Multimedia Development

I am a Band Dad.  There is nothing better that being outside on a Friday night watching the Clay High School Fighting Eagles Marching Band take the field.  

When I designed my Thinglink page, I wanted to make a simple easy to follow page that showed off all of the school bands' great talent.  By doing so, I also appealed to the Spatial and Naturalist intelligences in a few ways.  

I appealed to Naturalist Intelligence by including a picture of the band outside on the field performing as well as link to their most recent performance.  I also appealed to this intelligence by including a google maps link to show how to get to Clay High School's stadium.  I feel this appeals to the naturalist intelligence because google maps allows you to view the map as a satellite image and you can see the rolling farm land surrounding the school as well as get to a street level view and see all of the nature surrounding the area from eye level.

As far as the Spatial Intelligence goes, I think the marching band video allows the viewer to picture in their minds how this massive band of nearly 200 students and create amazing formations on the fields. The symphonic and jazz band videos are fairly static, but the arrangement of the bands also have spatial characteristics by how they are arranged on the stage.  This included the geometric curve of the large symphonic and the straight lines of the smaller jazz band.  It still blows my mind that they were able to comfortably seat 200 students on that small high school theatre stage.  

Multimedia

Multimedia and Learning Benefits

Merriam-Webster defines multimedia as, “using or involving several forms of communication or expression”.  In the context of learning, this can include, but is not limited to:  video, audio, interactive computer content, text, and still images. It can be prerecorded or used in a live setting.

From an educators perspective multimedia learning is beneficial because it allow them to present information in different formats and reach out to all types of students who learn through a variety of multiple intelligences.

For students, using multimedia to prepare presentations or projects gives them an outlet to express themselves in ways that best showcase their multiple intelligence skills. Multimedia can benefit learning by helping students truly understand a subject, not just retain and recite information on a test. (R. Lehrer)

Multimedia Principles

The Signaling Principle – Mayer’s Multimedia Principles states that People learn better when information is organized using clear outlines and heading. Meaning, using visual cues along with vocal cues will help draw people’s attention to the essential material of a lesson. This can be used when using a narrated PowerPoint presentation. By highlighting, underlining or using bold text along with voice emphasis on key words students can more easily process complex information without being overwhelmed.

The Spatial Contiguity Principle – Simply put, people will more easily make connections when corresponding words and graphics are placed near each other. This ties into what we learned last week when looking at bad websites. If I were designing a web page for a lesson, would organize the page by placing corresponding words and images together.  If I was trying to teach a student how to use the iris on a video camera, I might use an animation showing a hand rotating the iris ring and pair it with words that state rotating in one direction will allow more light into the lens and rotating it in the opposite direction would reduce the amount of light.

The Temporal Contiguity Principle – I think about this principle in terms of see it and read it, not read it then see it.  According to Mayer’s Research-Based Principles for Designing Multimedia Instruction people get a deeper understanding when the narration and graphics are presented together. If I were putting together a video presentation showing how to set up a video camera on a tripod, I would use this principle by showing video of each step, while using text on the screen that corresponds to the video and narration that matches up with the video and graphics.  By doing this students are absorbing the information in three different ways (seeing, reading, and listening) all at the same time.

The Pre-training Principle – with pre-training students learn key terms and concepts before beginning a multimedia presentation.  Mayer’s research says this allow student to learn more deeply because it makes it easier to make connections when there is already a basic knowledge of the subject. You’ve probably heard the saying, “It’s all Greek to me”.  Television terminology can be that way for new students.  To use this principle, I would prepare a definition list prior to a multimedia presentation.  For example, terms like vo, sot, package, white balance and rack focus would be defined ahead of time.  That would allow the students to concentrate on the information being presented instead of racking their brain trying to figure out what all these strange terms mean.

The Modality Principle – In this principle it states that people can process visual images better words are spoken instead of printed. Basically meaning, if a person has less to look at, they learn through visual channels more deeply. This could be used effectively when doing a how to video. In the context of my area of expertise, I could videotape myself demonstrating how to set up three-point lighting for a video shoot. Instead of using graphics to outline the steps needed to set the lighting up correctly, I would just talk about the steps and supplement my words using video that shows me actually going through the process.

The Personalization Principle – In simple terms this principle means speak to your audience in a language they would understand.  There is no need to use a five-dollar word when at 25 cent word will work just fine.  When you teach using overly technical words it becomes harder to process the information. Also people seem to be more opening to learning when they feel the information is prepared especially for them. This isn’t to say that you should talk down to student, just use words that are inviting and make it easier to grasp more difficult concepts. This would be especially helpful in my field when putting together a multimedia presentation to explain the complexities of non-linear editing.  In fact, I would steer clear of that term.  In simple language, non-linear editing is computer based video editing without the use of actually videotape.  It is a little bit wordier, but provides a clear picture of the concept you want your student to grasp.

Multimedia and Engaging Learner’s Multiple Intelligence Strengths

Online video generators – There are plenty of free online video generators like clipgenerator.com that allow students to create videos for presentations and projects.  These are simple and cost effective way to make creative videos that cater to students using the Aural Multiple Intelligence.  Students can use these video generators to create learning music videos and video projects that contain music and other visual images that cater to the Musical/Rhythmic learning style.

Multimedia Authoring – tiki-toki.com is an excellent example of multimedia authoring.  This website caters to students who benefit from the Spatial Learning Multiple Intelligence, especially as it relates to history.  The interactive timelines allow students to visualize events and how they fit in with the space-time continuum.

Collaborative Writing – For students who benefit from an Interpersonal Multiple Intelligence Learning style titanpad.com looks like a great way for students to do collaborative writing on line. I found that with just the click of a button you can set up a public note pad that up to eight people at time to access and update in real time.  This is an excellent way for students who benefit from working with others to see in real time how members of their group are interacting with a writing project.  In fact I am thinking about using this for an upcoming Express Play Festival I am chaperoning.  Our six-member cast and crew will write and perform a ten-minute play that will be written over a three-day period.  Titan pad will be a great way to brainstorm and develop a finished production in real time, even if we cannot be in the same room at the same time.

Web Design Principles

There are a lot of bad websites out there on the world wide web. I thought it was going to be difficult to decide which website to write about until I stumbled across Liberty Van.

This website butchers web design principles on so many levels, however I will limit this post to my top five observations using the article 9 Essential Principles for Good Web Design. These include spacing, typography, consistency, usability, and navigation.

1.     Spacing – The first thing that caught my eye was the absolute lack of white space. This page is just line after line of text crammed together with pictures. There is not enough spacing between lines and in many cases lines of text overlap.  There is also a complete lack of padding.  Lines of text run over on top of pictures in several spots.  By doing this there is no logical flow to the page.  My eyes could not find a place to land and follow a path that made me want to stay on the page and use it.

2.     Typography – Coming from a television background this aspect of web design is always very important to me.  As a producer, I was responsible to creating consistent easy to ready graphics.  I counted at least five different fonts.  There are at least 5 different colored fonts.  The blue text was very difficult to read in places because it is placed on a blue background. Also the line lengths are too long and the font styles, especially on small fonts were very difficult to read.

3.     Consistency – Or in this website’s case, a total lack of consistency.  Most noticeably is the choice of many different font styles, sizes and colors.  I think it is ok to uses different colors to highlight or group similar thoughts or threads, but this website doesn’t do that at all.  Most notably are the posted dates.  Some are red, others blue, while even more are black.  Pick a color and stay with it.

4.     Usability – Some sense of organization would help this website with usability.  It almost appears like when a thought or event popped into the designers head they just added a new line to webpage.  I think this page is dedicated to showing off two vehicles that go out into the world to spread the word about the constitution and liberty.  There also seems to be a heavy emphasis on pictures of the vehicles, but they are not organized in a way that is very usable.

5.     Navigation – This sight could really benefit from some simple navigation elements.  A top line menu with subjects of news, photos, events, and about us would make this so much easier to navigate.  Also the use of some simple radio buttons would help greatly.  One button that comes to mind immediately is a Photo gallery button.  Instead there are hyperlinks throughout the page that say click here for photos, but they get lost in the ocean of text.

I want to like this website, but I can’t. I just don’t know where to start and even if I picked a starting point there is no logical flow that makes me want to stay on the page for any length of time to learn more about the Liberty and Freedom Vans.

Multiple Intelligences Theory

If you could spend a day in my brain, I don't think you would be surprised that musical, social and nature top my list.  While they may not be my entire intelligence package. They paint a fairly accurate portrait of who I am and how I learn.

I have great ease memorizing lyrics.  So, having musical top my intelligences is a no brainer.  I can recall words to a song I haven't sung in decades.  The majority of Spanish words I know and comprehend are from songs I learned.  Social comes in a close second. I learn best when working with others. My favorite assignments have always been team exercises and reading stories or plays out loud in a group. Nature rounds out the top three and helps bring balance to my life. Whenever I go kayaking, looking at the simple beauty of plants and animals surviving in a complex ecosystem always puts my mind in the right frame to work out problems with work, school and my personal life.

Musical, social and nature may not be the only ways I learn. However, if you want to get the best out of me, they are a great place to start.

Unfortunately, I struggled with grades throughout primary and secondary schooling.  Most of my classes from first through 12th grade were primarily taught using linguistic and logic styles of learning, my two lowest scoring intelligences. There was one exception that stands out and that was my sixth grade year.  My teacher understood that we all learn in different ways and encouraged me to get involved with Olympics of the mind.  We solved complex scientific problems while using music and acting.  For the first and nearly only time during my pre-college days, science became very easy for me.