The multimedia learning hypothesis is that people learn better from both pictures and words as opposed to just one or the other (Mayer, 2014). Mayer goes on to expand upon this and states that learning from pictures and learning from words are not equal and he dismisses the commonly known saying that a picture is worth a thousand words. Teachers or instructors need to choose and design ways to incorporate visual aspects into their presentations of material in meaningful ways and not just because it will enhance learning according to this hypothesis. How do they do that? It’s complicated…

Technology-centered approach to multimedia learning: Uses media research to determine which technology is most effective to present information (Mayer, 2014). We have seen examples of phases through education that have not lasted. For example, radios were thought to be a powerful tool in the classroom, and later so was television (Mayer, 2014). If you spent a week in an elementary classroom in today’s current society it is highly unlikely that you would see either of these two examples of technology being used.

Learner-centered approach to multimedia learning: Begins with understanding how the human mind works and then searched for multimedia technologies that will enhance human learning (Mayer, 2014). By enhance human learning they give another example suggesting that technology should compliment human learning. I hope this does not mean using technology to do the work for us and rather to help us do the work better.

Through further exploration of other resources the idea of dual-coding can help us understand how to use multimedia effectively. Dual-coding refers to the idea that we have two channels in our brains, one for visual information and one for auditory information (Mahon, 2013). Something that stood out to me during this was that written text and images both are processed in your visual channel and people need to pay attention to this when presenting information (Mahon, 2013). In order to avoid the overload of the visual channel you need to balance it out with an auditory stimulus.

References:

Mahon, C. M. (January 13th, 2013). Dual Coding Theory & Multimedia Learning. [Vimeo]. https://vimeo.com/57440483?embedded=true&source=video_title&owner=1061784

Mayer, R. E. (Ed.). (2014). The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (2nd ed.). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139547369

Screencast

This is my first time trying to do a screencast. I couldn’t figure out how to share a screen recording while sharing audio on QuickTime Player. I then tried to set up Screencastify but when I go to record my screen it just loads and loads and loads… so then I figured since I am familiar with Zoom I will use that and it was fairly easy to figure out. However I am now having troubles uploading it to my blog. This is the story of my life in relation to technology!!

Since I couldn’t upload the screen recording using Zoom which was in MP4 I tried to use QuickTime again to screen record my video. This was not the end of my struggle to upload it. WordPress didn’t like the format my video was in so I then had to upload it to YouTube and insert the link. But fingers crossed you can view it now!! Through my struggle I have gained experience using QuickTime, Zoom, Screencastify, and YouTube.

Response to Gracen’s blog post:

I am glad that Gracen also noticed that Mayer describes many principles that he himself does not practice in his own writing. In our pod meeting this week we discussed this further and have both noticed this with our professors in some of our education courses. Gracen makes a good point about the importance of staying up to date with current technology. I imagine this within the classroom and many students are on TikTok these days so it is good to be familiar with current apps so that you understand what is being discussed in class. If a teacher were to bring up Tumblr I am certain very few students would know what that is.