Final Blog Reflection

There are so many considerations when trying to design instruction with multimedia. You have to take into account the materials that your students have access to, method of distribution, design principles, and that does not even include the design of the actual curriculum!

My current philosophy is that less is more. Just because I have all of this new software available to me as an instructional designer, it is not necessarily to the benefit of my students to use them all. I cannot stress enough the importance of analyzing your audience, and if you don’t know your immediate audience, anticipating what their needs may be. I also have constraints due to the state institution and software licenses my work imposes.

I think that designing instruction is not different from a constructionist perspective. Once distributed, the student has to take the time to process all of the media and construct knowledge from this one-way distribution. If the media is all that the instruction entails, they do not have the benefit of face-to-face and two-way knowledge share with the instructor. They must process the media on their own and come to their own conclusions and hopefully, create knowledge.

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Multimedia Instruction, Pt. 2

What have you learned thus far about designing instruction? What is different? What is the same as other forms of instruction?

Designing instruction is a process regardless of what media you have chosen for the instruction. Just as their is the ADDIE (Analysis, Design, Develop, etc.) for the “traditional” instruction design process, this can apply to multimedia instruction as well. Instructions should be thought to be living documents, ever-changing dependent on the learners, medium and software available. I have to constantly update and tweak the text documents I create at work. The same can be done for video, audio and interactive instruction sets. It is a long process and should not be taken lightly. I think it is worth it to do the heavy lifting of analysis at the very beginning. The analysis phase will take the longest and yield the greatest effects. It can really change the instruction’s efficiency.

Multimedia instructional design is different from the traditional classroom setting in that learners all have varying levels of experience and proficiency at different media. The younger generation may be more accepting of different kinds of instruction, as they older generation is not. A lot of the older age physicians I teach at work would much rather sit in a classroom for an entire day than watch a series of videos that deliver the same content.

Multi vs. Single Media Instruction

How has your journey of learning to use multi and single media to teach been so far? What have you learned? What would you still like to learn? What is still hazy?

This has been a long semester trying to figure out how to teach software via different media. The most important thing I have learned is that each media has a specific purpose and upside. Each media has its own benefits, but with that, comes its own downfalls as well. At work, I mostly use text and images, but I have found throughout the semester that we can incorporate audio and video fairly easily as well. I don’t think that everything we teach and train would be suitable, but some of the modules may be best taught via other media than we are currently using.

I would still like to learn about differences of distance learning between adult and adolescent learners. I teach only adult and late-age learners, and I know that that approach should be different from the younger generation.

 

Video Instruction

Designing instruction for video takes a lot more planning and analysis than other media. You have to think about lighting, audio, and subjects to record. There are so many other variables when instructing via media that have to be taken account. I do think that video instruction was beneficial, although it may not have been the ideal media for my instruction set today. It was difficult to learn, but luckily my two roommates work with audio and video, respectively, so they were able to help me a lot. Although textual instructions were the easiest to create, it may not be the ideal media all of the time. Even though audio and video instructions take much, much longer, it may be ideal for different types of instruction.

Video instruction is great because it can engage the visual and auditory learners. It is also great to be able to pause and play at will and replay the instruction as needed.

Audio Visual Instruction Part 2

What is different about developing instruction with both images and audio combined? Is it more efficient? Do you think about how you instruct someone differently? Are there limitations? Benefits? If so, what are they?

When developing instruction with both images and audio, you have to make sure to use both media in the most efficient and effective way. I do think it is more efficient because not every step needs to be read aloud. Some are very straightforward and only need a small image or a short sentence for any student to follow. I did add audio to the steps that I felt may need more clarification and explanation. For those steps, I added audio because that is more efficient in space than including an entire paragraph in the instruction set.

Yes, I do think I may try to incorporate more audio in instruction documents I create at work. It does take a bit more time than traditional text and images, but I think it may be worth it. Limitations include the fact that interactive pdfs do not play the audio in a browser. It must be opened in Adobe Acrobat in order to play the audio. That may not be feasible for some of my customers are some of the workstations are managed and users cannot install any software that may not be available.

Audio Visual Instruction – Part 1

I have learned that more media does not necessarily equal better instruction. More does not necessarily equal better. Now that the floodgates are open, and I am able to use more media I have to be careful to not overuse it. That is the problem and challenge with this assignment. Although we are now not limited in the media we can use as in previous assignments, I cannot jump in headfirst and use all of the media. I need to analyze the intended instruction to see how audio, visual, and text can enhance the instruction. If there is no analysis, the learners could be inundated with media that may be superfluous. This assignment will be a challenge in that we are limited to one page of instruction, but I feel that audio, visual and text can make the instruction more concise.

 

Audio Instruction Only – 2nd time around

Each of my multimedia assignments has had us reflect on the media we are using both before and after we create our instruction set. I think this audio only assignment has actually changed my mind a bit. I thought audio only instruction would be much like teaching in a classroom setting, but I find that teaching via audio only is much more limiting. Yes, you do have the benefits of intonation and inflection, but you lose the visual aspect of gestures and eye contact.

In a sense, it is more efficient because the instruction does not have to repeated multiple times to reach a large audience. The mp3 file can be distributed on a website or via email to thousands of users at a time. There is also the added benefit of allowing the user to learn the instructions on their own time. It can be replayed over and over and listened to in all hours of the day. In my work, the clinicians do not want to take 4 or 8 hours of their time to attend a class. With audio instruction, clinicians can stay in the hospital and listen to the audio in their downtime. In the end, this is more cost-efficient for the university.