Embedding interactive multimedia and design principles while creating a lesson is key to providing an effective approach to learning. As we have made it this far in the course, I feel as though I have learned a lot about the proper ways to create strong multimedia tools that can enhance the understanding of content for a learner. Reflecting through previous assignments that I have done for other courses, I have noticed that I have made multiple mistakes that could be adjusted to improve the effectiveness of presenting the content. The multimedia object that I have chosen to upgrade is a short lecture video that I created in EDCI 339 for a mini course assignment that I did about skincare. The lecture video was accompanied with a powerpoint presentation, which now looking back on it, I see that it could be harmful to a learner, as the design of the slides may increase the extraneous load.
As you can see in the video, the slides have way too much content on them and can make it hard to focus on any single point being made. The overall video violates the redundancy principle and signalling principle due to the poor design of the slides. The elements that I focussed on when creating the updated version of the lecture video include, reducing the cognitive load, implementing the signalling and coherence principle, and keeping one idea per slide.
In the upgraded video lecture, I believe that I was able to effectively present the lesson in a much clearer and more suitable way. Incorporating the design principles that I have learned in this class, along with the tips given in David JP Phillips’ TedTalk, How to Avoid Death By PowerPoint, I was able to design the slides in a manner that could improve the learning for a student. By keeping one idea per slide and reducing the amount of text on a slide, I am able to reduce the cognitive load and make it easier for a learner to pay attention to the narration. This is an example of the redundancy principle. I also wanted to incorporate the signalling principle, so I decided to show the points on a slide one at a time, as to hold the focus on only one element with the narration. This reduces the cognitive load by giving learners a clear path to follow along while they are watching the lesson and to not be overwhelmed by there being too much information given all at once. I also added subtitles manually to make the lesson more inclusive by including proper grammar that matched with the narration perfectly. One of the elements that I kept the same was the background colour, as it is dark and provides a good contrast to viewers, especially those who may have impaired colour vision.