Worked Example Screencast: Teaching Excel

This is a playlist of a series of videos that teach how to produce a simple system to control purchases, sales, and payroll of a small business, which progress teaching several resources in Microsoft Excel.

The narration is in Portuguese, as I will use them as tutorials for my students this semester (they need to produce a similar system, as a final assignment), but I believe the visuals communicate the main message.

The playlist is still not ready - I plan to produce 10 additional videos, and will keep adding them to the playlist.

I recorded the videos using a Camtasia trial version, a software I have never used before but always wanted to test its zoom feature. I had a lot of fun, and video after video, I tried adding new features, such as different Call-Outs, Title Clips, extra Sound Clips etc. The narration was recorded separately, using Audacity, and then added to the Camtasia project. 

Digital Story: You are now a Bird

This is the short digital story of my father's life.

Mayer's personalization principle is here represented on its dialogical style, which involves the user in a conversation with the narrator. To reinforce that, I use mainly my voice instead of printed words.

I have learned from this project a little more how to edit sound, images, and video simultaneously, but mainly how I admire and miss my dad.

The Coherence Principle

The Coherence Principle is one of several multimedia principles developed by Richard Mayer in several papers (for example: Mayer, 1999; Moreno & Mayer, 2000) and most recently in his book E-Learning and the Science of Instruction (2011).

According to the coherence principle, we learn better from concurrent graphics and audio than from concurrent graphics, audio, and on-screen text, that is to say, when extraneous material (in the case, the written text) is excluded rather than included in multimedia presentations, as extraneous material “may overload working memory and may signal readers to focus on inappropriate aspects of the material.” (Mayer, 1999, p. 620). Briefly, the principle suggests not to add printed text to a narrated presentation.

The coherence principle is based on psychological and cognitive theories and research. Mayer argues that we have separate and limited channels for processing verbal and pictorial materials. When presenting words as narration, and not redundant written text, we avoid overloading the visual channel and extraneous cognitive processing, when for instance students try to compare printed and spoken words.

It is directly related to several other principles discussed by Mayer. The redundancy principle, for instance, suggests that we do not add on-screen text to narrated graphics, because it tends to hurt learning. The split-attention principle argues that we learn better when we are not required to split our attention between multiple sources of information.

There are certain situations, however, that benefit from the use of redundant techniques of on-screen text, called boundary conditions: when there is no pictorial presentation, when there is ample opportunity to process the pictorial presentation, for non native speakers or learners with disabilities, or even when only few words are presented next to a graphic.

I have already watched many powerpoint presentations where the presenter mainly reads what is written on the slides, which do not have graphics. In this case, one channel is not being used (pictorial) and the verbal channel is being overloaded, besides the fact the reading usually flows in a different speed than the presenter spoken words, causing a cognitive dissociation.

I have been trying to use more and more this principle in my presentations, preparing slides full of images and few words, as I will talk during the presentation, so that both channels are being used, without extraneous material and overload.

I believe the Coherent Principle is a wise guide for presentations; however, I am afraid it was developed in a pre-web 2.0, social networks and games era, and many times I find myself wondering if, in a multitask and Flash-like intensive scenario, and anti-powerpoint presentation tendency, it still makes sense.

References

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning. 3rd edition. Pfeiffer: San Francisco, CA. (Kindle Edition)

Mayer, R. E. (1999). Multimedia aids to problem-solving transfer. International Journal of Educational Research, 31(7), 611-623.

Moreno, R., & Mayer, R. E. (2000). A learner-centered approach to multimedia explanations: Deriving instructional design principles from cognitive theory. Interactive Multimedia Electronic Journal of Computer-Enhanced Learning, 2(2), 2004-07. Retrieved from http://imej.wfu.edu/articles/2000/2/05/index.asp

Customization x Collaboration in Distance Education

This podcast (which already has a logo), produced in Portuguese by Artesanato Educacional, covers creative and innovative topics on Education Technology and Distance Education.

This episode discusses how (and if) it is possible to combine customization with collaboration in Distance Education, that is to say, individualized studies and interaction with peers and teachers.

I used Audacity to record and edit this episode. Dropbox was used to store the mp3 exported file online. Then the link was posted on this blog.

I usually produce my assignments in English, but reading the instructions and rubric, I understood  a Portuguese audio would work, both because it is much more useful for me (this is actually the second episode of the series I started, inspired at the beginning of this course, for Artesanato Educacional, a company that delivers online courses on Distance Education and Education Technology) and because it can be evaluated in terms of audio, narration, music, the explanation on the blog, the general idea for the podcast and this episode etc.

If needed, however, I will produce something in English.

Writing with Word

This presentation uses Google Docs to teach how to write papers using the Style resource on Microsoft Word. It demonstrates Mayer's multimedia principle because it uses text (in the titles) and images, and the slides count on a narration. It also demonstrates Mayer's contiguity principle because text and images are positioned near.

Creating My Learning Log

I already have a WordPress blog (where I usually write in Portuguese) and had this blogger for testing purposes, but never really used it.

Althoug I did not have to create this blog from scratch, the AECT Standard 2.3 Computer-Based Technologies were covered both when I first created the blog and now, as the operation included design and production of digital information with computer-based technologies, among other skills and competences.