Week 3 - Multimedia for Learning

I found Mayer’s design principles, the do’s and don’ts for instructional designers, very useful. Clearly helped us to understand how learners learn better when they are able to hold corresponding visual and verbal representations in working memory at the same time.

Mayer’s do's and don’ts for instructional designers
1)Present in words and pictures rather than in words alone
2)Present corresponding words and pictures near each other rather than far from each other on the page or screen
3)Present in conversational style rather than formal style.
4)Exclude extraneous material rather than include.
5)Should not overload visual/pictorial channels. Animated pictures presented with an audio commentary are better understood than accompanied with on screen text.
6)Redundant to present words in both text and audio narration. Better to present an animation with audio commentary rather than an animation, its commentary and the corresponding text.

Reference : Clark, Ruth (2002) : Six principles of effective e-learning : What works and why. The eLearning Developers’ Journal. Septtember 10, 2002.

Week 2 - Graphic File Formats - Vector images

Graphic File formats can be broadly categorized into bit-mapped formats and vector formats.
Vector graphics use geometrical formulas to represent images. Bit-mapped or raster graphic are composed of a pattern of dots.Programs that enable you to create and manipulate vector graphics are called draw programs, whereas programs that manipulated bit-mapped images are called paint programs.
Vector-oriented images are more flexible than bit maps because they can be resized and stretched. In addition, images stored as vectors look better on devices (monitors and printers) with higher resolution, whereas bit-mapped images always appear the same regardless of a device's resolution. Another advantage of vector graphics is that representations of images often require less memory than bit-mapped images do.


Example of vector graphic image - Flash Graphic File Format
- file extension - .swf
- vector image which can be scaled up and down without any loss of quality.
- used for simpler drawings. Not for photographic images.
- small file size.
- proprietary format - need special plug in to view Flash movies in your browser. Plug-in is available free from Macromedia.


Reference:
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/tutorials/vectorversatility/
http://www.wise-women.org/resources/abc/graphics/
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/V/vector_graphics.html

Week 1 - Instructional Design

Instructional design is a systematic process of designing instruction that aims to ensure the quality of knowledge is transferred from an instructor to a learner.

In web education, students are likely to be overwhelmed by the vast amount of information that they may become unclear about their tasks as learners. Thus it is even more important in web education than in the face-to-face classroom to have good instructional design to deliver the right content in the right context to the right user using the right media.

In the design process, instructional designers follow ISD models to systematically guide them to create a workshop, a course, a curriculum, an instructional program, or a training session. ISD Models are visualized representations of an instructional design process, showing the main elements or phases, and their relationships. Examples of ISD models include: Dick & Carey Model, ADDIE Model, Kemp Model, ICARE Model, and ASSURE Model. These models share three major activities: analysis, strategy development, and evaluation.

Part of the analysis phase involves understanding the learner. But how does an instructor develop an understanding of the characteristics and needs of an online learner as the instructor has little or hardly any face-to-face contact with the learner? How do we adjust teaching style and course content, and consider the needs and expectations of a diverse audience?

References:
Kemp, J.E., Morrison, G.R., & Ross, S.M. (1996). Designing Effective Instruction, 2nd Edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

Retrieved on March 19, 2007, from http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/s/j/sjm256/portfolio/kbase/IDD/ISDModels.html

Welcome

Dear All,
Welcome to Danam's blog. This my first time creating a blog and I find this very exciting.
On this site I will be putting up content on multimedia and the web for eduction.
Your comments on the contents are most welcome. I truly hope that this site would be beneficial to you.
Thank you.

Danam.K
MMWE