Multimedia design for learning can make a huge difference in how engaged learners are and consequently how much they retain from a lesson. In my own studies, I always appreciate when professors use a variety of media within a course as it makes it feel balanced. In one of the course material videos the speaker states that multimedia learning results in “deep learning” because “People learn better from words and pictures than from words alone” (Green, 2014). Learning more about dual coding made me wonder if it is helpful to speak aloud while reading or if that would fall into the redundancy principle. This has been a study method of mine for years but another video (by Cian MacMahon) from this week states that if a person reads along with text that is identical to the narration in a video it overloads them and negatively affects their learning.

There was also a section on Flow theory this week. I had never heard about this theory before so I found the information and readings on this to be insightful. I have had several instances where I experienced a state of Flow and when I started thinking about what I was doing when I was in Flow they were all things I was highly motivated to do or learn. While I was initially reading about Flow theory it seemed similar to the Zone of Proximal Development (ZDP) so I was happy that there was a section in the “the State of Flow while Learning” article that compared the two ideas. To help me think of them I made this Venn diagram in Canva

Finally, I wanted to include some thoughts on my hands-on learning from this week. This week we created a screencast and I chose to create a how-to for using the website Kahoot.

References 

Green, T. (2014, December 10). Talking multimedia learning with Dr. Richard Mayer [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q5eY9k3v4mE 

Khare, K. (2018, April 24). The state of Flow while learning. Medium. https://medium.com/a-teachers-hat/the-state-of-flow-while-learning-d1d15f332fa0 
MacMahon, C. (2012). Dual coding theory & multimedia learning [Video]. Vimeo. https://vimeo.com/57440483