Week 15 - Final Presentation and reflection

Hello,

The following is the video overview of my Community Connections learning unit, and the link to the corresponding google site. Its a culmination of all the learning principles, multimedia, and design principles I've learned over the semester. What an experience!




Google Sites: Community Connections

         The goal of learning multimedia tools was so that the lessons learned would be sustained over the future. I designed a hybrid technology unit that will help high school juniors and seniors better understand the benefits of integrating civic engagement, critical thinking, and media literacy. The target audiences that will facilitate this course are civics teachers, media skills teachers, youth development program coordinators, or community enrichment program coordinators.

           Based on the mini-art school projects and my experience in the public sector, I saw the benefits of integrating media tools into research projects. However, the concepts of research and digital literacy can be executed in a variety of methods (e.g. qualitative and quantitative approaches). Also, there are innumerable social media and Web 2.0 tools available (Knobel and Lanksear, 2010). I was initially concerned about developing a unit that introduced new concepts that were complex. I strove to develop methods that helped students and instructors remain optimistic and creative.       

Cognitive Processes

           The guidance from Mayer’s learning principles was helpful in that they articulated clearly the different stages or excitement and confusion one might feel as they are trying to learn through media (Mayer, 2001, 2014). The concepts that I found most helpful were as follows:

•         pre-training principle: introduce concepts in a blended-learning format where instructor introduces concepts prior to viewing videos;

•         segmenting principle: course components segregate learning concepts from the practical application; and the

•         personalization principle: leveraged tutorial videos that were less formal tone and kid-friendly.

        The cognitive overload concept helped me to conduct routine self- assessments throughout the course to ensure that I was thinking about the student experience as much as meetings my instructional goals. To manage the risk of cognitive overload, I created reference materials to support planning and organization activities were developed.  The templates I created for brainstorming and outlining research results helped students understanding the context of the information they accumulated during their research. This supported the cognitive process of organizing. Also, the sooner the students understood the data, the more time they had for creative prototyping.

Hands-on Learning

           I understood that it was important to instruct students on how to move through setbacks.  An image, event, or site originating from their community that has value to the student could hopefully motivate them to persevere during the frustrating portions of the course. The peer review process also generated ideas for the course’s multimedia tools. I understood better that people are stimulated differently, so tools with different types of graphics, animation features, and media output were needed. The peer review process was also a good way to apply the ADDIE Model concept of Implementation (Hodell, 2011). I didn’t have a classroom to prototype the course, so the peer feedback was essential for the revision process.

           Based on the questions and feedback from peers, I created different types of formative assessments throughout the course. To reduce the risk that course discussion prompts might be irrelevant, I developed a pre-course survey to gauge students’ prior experience with tools and research. I used close-ended questions to efficiently identify the frequency of use or interest. However, subsequent assessments during the course contained a mix of open-ended questions and ranking questions to gauge the effectiveness of the lessons.

Human Connection in Tech      

           There were some psychological aspects of teaching technology that was significant. For example, I hoped the peer review process would help students with their communication skills, empathy, and self-esteem. Students struggled with technology could still add value by providing constructive criticism to teammates. Students that were more proficient with prototyping tools could develop as leaders by helping peers and the instructor with troubleshooting providing creative advice. The variety in which students could support authentic connectedness.

           In addition, focusing on personal connections in one’s community to execute an academic course helps students identify the benefits of learning and cognitive processes. (Wise, et. al, 2009). It also supported the cognitive process of integrating the new skills and reflections in the future.

           For future projects, I would like to develop courses where students experiment with Mayer’s cognitive learning theory using different combinations of words and images, and audio (Mayer, 2014). The students will continue to be exposed to a variety of content formats as they progress through their college and professional careers.  I think helping students explicitly identify the content elements allows them to have more awareness and practice in critical thinking. Also, as the student understand why people might respond to the same content differently, they could be more receptive to participating in collaboration and team-building activities.

References

Hodell, Chuck. (2011). Chapter 3: Instructional systems development and the ADDIE

           model. In ISD From the Ground Up: A No-Nonsense Approach to Instructional

           Design (3rd ed.). American Society for Training and Development: Alexandria,

           VA.

Knobel, Michele, and Lanksear, Colin. (2010). DIY Media: Creating, Sharing and Learning 

           with New Technologies. Lang Publishing, New York.

Mayer, Richard. (2014). Research-based principles for multimedia learning. Harvard

           Initiative for Teaching and Learning. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/AJ3wSf-ccXo

           on October 22, 2017.

Wise, Kevin, Bolls, Paul, Myers, Justin and Sternadori, Miglena (2009) 'When Words      

           Collide Online: How Writing Style and Video Intensity Affect Cognitive Processing of 

           Online News', Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media, 53: 4, 532 — 546

Week 12 - Technology Plan (Padlet-enabled)

           The technology plan consists of the software and apps that will be used to help students learn about visual and media literacy.  There is also a YouTube channel with tutorial videos about those tools, which will be a key component of the learning process. It provides visual stimulation, but there is also narration and music components to some of the examples. Therefore, students learn about visual literacy through visual literacy mediums.

            The initial inventory of tools originated from my process of trial and error during the multimedia critique process.  Also, as my confidence improved in using multimedia tools to create a variety of design projects, I identified additional tools that could provide a wide variety of effects and output.  I think this is a natural effect of these tech education courses in that the student and teacher has a newer experience with Web 2.0 that they can reflect on when they are introduced to new concepts.

•      I like that the creation of technology plans begins with a planning committee where stakeholders from the different aspects of the program discuss their needs. I think my desire to create a pre-course survey relates to this step. I provide an initial listing, but there is flexibility for students to add more apps. I strove to provide examples of apps that had some visual appeal in terms of color scheme, use of music, creatively displaying serious data or statistics, and support self-expression for a variety of personalities. The vision statement is akin to the identification of the learning standards.  It helps the instructional designer focused on the most relevant and supportive tools because there are many tools that can fit a single purpose. I think if the vision statement is clear, a mission and goals section is not necessary.

•        The next important step was evaluating content of tutorial videos. These tools are documented in the class demo column. The tutorials helped guide students through the discovery process with lecturing and reading.  This supported the motto “learn by doing”. The videos needed to be easy to understand because course is designed for students not experienced with research.  I wanted to avoid information overload. The videos focus on initial steps to retrieve software and start a file. I included the link to the software as well as examples videos or pictures I created using that tool.

•       The length and tone of the tutorial videos needed to suit teen end-users.  I rarely picked videos that were more than 10 minutes. I even picked a video that had no narration, because it was an excellent screencast of the important features, and it was supported by modern upbeat music.

•       Additional tools I included were Google forms which can be used for formative assessments to help ensure that students are learning and understand how to apply the concepts. Google sheets will also be considered to help track assignments and project management templates to document class output and deadlines. This supports risks and priorities.

Week 11 - MMP Update #2

          Since the last MMP update, I decided to focus on creating the detailed implementation/lesson plan and accompanying rubric, which was an activity I had for next week. I was feeling overwhelmed by the potential tutorial videos available, so I retraced the learning standards from the NJ Curriculum and ISTE standards for Students and Educators to the class outline I created to date. 

View my detailed update here: MMP Update # 2

           This helped me narrow my focus on the tools that I can use during the course. I pushed back the tasks of updating the tutorial tools to this week. Going forward, I will complete the detailed learning curriculum and rubric and the updates to the course site.

           The online communities provided insights about tools and frameworks for implementing technology tools. Some users provided links to online forums where various educators presented on an online conference about education technology. Some presentations included how to use media to improve literacy and engage students. For example, a really good article downloaded from TeachThought was “Are you teaching content or are you teaching thought” (July 2016,). This article helped me focus less on the volume of content and video examples, and more on facilitation techniques.

           When I shared the name of a specific tool I was planning to use for the course, I received more immediate feedback.  However, it wasn’t in the form of comments, rather a “like” statistic.

            I would like feedback about whether the course duration of six weeks is sufficient to help students create a media presentation after three weeks of research.  Also, would be appreciative of recommendations for a collaboration app that allows for the posting of images, videos or free-form drawing, typing, etc. 

https://sites.google.com/view/community-connections/home

Week 10 - MMP Progress Update

The following is the link to my progress update.  For this week's reading, I identified I was segmenting the media tools into distinct buckets and outlining the course accordingly, but I need to think about synergy. Specifically, the course should help students understand how the tools can be used together in different combinations to deliver the desired message.

MMP Progress Update - November 13

Week 9

               The goal of the instructional unit is to allow students to experiment with design, and use visual and audio cues to express their own unique views. It is important to teach students some of the fundamental elements and principles so that they can experiment effectively. The following elements and principles are fundamental to most visual images whether they are moving or still. In addition, these elements and principles might impact the student portal:

Design Elements	Purpose
Space	The space element is like drawing paper or a canvas for a picture.  The students will be able to design and organize the different visual components of their message (characters, background, colors, text, and font) when they understand the available space to compose their message.  Also, the impact of negative space (subtlety) vs. positive space (lively) will influence student images as well as the design of the student portal.  Too much data will appear cluttered and thus hard for the students to navigate within the portal.
Shape and Size	The prominence of an item within an image identifies the importance of the item in telling the story.  Therefore, the use of close-ups will be discussed. Also, use of a portrait vs. landscape frame also influences the size of an object in an image.  The shape and size of text and images used in the student portal will also provide examples of how to use some of the element. However, tutorial videos provide more comprehensive examples.
Value	The concept of light and dark plays a role in setting the mood or reinforcing an emotion.  Knowledge of this element allows students to experiment with color schemes, shading, etc.
Design Principles
Focal point	Like text communication, visual messages can contain extemporaneous information that don’t contribute to their message or story, so being able to focus the layout of the image or the moving image is important.
Perspective	The use of perspective can have an artistic effect desired if the student wants to communicate a sense of depth for effect or help the viewer focus on key elements.

I will also strive to use provide examples of these elements in the construction of the student portal. The use of Space, Focal Point, and possibly Rhythm could be explored in the portal to provide examples of creativity. However these elements need to be implemented in a way that is not to wrought with design effects because the goal of the site is to provide necessary data to ease the instruction of new concepts.  If there isn't a clear flow and order to the portal, the students might be lost. 

References

Golombisky, K., & Hagen, R. (2010). White Space is not Your Enemy: A Beginner’s Guide to

               Communicating Visually through Graphic, Web & Multimedia Design . Focal Press: New

               York, NY.

Krause, J. (2004). Design Basics Index: A Graphic Designer’s Guide to Designing Effective                               Compositions, Selecting Dynamic Components & Developing Creative Concepts . HOW 

               Design Books: Cincinnati, OH.

Week 7_8 - Multimedia Proposal Update

Hello everyone,

Attached is the update to my Multimedia proposal  (MMP):

https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/0B8H7wVUeR1yiSzA5eWQ0SnpMS1E


I made adjustments to the following:

• instructor created collaborative blog site or web site for easier access to resources 
• pre-course survey mechanism
• pre-course protocols and timeline 

Refer to my screencast below for more discussion about my updates:

(https://youtu.be/NawfZq1n3VE)

A number of these updates were made based on reflections from the readings about cognitive processes as well as my experience learning and implementing these multimedia and design concepts. The experience gained from learning these tools can foster creativity, but also be frustrating and distract from learning objectives.  Therefore adjustments were made to minimize unnecessary procedural tasks students would need to perform that didn't contribute to learning goals (e.g. establishment of collaborative site).  Also, additional resources will be added regarding research techniques as well as multimedia tools.

Week 6 - Video

Video Link: https://youtu.be/fw7gL1gnfz0

This video is an introduction to a potential historical research project. The video reflects more than the output of a visual literacy exercise. The information leveraged can be information obtained during a history or civics class.  The application of that knowledge is exercised during a Media studies class. Therefore, leveraging visual literacy in projects might help engage students from a multi-disciplinary perspective (Fortuna, 2010). 

      The concept in the story board remained mostly consistent compared to the final video.  However, during post production, the order and timing of some of the shots were adapted to allow the flow and transitions in the video to be more succinct. Due to my technical limitations on shooting the scenes there were rough transitions that resulted when I attempted to zoom in for medium full frames for emphasis. See #4 in the Storyboard blog. Overall, I applied the following concepts when I produced my video.

      In the opening scene, there is initially a Long Shot in the opening sequence in that there is a clear horizon. This is useful in providing a general mood and impression of the environment. This is good especially if the video is being shown to someone not familiar with the area. There is also a great effect from the filmer’s use of the Tracking technique (Fortuna, 2010, pg.18). It allows viewers to move with the traffic and experience the pace of a typically busy urban street like Market and Broad Street.  

      The following scene introduces the viewer specifically to Broad Street where there is still an abundance of commercial activity.  The most prominent business is Prudential. The third shot attempts to change the attention from the busy commercial aspect of Broad Street to a more tranquil church. The panning technique which obviously changing direction.  Unfortunately, the camera was not mounted on a steady surface as the panning occurred so there is some turbulence.

The imagery in the subsequent scenes have tighter focal points like the bulletin depicting the historical facts of the church as well as the church itself. There is an attempt to do a medium full shot that zooms in from the panning from Prudential to the churchyard, but the transition was not smooth.  

The close shot of church with the camera angle from below was intentional to show reverence for the church and the historical contributions the church made to the Underground Railroad (Golombisky, 2010). This is also where the verbal narrative of the images is important for this project. The same building, especially well-known establishments like Prudential Financial and Old First Church have multiple meanings. The church might be prominent because its existence in a large metropolitan area for 350 years, so the call-out to the lesser known involvement in the Underground Railroad.

References

Ballett, A. (2009) Visual Literacy Across the Curriculum. Retrieved from https://youtu.be/XQNbAtK3c3g  

            October 4, 2017.

Golombisky, K., & Hagen, R. (2010). White Space is not Your Enemy: A Beginner’s Guide to

            Communicating Visually through Graphic, Web & Multimedia Design . Focal Press:

            New York, NY.

Fortuna, C. (2010). Lights! Camera! Action! A grammar of film for media literacy.

            Knowledge Quest, 38(4), 10-23.

Prudential Financial. (2017) History. Retrieved from http://corporate.prudential.com/view/page/corp/31790 on October 14, 2017.

Tettamanti, Steven; Amemasor, James; and Guderian, Greg. Interview with the New Jersey

            Historical Society. September 19, 2015