Tag: edci337

Assignment #3: Core Multimedia Skills

2023-03-16 / rissul / 0 Comments

Using pictory.ai, and ChatGPT, I was able to create an educational video about the role of protein and its importance in building muscle. Within the video, I covered the basics of what protein is and how it’s related to building muscles, the different types of proteins available, and the amount of general consumption intake. Below is the improved version.

ORIGINAL VIDEO

IMPROVED VIDEO

IMPROVEMENTS / RELATED THEORIES AND PRINCIPLES

Interactivity: I added multiple choice questions with H5P to help students develop their critical thinking skills as well as understanding and memory of the presented concepts (i.e., incorporating active learning)
- The Signaling Principle is applied as the video deliberately pauses when multiple choice questions are present so that learners know exactly what to pay attention to on the screen. In addition, the chosen videos are related to my narration.
- The Segmenting Principle is also evident, as I added bookmarked timestamps to identify different concepts throughout the video. The playback rate of the video can also be changed. This way, learners have more control over their learning.
Optional Closed Captions: This helps to not overwhelm learners with the dual-coding theory through visual and audio channels. Video, text, and narration can be too much information depending on the individual, so I decided to give my learners the option to optimize their experience of learning and learning accessibility.
- Note*: This improvement is not evident in the improved video as H5P could not support captions for Youtube videos (ideally it would have been included)
- The Redundancy Principle suggests that humans learn best with narration and graphics, as opposed to narration, graphics and text. By not having text on the screen perpetually, learners can benefit from a better learning experience.
- The Modality Principle mentions that people learn better from graphics and narration compared to animation and on-screen text. Since the video already includes a voiceover, I used this principle to limit the amount of text on screen through optional closed captions.

Adding interactivity in the H5P Workspace

CONCLUSION

Overall, I was satisfied with my script, narration, and choice of content for my video. I decided not to change these elements as they played part in the Personalization Principle, where I was able to use a more conversational tone throughout my narration to improve the learning experience. Ultimately, the use of captions was always a mandatory idea for me so that learners have descriptive audio to fall back to should they have audio issues.

Blog Post #5: Storytelling Video

2023-03-13 / rissul / 1 Comment

As a follow-up to last week’s preparation for publishing our storytelling video, my process involved exploring a new program called pictory.ai. This software was my video editing tool of choice which helped me compile my script, storyboard, captions, and videos into an all-in-one platform. Below is my brief educational video on the importance of protein in building muscle.

The Role of Protein in Building Muscle

My Process

Using pictory.ai efficiently streamlined my video creation process. All it required was inserting my written script and from there, the software automatically segmented parts of my script and applied relevant snippets of videos to each section. Pictory.ai has a significant media library which allowed me to search for relevant footage that suits the topic at a particular timestamp. In addition, automatic and accurate captions were greatly beneficial. A text-to-speech feature was also available with AI voices, however, I decided to add my own voiceover to better engage my audience.

Reflection

Utilizing pictory.ai is a highly automated process. Its versatile easy-to-use features saves its end-users plenty of time in terms of creating captions, inserting video footage / voiceovers, and pacing videos correctly.

I found that this combination contributed well to the dual-coding theory, where learners have the potential to remember more through visual and audio channels. However, I do believe that I also have to be careful of balancing the redundancy principle, and the modality principle, as video, text, and narration can at times overwhelm users depending on the type and amount of information that’s displayed. I’d like to further explore potential improvements with this video in assignment 3.

Comment #4

2023-03-11 / rissul / 0 Comments

Blog Post 4: AI Tools & Storytelling

Hi Kate,

Your post was so insightful! I wasn’t aware of Stable Diffusion and its capabilities, thanks so much for sharing! I agree with how visual aids are helpful in terms of increasing engagement, but as you said, learning outcomes are just as important. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with UDL Guidelines, but they’re a great way to optimize learning for your users – I believe this can be especially helpful for aspects of storytelling. I mentioned this concept in my blog post so feel free to take a look! In terms of McCue’s video, did you find the static images to be engaging? I found it challenging to focus my attention as the images did not capture my interest compared to a moving video.

Blog Post #4: Brainstorming with ChatGPT and Storytelling

2023-03-08 / rissul / 1 Comment

While preparing a storyboard for my chosen topic, I brainstormed using generative AI tools like ChatGPT. In this case, I used the following prompt: “help me write a two minute script about why protein is necessary for the body to build muscle. use a conversational tone and pose questions to the audience”. The results provided a great foundation in my script, however, I had to make several iterations such as including missing subtopics that would tie together my topic. The writing also was subpar, which I had to make edits to. This unfortunately confirmed my concern as to how AI tools such as ChatGPT can be lacking and dull in terms of writing and provide little to no “character”.

In terms of exploring aspects of storytelling, I enjoyed Rich McCue’s example. Keeping his video short and simple can increase levels of engagement with the audience. His use of a conversational tone and personal story also made the video slightly more relatable. I would have enjoyed the video even more if there was more variety in the short clips he used such as moving graphics instead of zooming into static images. Keeping all this in mind while planning for video production, I’d like to apply at least one of the principles of UDL guidelines in addition to McCue’s techniques such as the following:

Provide Multiple Means of Representation: “Present information and content in different ways”
Provide Multiple Means of Action and Expression: “Differentiate the ways that students can express what they know”
Provide Multiple Means of Engagement: “Stimulate interest and motivation for learning”

Comment #2:

2023-02-05 / rissul / 0 Comments

EDCI 337 Blog 2

Hi Olivia! You did a great job with your sketchnote! I noticed you also used the signaling principle which was a great way to highlight and emphasize on key ideas/headings. I’m also not the best at drawing so I understand the struggle! If it helps I suggest to potentially paste in already made drawings to help with engagement in your sketchnote! https://www.flaticon.com/ has been a great resource for me. Otherwise, the way you organized your notes was well done! Based on your experience, do you think you’ll continue using sketchnotes? I discovered that visually seeing how concepts connect with each other has been a huge help in the past

Comment #1:

2023-02-05 / rissul / 0 Comments

Thomas, your screencast was so enjoyable! I noticed your presentation slides were visually appealing and easy to understand. Your narrative complemented the text on screen very well and the entire process was very educational! I really liked how you used the Signaling Principle throughout your screencast (e.g., use of header slides), as it helped your audience anticipate what each section was about. Your use of the redundancy principle was also relieving to see (e.g., not using too much text on top of graphics and narration), as we both seem to agree from our personal experiences that the field of academics is constantly struggling with this. This was such an insightful and enjoyable experience. Looking forward to reading more of your work!

Blog #1 – Introduction and Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning

Blog Post #2: Multimedia Design for Learning – Sketchnoting

2023-01-31 / rissul / 2 Comments

Based on last week’s content, sketchnoting was a new term that stood out to me. Upon realizing that it’s a visual method of taking notes using drawings and written text, I decided to use this method and apply my knowledge by breaking apart a job description that I was interested in.

My personal summary in preparing for a particular job

My method of sketchnoting revolved around creating a summary / prep guide in a simple, and concise form for a job that I’m currently preparing an interview for. In this case, I reminded myself of the competencies, and general questions that I should have ideas of. By placing all of this information onto one page, I was able to gather the main qualities I should address for the job interview, and remind myself of interview techniques such as the STAR method.

The Benefits of Sketchnoting

Sketchnoting is useful for user engagement, as well as retention. It allows an individual to be creative and also to be particular with the type of content they’re including. Mayer’s theories can also be quite evident when sketchnoting. From my experience, the signaling principle helped me to focus on key concepts by highlighting specific words. In addition, knowing that I had a limited amount of space on a page helped me make use of the redundancy principle to avoid including extraneous information. For future improvements, I’d like to integrate the segmenting principle and potentially make my sketchnote interactive (i.e., allow users to flip through pages) and present information by topic instead of displaying it all on one page – this way, I can be more thorough with each section. Overall, it’s a great technique that I’d like to use for future learning experiences, particularly when it’s content-heavy as it gives me a sense of structure.

Wonder

Unfortunately, I find sketchnoting to be challenging at times. I find that I get lost in the drawings and get distracted by looking up how to draw concepts that may or may not be essential to my line of thinking. Regardless, I’m curious to know if there are formulated techniques of creating a sketchnote or if it’s more of a free form method of learning. Perhaps it depends on the content you’re working with?

Blog Post #1 – Principles of Multimedia Learning & Screencasting

2023-01-16 / rissul / 1 Comment

Hi everyone! My name’s Mary and I’m currently in my third year of Health Information Science. In the past, I had the opportunity to take EDCI338, which I enjoyed. Fast forward to now, I have the same opportunity to take more EDCI courses! I’m looking forward to working with everyone!

My Screencast

Sample Pitch of StudyUp

For my screencast, I decided to run a sample pitch from a past course project. I used Open Broadcaster Software (OBS), which is a free open source software for video recording and live streaming. At the time I created these set of slides a semester ago, it looks like I had unknowingly applied Mayer’s theory of multimedia learning. For example, the signaling principle is demonstrated through bolded titles such as the slide that contained the characters “Quality. Scale. Reputation”. The spatial contiguity principle is also seen throughout the slide deck, as specific symbols are closely associated visually with their represented texts. Unfortunately, I did realize that the redundancy principle and the coherence principle were lacking. I believe the slide that contained information about the University of Victoria had too much text on top of my narration, which caused a lot of repetition and unnecessary information to be displayed to the user.

What Stood Out To Me

Upon reading the different principles of multimedia learning, particularly with minimizing extraneous load, it only confirms that this kind of process is challenging. Coming from the background of health informatics, I’ve learned that plenty of physicians struggle with decision fatigue and alert fatigue from health information systems due to extraneous load. That is, some health professionals are purposely overriding and disregarding important information because of the display of irrelevant and incorrect information. It may be best that healthcare can learn specifically from Mayer’s redundancy principle and signaling principle so that physicians do not have to sacrifice their cognitive load and potentially result in making poor health decisions for their patients. Fortunately, the research behind the usability of health information systems have been making gradual improvements to existing systems (e.g., electronic health records, clinical decision support systems). This has come in the form of displaying proper color schemes, box sizes, and content type that are much more useful to the end-user. In doing so, doctors have a more enjoyable time utilizing the systems available to them, all while creating better decisions.