WORKED EXAMPLES

November 20, 2016

What are Worked Examples?

WORKED EXAMPLES:  This principle emphasizes the need to have a Step By Step Example of how to complete a particular lesson or task.  I recall reading many elementary school math textbooks as a child.  However whenever learning a new principle, I focused primarily on the worked examples and how the answer was achieved.  I would then attempt to duplicate those steps in a new math problem.  This will often be the practice of many students.  For this reason, we should always incorporate a worked example in our presentations when it is appropriate.  Worked Examples can assist in developing procedural skills or strategic skills.


WORKED EXAMPLES DEMONSTRATED (or not)

The Khan Academy is a well known site that offers instruction on every academic subject from Math to Language Arts to Social Studies and Science.  They cover lessons from the first grade all the way to college level material.   They use worked examples for all of their math lessons.  This particular demonstration provides instruction on procedural skill of how to solve a division problem.

4th Grade Math Long Division

Kahoot is an excellent tool to use when searching for ways enhance instruction.  Teachers can use this to review lessons on a variety of topics.  They can create their own assessments or find one that already exists and students have a wonderful time doing it.  On their site is a demonstration of how to create a Kahoot however I think that they could have broken the steps down a little more.  They also provide suggestions prior to creating your Kahoot such as researching your topic and incorporating fascinating images.  However the student made tutorials on YouTube break down the steps even better when creating their own tailor made Kahoot.

The example below provides a procedural example for teachers.  This particular demonstration focuses on how to manage a classroom.

Classroom Management Techniques

REFERENCES

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designmers of multimedia learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer

https://getkahoot.com/how-it-works

SEGMENTING PRINCIPLE

November 20, 2016

What is the Segmenting Principle?

SEGMENTING PRINCIPLE: This particular principle emphasizes the importance of presenting material in chunks or segments.  This is demonstrated when a book, lesson or video provides an overall heading, topics and then subtopics.  This is when a presentation breaks down large steps into smaller steps.  Another feature of this principle allows a students to pause the lesson if necessary.  This is crucial because it give the student an opportunity to stop and process the information that they have learned without experiencing an overload.  This allows each student to work at their own rate.

SEGMENTING PRINCIPLE DEMONSTRATED:  Don't you just LOVE the new way several cooking sites are showing you how to prepare your favorite dishes.  Whenever a cook would share a recipe with me, I would always ask for the "Betty Crocker" version.  In other words, none of that "add a little bit of this and a little bit of that".  I need very specific instructions.  This is why I subscribe to Goodful.  I love, love, love their step by step instructions.  They break a continuous lesson into bite size parts and I can see it.  While it is much more advantageous for the student to have a "Pause" button available, this practice can also be implemented when watching a video but it is less likely to occur. Videos like this make all the difference for those of us that are challenged in the area of culinary arts.

The Segmenting Principle is also demonstrated in the image below providing a step by step process on How to Tie a Knot.

REFERENCES

Clark, R.C. & Mayer, R.E. (2011). E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning (3rd Edition). San Francisco, CA.: John Wiley & Sons. 

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning (3^rd Edition) San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

PERSONALIZATION PRINCIPLES

November 6, 2016


What are the Personalization Principles?

Personalization Principles:  This particular principle addresses that a conversational tone is more effective when instruction is provided.  In addition, the use of an agent also seems to provide some familiarity in the presentation of the material. I'm sure that many of us would agree that our learning was enhanced when the instruction had a more informal tone versus a formal one. This has proven to be more effective when providing an online course as well.

Personalization Principle 1:  This principle focuses on the importance of using a conversational tone over a formal tone.  When creating the text for your multi media tool, the use of a friendly human voice in the 1st or 2nd person achieves the best results.  This seems to be especially true for students with a lesser amount of academic experience.  When a student experiences social cues that are similar to a conversation, they are more engaged and are more likely to respond positively in instruction.  Using words like "You" and "We" can assist in achieving this type of tone.  Some are concerned that this approach might detract from the seriousness of the material being presented when that is far from the truth.  According to the research of Clarke and Mayer, a student puts forth a greater effort to understand what the author is saying when they feel like they are engaged in a conversation.

Personalization Principle 2:  This principle indicates that it is helpful to provide a pedogogical agent or coach.  This allows the student a chance to "feel" like they are interacting with someone or something when they are learning the material.  This agent can be realistic or imaginary and they can be stationary or mobile, just as long as the student can hear the agent's voice.

Personalization Principle 3:  Finally, when the information does have a more formal tone, the reader will have an enhanced level of understanding when the author is present.  This can be displayed when the author shares their opinion about the material or shares some personal information about themselves.


Personalization Principles Demonstrated:

Below, I have provided some examples of the Personalization Principle being demonstrated.  These two sites choose to use an agent when providing information and instruction for their sites.  Both of these websites include a character and/or a person to assist in the presentation of the material.  Both of these sites give the illusion that we are speaking with someone and therefore improves the student's ability to gain an understanding of what is being presented.

References

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning (3^rd Edition) San Francisco, CA: John Wiley & Sons.

COHERENCE PRINCIPLES #2 AND #3

November 4, 2016

What are Coherence Principles 2 and 3?

Coherence Principle:  This principle indicates interesting yet unnecessary media such as words, pictures and sound added in order to make the media more appealing can be distracting and will frustrate the learner.  An objective of the multimedia designer should be to avoid using any material that is not specifically related to the goals of instruction.  While it seems like a simple rule of thumb, it is not always followed. 

Coherence Principle #2:  This principle focuses on designing a media tool that uses only those pictures which are necessary.  There is always the temptation to add a little extra however according to the research one should not add pictures to a site like seasoning, to attempt to enhance a boring lesson.  The research also supports that these additional images can interfere with the learning process. 

Coherence Principle #3:  This principle focuses on designing media tools that don’t use extraneous words.  When selecting the appropriate text for a site, additional words that do not pertain to the instructional goals can hinder a student’s understanding.  Students can become frustrated and a transfer of knowledge will be delayed.

DEMONSTRATING THE COHERENCE PRINCIPAL (or not)

                            

Now I am not one to shy away from color but this power point mage from a lesson on metaphors and similes goes a little overboard.  The light green and white background along with the letters is an excessive presentation in color, shapes and patterns.  This is also demonstrated in the next slide.

The text displayed in the lower half of the image above uses a combination of black and white.  This makes it very difficult for the student to read the information and requires additional attention upon an area that should not be the focus.

REFERENCES

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2011). E-learning and the science of instruction: Proven guidelines for consumers and designmers of multimedia learning. San Francisco: Pfeiffer

https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/FreeDownload/Metaphor-and-Simile-PowerPoint-FREEBIE

Exploring Various Multimedia: Google Lit Trips

GOOGLE LIT TRIPS

If you're looking for an opportunity to explore a book in a new and exciting way this might be a great choice for you!

Pushing the Limits

The study of multimedia covers such a wide range of topics.  It is reflected in various forms of audible and printed text.  This can be displayed through pictures, animation, interactive videos and content.  When diving into an area with such diversity, it can be difficult to narrow your focus.  Since my interests revolve around literature and film, I decided to explore an area that would incorporate one of these areas and can be used immediately.

I am currently exploring “Traveling Across America” with my third grade students.  One of our objectives was for the students to be able to identify the fifty states and their capitals.  This journey involves “traveling” across the United States through websites, video, Skype, books and various other resources.  Classes are assigned a particular state and then divided into teams.  Each team will the search for the symbol for that state (tree, flag,
song etc) and then create a video for that item.  All of these items will then be
 combined into one video.  

We began our journey to the Northeast region of the U.S.  While brainstorming the best way to meet these goals we considered using Google Earth to explore that area of the country.  It was an absolute fail!  It took so much time to discover how to navigate the software effectively that it seemed to be a waste time in the grand scheme of things.  I still however had an interest in mastering this software and then integrating appropriately with my instruction. 

Therefore, when I read about Google Lit Trips, it seemed like a great option for our third grade project and I was all in!  This tool allows the participant to travel along the path of a character in a particular piece of literature.  You can search among several trips that already exist or you can create your own.  

As I “played” around with two of the trips, I found them entertaining and interesting.  My selections were “The Armadillo from Amarillo” and “Make Way for Ducklings”.  This last selection was perfect because the setting of this story takes place in Boston which is the capital of Massachusetts.  There were several images and discussion questions that coincided with the story but I wondered if my 3^rd graders would have enough patience to wait for the computer to load each excursion.   I’m talking about today’s “Pokemon Go!” generation.    Never the less, I continued in my pursuit, hoping to find an enthusiastic group of kids when the final product was complete.

Tech Infusion  was one of the first sites that seemed to offer a relevant amount of information about the use of this tool.  It provided an overview of how Google Lit Trips can be used in the classroom by teachers as well as students.  There were also several videos on YouTube that offered instruction on how to create your own trip…. So here we GO!

The purpose of the project was to provide students with an overview of several fascinating places across the country and to give them another way to explore the many locations and landscapes of our nation.

Storyboard:

I began by creating a story board for the trip.  The book that I decided to use is called How to Make a Cherry Pie and See the U.S.A.  by Marjorie Priceman.  While the flow of the story seemed a little random at certain points, I believe that its focus  is accomplished, which is introducing our students to various parts of the United States.  I incorporated several images and links that would hopefully gain the attention of my 8 year olds and maintain their attention as we traveled together.  Providing a variety of videos, images and discussion questions was my initial goal but I can eventually see myself including several independent activities in this lesson.

Google Earth Pro: 

After completing a good portion of the board in Word, I decided to start plugging it into Google Earth to see if I was on the right track.  While I had several great ideas, I still needed to go back and do quite a bit of editing.  Most of my pictures did not transfer so I discovered a more reliable URL to use so that my images would display on the screen correctly.  By selecting "Copy Image Address", all of my images were displayed and the entire process moved along much more smoothly.

I also found that the images with a smaller jpeg, which was a much better fit for this setting.  Bigger most definitely was not better!  In addition, by using a little html coding (<br> - which means break or space) I was able to put a little more space in my presentation which improved its readability. 

Skill Set

Prior to beginning Google Lit Trips I had a tremendous amount of difficulty when I attempted to accomplish what I needed.  However this medium gave me a little more practice and it was very specific in its goals which worked perfectly well with our third grade objectives.

Google Lit Trip Demonstration Part 1

Google Lit Trip Demonstration Part 2

In Conclusion

Overall, I found this to be a very interesting experience.  I will continue to return to my Lit trip until I believe everything is in place.  One of my concerns was that I don't believe that encouraged higher level thinking with the format of this activity so it still needs quite a bit of work.  So few of my students have an opportunity to travel across the country.  What a wonderful opportunity to take them to a place that they have never been by way of the internet in such a realistic setting.  I believe that once I am done, they will truly enjoy it.

Video of Google Lit Trip

http://screencast-o-matic.com/u/nNpJ/LTolbertGoogleLitTrip





REFERENCES

Awesomeamerica.com

natgeokids.com

wikipedia.com

HOW TO USE PODCASTS IN THE K12 CLASSROOM

Purpose: Providing creative ideas for podcasts in the classroom

Podcast Audience: K12 Classroom Teachers

Tools used to create Podcast: I used Audacity to create the podcast.  I was able to combine the music and the poem in this podcast and convert it to an MP3.  Once completed I used Archive.org to upload the project and then add it to the blog.  I found this link to provide the most assistance in instruction on how to add a podcast to a blog (How to Add Podcasts to your Blog).

Brief Reflection:  Podcasts can provide a creative addition to the classroom experience.  Teachers can record their instruction and then make this available to students when they are absent. Students can also use it to review instruction for that day or when they are unable to attend class but they are still interested in participating.

Teachers can also use this as a collaborative tool for their students to create podcasts on literature of all kinds.  This can be especially helpful for our ESL students.  This provides an opportunity for them to collect their thoughts and practice their English before making a presentation. Students can also design podcasts in honor of a particular author.

 LibriVox is a site of recordings made by a community of volunteers from all over the world.  This site includes public domain audio books such as Pride and Prejudice, Uncle Tom's Cabin and A Children's Book of Virtues.  With this in mind, I recruited my family to assist me in recording Spaghetti by Shel Silverstein in the podcast below.

PROJECT 2: SCREENCAST

AN INTRODUCTION TO PADLET

Title: An Introduction to Padlet

Audience: Grades 4 through College

Purpose: If you are searching for an alternative to the traditional collaborative tool, then Padlet is for you. Watch this brief demonstration on how you can post information and collaborate on ideas and suggestions for an upcoming event with your group.

This can also be an alternative to the traditional poster project. Are you seeking an alternative to draining your ink cartridge dry when placing images on your tri fold? Choosing Padlet will allow you to place text, images, audio and even video on your presentation. Simply create your "Wall" and provide your teacher or professor with a link. They will then have access to your project.

My Uses: This particular tool will provide students (and teachers) with an alternative to presenting a project on the traditional poster board.

Students can also use this as a method of collaboration when planning for a particular event or presentation.

My Learners’ Uses: As my 5th grade students begin studying the events of the Civil War, they will create a timeline. The students will be placed in groups of four and each student will select 3 events surrounding the Civil War. They will indicate a date, write a paragraph about the event and find an image for their selected event. Each group will place their events in order and then present the information to the class.