Chapter 30 (Week 12) Reflection

I’d like to begin with a statement that was made and I found really intriguing as well as thought provoking.  On page 312 it says, “Rich media will only benefit learners to the extent that its capabilities are harnessed in ways that support human cognitive learning processes.”   This really got me thinking on how to improve the rich media forms that I use to better meet the cognitive abilities of my students, and here’s what I came up with:

First, the PowerPoint presentations that I use need to be cleaned up.  I can see some areas that need improvement, including removing some of the “seductive details”.  There are some slides and components that have some decorative, unrelated, pictures and items that make the slides look nice, but probably take away from the lesson being taught.  There is one slide in particular that I can think of that has a girl that blinks, and the kids are so caught up with her blinking action on screen that they may be missing the real reason for the slide (about why we set goals).  This is just one that comes to mind, but I am sure there are many more. 

Second, I think that I need to switch to some other forms of rich media to provide some variety, and because things like a screen casting would be more beneficial than a PowerPoint.   In particular, I believe that showing a screen casting to introduce a computer aided drafting (CAD) lesson would be much more effective as far as showing what the tools do than the PowerPoint that describes the tool functions with words.  A screen casting, or other method, would allow for a visual of the components coming together, what the tool actually does to each component, and would also allow for audio to be coinciding with the introduction as it happened.

Third, simply adding some new diagrams with text boxes would benefit some of the presentation tools that I currently use.  There are a couple in particular (dealing with the Space Shuttle) that I think could have a better diagram with some parts labeled that would help the students understand how the whole system comes together and works. 

Lastly, I liked the section about employing design principles for inexperienced learners and how the integration of text, diagrams, and audio really help fill in the missing pieces of a lesson.  Since I am teaching students about technology, and many of them have rarely (if ever) used a computer or other piece of advanced technology, I think most of them need the additional structure and visuals.  I am certain that almost all of my presentation tools could be modified and improved to fill these gaps for my students. 

(I know this was a little more than was asked for, but I found this chapter very interesting!  I hope you all did as well.)