Design dilemma (Clark & Mayer, e-Learning , chapter 3, pp. 52-53)

1. Design dilemma(Clark & Mayer, e-Learning, chapter 3, pp. 52-53) • VP thinks a short course should just consist of text and tells course designer: • “Everything they need to know is in the text. All they have to do is read it. And we don’t have much time!” • How should the course designer react? • “Do you mind if I come up with something that builds on your text?”

2. The Multimedia Principle • Include both words and graphics • Why? • Graphics facilitate active learning, mentally making connection between pictorial and verbal representations • Words alone may cause shallow learning

3. Avoid decorative graphics • Decorative pictures are “eye candy” • Why? Give an example • Merely decorate the page without improving understanding • E.g., picture of a general in a lesson about explosives • Instructional designer’s job is to enable learner to make sense of information

4. Match graphics to content • Illustrate procedures with screen captures • Show a process flow with arrows or animated graphics • Organize topics by using rollover buttons to show different graphics

5. Psychology of multimedia • Information delivery theory: learning consists of acquiring information • Information format shouldn’t matter • Cognitive theory: learning is actively making sense of information • Active learning involves constructing and connecting visual and verbal representations of material

6. Graphics for different content • Facts, e.g., a screen capture • Concepts, e.g., a diagram of species • Process, e.g., animation of a pump • Procedure, e.g., animation of steps with arrows highlighting buttons or parts • Principle, e.g., animation of genes passing from parents to offspring

7. Evidence for multimedia effect • Ten lessons teaching scientific or mechanical processes, such as how pumps work • Students who receive multimedia lesson perform better on post-test than students who receive same information in words • Improvement of 55-121% more correct solutions to transfer problems • Similar results in experiments with CIMEL

8. Design dilemma: resolution • Based on cognitive theory, designer is confident in multimedia principle • Explains to the VP that people learn more deeply when they are able to build mental connections between verbal and pictorial presentations • Shows prototype storyboards

9. Contiguity principle • Dilemma: use fixed screen displays or scrolling pages (to save bandwidth)? • Principle: place text near corresponding graphics

10. Integrated vs. separate text Text integrated intographic Text separate fromgraphic

11. Other applications of contiguity principle • Can we apply this principle in the following situation? • Identifying parts in a diagram: • List of part names below the diagram? • Pointers connecting names to parts? • Hyperlinks from diagram image map to names and descriptions of parts? • Pop-up text as mouse rolls over parts?

12. Pscyhology of contiguity • When words and pictures are separate, people must use scarce cognitive resources just to match them up • Less resources available to organize and integrate material in memory • Contiguity reduces load on working memory and thus increases learning

13. Evidence for contiguity

14. Violations of contiguity • Separating visuals and text • Obscuring connection with scrolling text • Feedback on a separate screen from practice question • Second browser window covers related information on main screen • Directions for exercise on separate screen from exercise itself