Abstract
This
paper discusses and demonstrates Program Learning
Outcome 3 “the importance of designing technology-enhanced learning
opportunities that will support the needs of all learners”. As educators, it is necessary to understand
the strategies, principles, and theories that support the diversity of our
students when incorporating technology into instructional design. The discussion includes the design and
implementation challenges experienced during the redesign of a MATLT activity and
how they were overcome. This activity
applies technology-enhanced instructional strategies to meet the needs of the
diverse levels of learning abilities in a kindergarten classroom.
PowerPoint is an important technology tool that will
support the visual learner and the text can be presented along with the audio
to support the audio learner. Creating an
activity with this technology fosters interest and motivation to master the
learning goals. According to Clark and
Mayer (2011) the redundancy principle states that on-screen text should not be
added to narrated graphics. In order to
accommodate all levels of abilities, it was decided to go against the
redundancy principle and add the ability for a student to hear a familiar voice
along with reading the text for those students that are still unable to read or
are not fluent readers. Students with
higher reading ability have the choice to proceed without having to listen to
the audio. The animation features
incorporated into the presentation can captivate the visual learner’s interest
and the learner can control the pace of the activity or revisit pages for
remediation.
This activity is the second of a series of activities
based on an e-learning design framework called the “Absorb-Do-Connect” approach.
The first activity was an “Absorb” activity that was designed to provide knowledge
by teaching the steps of solving an addition word problem. The learner will listen to narration, watch
an animation, or read text to gain information being physically passive and
mentally active. According to Horton
(2011), the “Do” activity is designed for the student to apply skills, knowledge,
and attitudes and receive feedback on their efforts through games, discoveries,
or practice. The learner is an active
participant doing something with what they learned in the “Absorb” activity. In the “Connect” activity, the knowledge or
skill is then applied to a real world situation providing the link back to the
workplace or daily life experiences.
In choosing the medium of a PowerPoint presentation,
the learner is able to control the pace of the activity by clicking to advance
to the next problem and the ability to go back to any slide necessary for
clarity. It is possible to utilize other
technology tools that have the same features as in PowerPoint. The first revision was to remove the text
from the slides as the redundancy principle states that when using narration
and graphics, text should not be added.
The next revision was the timing of the graphics to allow a better flow
and reinforce understanding.
According to an announcement from Dr. Keith Pressey
(2013) narration can not be added effectively to PowerPoint presentations due
to “known
issue that the sound may very well be out of sync or not present when it's run
on different user's machines” (para 2). The
narration was originally created in PowerPoint and happens to work well with
the computer system used in Newark Public schools, the original designated user.
Therefore it was decided to use Camtasia
2 to turn the presentation into a video with the ability to distribute it without
the need of a live instructor being present.
The problem that occurred with the conversion into Camtasia was that
there is not a way for the student to control the pace of the lesson and pause
the slide as they work. In doing
research on the process of creating and playing back the video, it seems that
the way for the student to pause a segment happens during playback of the video
in Youtube or Screencast. When the
student is given instructions for viewing, pause and playback for remediation
will be accomplished at this time.
When trying to upload the file to Screencast, the file
was too large to transfer and an error occurred when using the Screencast
Uploader. Instead the movie was uploaded
to Youtube as Problem
Solving Camtasia 2.
Hopefully, these changes will improve the ability for students to have
access to the lesson. Edmodo is also
used in our school district for e-learning assignments and the video and
PowerPoint will be uploaded to this social learning platform.
References
Clark, R.C. & Myer, R.E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction:
Proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning-3rd ed.
San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Goins, L. (2013). Solving problems Camtasia
2. Retrieved from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qn0HwsQ2A58&feature=youtu.be
Horton, William. E-Learning by Design
(Second Edition). (2011) San Francisco: Pfeiffer.
Pressey, K. (2013). Adding narration to
PowerPoint ppt. Ashford University.
Retrieved at http://coursehome.next.ecollege.com/(NEXT(1a94479817))/Main/CourseMode/CourseHome/CourseHomeView.ed?courseItemSubId=43873093&courseItemType=CourseUnit&#
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