved and contributing regularly, can serve as an effective proxy for face-to-face interaction? The answer appears to be a resounding “yes.”

Hi everyone,

This is my blog. Feel free to comment as you like.

Scope Creep?

In one of my earlier blog entries I described a project I was involved with while volunteering with a former employer—a very small, charitable, non-profit organization that seeks to end domestic violence in the State of Illinois. The project was the organization’s annual fundraising event, a glitzy, evening gala featuring hors d’oeuvres, an open bar, live music, a raffle and a silent auction.

A gala committee, comprised of board members and others, was put together during the initial phases of the project. During one of the first meetings of the gala committee—still the concept phase, a board member suggested that the group seek out local celebrity chefs for a “friendly competition among chefs,” an idea that was met with much enthusiasm and excitement. The board member making the suggestion happily volunteered to recruit two or more chefs to participate in the event, whom she felt confident in securing. Well…six months into the project plan and we still had no celebrity chefs contracted. What we had was one chef who expressed a small bit of interest in the event – no real commitment at all.

As mentioned, the organization is very small and had a very small event budget. The amount allocated to food and drinks was as close to zero as you can get, since the budget was developed with the expectation that all wine and alcoholic beverages would be donated (as they had been in the past). Our expectation that the celebrity chefs would donate the food items they prepared at the event was also well-founded, given the fact that such chefs had done so in past years for other non-profit organizations.

Seventy-two hours prior to the event and we had only one chef confirmed. We decided to quickly contact the venue hosting our event; we scrambled to develop a menu to supplement what our sole celebrity chef was donating. This dilemma may not qualify exactly as being an example of scope creep since scope creep is generally thought to be the “natural tendency of the client, as well as project team members to try to improve the project’s output, as the project progresses” (Portny et al, 2008. P.346). However, according to Lynch & Roecker, scope creep “is a major cause of cost and time overrun” (2007, p.96 ). And so it was for this project…except that we might want to label this dilemma “scope retreat” instead of scope creep, since we had to scale way back in terms of our hopes of having a competition. And we had to add a very significant amount to our budget’s food allocation in order to make up for the losses in donated hors d’oeuvres and other edibles.

Looking back on how we could have handled this differently…. Everyone was very well-intentioned and tried their best. Perhaps a well-thought through contingency plan would have been appropriate. But so sure was our board member in her ability to secure local chefs that we never truly considered a “Plan B.” Mistake on our part? Definitely. A costly one? You bet! Did we learn from this? Absolutely. We should always allocate a contingency amount for an event—you never know if an expected donation will actually come through.


References

Lynch, M. M., & Roecker, J. (2007). Project managing e-learning: A handbook for successful design, delivery, and management. London: Routledge.

Portny, S., Mantel, S., Meredith, J., Shafer, S., & Sutton, M. (2008). Project Management in Practice: planning, scheduling and controlling projects. Third edition. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Communicating Effectively

When working as a manager of an instructional design project, it is extremely important to establish and implement (and continuously improve) communication channels with all stakeholders. “A project fraught with communication problems leads to delays, misunderstandings, frustration, [and] workplace conflicts…”(Sharma, 2010).

Effective communication is vital to the success of any project. Project managers can communicate with stakeholders through written communications such as email, instant messaging, memoranda and reports. Verbal communication methods include face-to-face dialogues and recorded messages. Within the realm of verbal communication is interactive communication, where individuals can interact with each other in real time.

You may be wondering which method of communication is best for a given situation or purpose. Well, generally speaking and for most situations, interactive communication (face-to-face) is best. For example, this week in my instructional design course I was asked to review a message in three different modalities: as written text in an email, as audio in a telephone message, and as a video (simulated) face-to-face message. As you might imagine, the video delivery method was most effective for me for a number of reasons including:

1. I was able to observe the other person’s facial and body expressions making the communication more authentic, sincere and earnest.

2. Observing the person while simultaneously listening to the message made the entire experience seem “real” and I wanted to provide the information requested because of the “reality” of the message.

3. Because of the other person’s physical presence (albeit virtual) I felt more of a ‘sense of urgency’ than with the other communication delivery methods. (In the message, the other person was asking for some needed data in order to complete a report which was quickly approaching its deadline.)

Many types of written communication are considered “push” delivery methods because they are presented to (or pushed to) stakeholders. The push method is effective as well, and often, is the most efficient way to reach a larger audience. For example, sending a written progress report to all the stakeholders of a large, complex project may take considerably less time to deliver than setting up and conducting a formal meeting and discussing the project’s progress. Back to my assignment…when I read the assigned message in email form, although I understood it, the tone seemed almost apologetic. I don’t believe the intent of the message was to be apologetic. Right away then, you can see how one communication method differs from another in how its message is received and interpreted.

Lastly, I would like to mention the telephone message, which is effective as well as it is a form of verbal communication. But, even if effective, recorded voice messages are not the most effective as we’ve already learned. With recorded voice, or audio, there is more of an element of authenticity than in written communication because the voice on the other end is human and real. However, recorded messages are not heard in real-time, and thus cannot offer the benefits of interactivity. For my assignment, when I listened to the recorded message, I believe that I did understand the message as it was communicated, by that I mean I understood the urgency of the message. Because there was no interactivity, I could not clarify with the other person the full intent of the message—I was forced to use my own discretion as to what the message actually meant. A disadvantage? Perhaps…but not in this assignment.


References:

Sharma, R. (2010) Effective Communication Methods in Project Communications Management. Retrieved November 18, 2010 from: http://www.brighthub.com/office/project-management/articles/85785.aspx

Project "Post-Mortem"

I used to work as a full-time staff member of a small, charitable, non-profit organization. After I left that organization a good friend of mine, who currently works there, asked me to do some volunteer work for the organization’s annual charity event, which is its primary fund-raising event of the year and features a silent auction and a raffle. Often, dignitaries and other luminaries from the Chicagoland area are honored at the event.

I started volunteering in mid-September and quickly developed an Excel project plan, complete with activities and due dates. But because the event is massive in terms of its many components, the development of the project plan seemed to be “too little too late.” I would not say that the project was a failure, nor would I say that it was a complete success either. Looking back, now 5 weeks later, I can see that the biggest problem was that we were constrained in a number of ways, each being quite impactful potentially. One of the constraints involved staff: the organization is quite small and we simply did not have enough staff or volunteers to help out during the “perform phase” of the project, consequently, the event chair and I spent nearly 18 hours a day working on details. Another constraint was finances. We lacked adequate funding to put on a really spectacular gala and had to resort to creating display items and decorations ourselves. Lastly we were constrained by ineffective communication systems with our board of directors. Our volunteer board members have full-time jobs of their own and are often unavailable for consultation and direction. However, for certain aspects of the event we could not continue with the work until a board member acted, or made a decision.

For sure a Constraints Matrix would have greatly helped us by forcing us to identify potential problems, assess their impact and develop contingency plans. I believe a Linear Responsibility Chart would have proved beneficial to us as well because, by using it, we could have involved the few staff members that were available much sooner in the project. And the Linear Responsibility Chart outlines tasks to be done and the person responsible. By using it we could have identified staffing gaps much sooner and been prepared to fill them by bringing on additional volunteers.

Distance Education Perceptions

Distance education is the bringing together of learners, instructors and instructional content no matter where each is located (Simonson et al, 2009). What does the future hold for distance education? Most believe that distance education is growing and gaining acceptance as a viable learning environment. What might be fueling this growth? According to George Siemens, a growing sense of comfort with communicating online using current technology tools has propelled distance education activities.

An online source reports, “The changing demographics of students is one of the driving forces behind the growth of distance learning and adult students are the fastest growing group.” If distance learning is growing and becoming more entrenched in higher learning, fueled by comfort with technology and adults desiring to continue their education, what are the perceptions of distance education? In a study conducted by Hannay and Newvine, students indicated that they believe distance learning classes are not only more difficult than the traditional courses, but overall they perceive them to be of high quality. By contrast, another recent study showed that some employers may not value the candidacy of employees who have earned online degrees, suggesting concern about the quality of distance learning. However, overall, perceptions about distance education are changing for the better. And as online learning becomes increasingly accepted as a legitimate learning environment, questions about how individuals perceive distance learning may not be as relevant.

As instructional designers, we have an instrumental role in shaping perceptions around distance learning. Simonson et al pointed out that, “Interactive, real-time, on-demand, learner-centered, authentic and learner-constructed events will characterize the educational environment of the future. Instructional designers are at the forefront and are in the driver’s seat of this movement for learner-centered, authentic, interactive instruction. By designing, developing and delivering high-quality learning events that are continuously evaluated and improved upon, we can change or directly impact future perceptions of distance learning programs.

Looking ahead, how do you believe instructional designers can be a positive force for continuous improvement in the field of distance education? I believe we can do this by always asking questions. Questions like:

• What do you need that you don’t have?
• What do you have that you don’t need?
• How can we improve the product, service or process?
• What does the most current research indicate?
• What are the best practices?
• What is best for us here and now?

By asking questions such as these we are building evaluation and improvement opportunities into our discussions. With quality instruction the norm in distance education, perceptions are bound to change. And “ultimately, the concept of distance will disappear as insignificant” and learners will be left with education.

References

ConnectEd. The Richard W. Riley College of Education and Leadership. Walden University. Retrieved from: http://connected.waldenu.edu/curriculum-resources/technology-in-the-classroom/item/772-what-is-future-of-distance-learning

Hannay, M. Newvine, T. (2006)Perceptions of Distance Learning: A Comparison of Online and Traditional Learning. MERLOT Journal of Online Learning and Teaching. Vol 2, No. 1, March 2006

Shadix, K. (2006) Shady Learning 2.x Blog. Retrieved from: http://shadylearning.wordpress.com/category/lean-instructional-design/

Siemens, G. (2010) Laureate Education. The Future of Distance Education. Retrieved from: http://sylvan.live.ecollege.com/ec/crs/default.learn?CourseID=4442081&Survey=1&47=6207825&ClientNodeID=984650&coursenav=1&bhcp=1

Simonson, M., Smaldino, S., Albright, M., & Zvacek, S. (2009). Teaching and learning at a distance: Foundations of distance education (4th ed). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.