45 Products

I've just created and uploaded a nine page PDF document that provides an outline of all 45 products made in this class. The products are organized by person's first name, then by the 3 types (audiobook, slideshow, video). The description of each product, provided by the author, is also included. Please download if you'd like a handy overview of all the student work accomplished this semester.

45 great multimedia products pdf

Project Feedback & Project Outline

I wanted to give you a quick update regarding feedback. This week, and early next, are completely devoted to dissertation related work. Most of the rest of next week will be given to completing grading for my Applied Statistics class. After that I'll get to you!

Specifically I'm planning/hoping to provide audio feedback to each of you regarding your projects before December 28th. I will not provide feedback, however, if I don't have a complete set of three multimedia products to review. So sometime before December 28th you should receive an email from me with a download link to your own individualized feedback. Grades will likely be submitted by this time also—but the deadline for grades is around January 4.

On a related note, I will also create a PDF handout that outlines everyone's projects and includes the short description provided by each student. In total you'll see 45 projects with 45 short descriptions. As with the feedback, this document may not be ready until about December 28th.

Integrating Multimedia

Three groups presented three sets of ideas for how we could more productively integrate multimedia into a doctoral program. I've created two versions of this presentation: QuickTime movie and audiobook formats. The movie is sized at 800x600 pixels. The audiobook includes the PDF scans of each group's visual model. These are optional downloads. I'll be encouraging the Dean to include these presentations as part of his holiday "reading." Many thanks for your valuable ideas!

integrating multimedia movie download

integrating multimedia audiobook download

Mylene Miles Wynton

miles davis/50 years of kind of blue, originally uploaded by david haggard.

I shared video clips featuring three musicians at our last class session: Mylene Farmer, Miles Davis, and Wynton Marsalis. The clips also included other key jazz figures such as Wayne Shorter and Cassandra Wilson. Part of the reason I wanted to share the Jazz DVD went beyond the music and to share how it was made by Ken Burns.

I could freely share the Jazz vignettes in class, but I can't provide them to you as downloads. However, I can share some of the Mylene Farmer material as it has been made freely available on the web. If you have better speakers than the ones in our classroom, then you may want to view the live version of her 2008 song C'est dans l'air performed live below. (After pressing play, and after the 12 second advert, I suggest using the pause button to let the movie load for about 2 minutes before playing.)


You can also download the above video in iPhone compatible size:

C'est Dans L'air video download

You can download the 13 minute video released in January 2009 that includes the first and last songs on her new album. (That's not quite right as there's a hidden final track on her album where she sings Ave Maria.)

Farmer Project video download

You can also download a 7 minute interview with Mylene conducted in June 2009 on the main national news show in France. The interview is translated in English using subtitles.

Mylene Interview video download

Multimedia Conversations

Three groups, three conversations! The recorded conversations are between 25 and 35 minutes long. Each one addresses key multimedia learning themes with an intended audience of first year students in the Cognitive Psychology course.

This is an optional download but some of you may want to listen to these conversations at some point. All I've done is done a basic "fix up" of the recorded audio: deleted unnecessary bits at the beginning and ends, optimized the audio using the Levelator, and some other very small things. I haven't listened to any of the conversations straight through yet (though I have heard some 5 minute snippets) and I look forward to a good sit down with your conversations later this week. Download the 60 Mb complete set if you want.

multimedia learning conversations download

Final Checklist

Many of you are submitting your various projects fast and furious over the past few days. With 15 students, and 3 products each, that's 45 products to keep track of—yikes!

To help me (mainly) and you, I'm providing a very simple checklist that shows each student, the student's 3 projects, and check marks beside each product that I've received and posted to the Creations section.

This checklist is accurate as of 11 a.m. on Thursday Dec 3rd. Please check this very simple webpage to make sure I've received and posted your materials. (Of course, if you sent me materials after 11 a.m. today then don't expect them to show up on this list until tomorrow.)

I hope this list helps mitigate any organizational miscues that might arise in the last hours before our final class.

final projects checklist page link

Final Knowledge Dig

The final knowledge dig has been posted. It's a reflective question so it doesn't ask you to respond to any new readings or materials. Hopefully we can have a very productive final e-discussion over the next ten days! You'll find a direct link at the top of the sidebar area as well as below.

knowledge dig 9 link

Banner Image Survey

I've created a super short survey about banner images. Remember this website used to have a banner image? I removed it about two weeks ago so you could have the experience (pre/post) of seeing a website with banner image and without. Now let me know which is the better version for you! In turn this will help me tremendously as I design course websites for next semester. The survey needs to be completed before you leave class tonight.

banner image survey link

Examples of Multimedia Slideshows

Awhile ago I showed all of you the product named Soundslides. It's a great cross-platform software program that creates web-embedded slideshows (essentially run by Adobe Flash). For some of you this may be a great product to get.

More importantly, however, is that the Soundslides website has a forums section where people post examples of some of their work. Many (though not all) of these examples are slideshows that are embedded in newspaper websites. The shows are typically between 2 and 6 minutes in length. I encourage all of you to peruse some of these example slideshows. They typically aren't "educational," but they almost all are "journalistic" and thus serve the purpose of educating their respective newspaper audiences. Few of the examples are for entertainment only.

soundslides example page

Staying on Top of Research

I've just posted a new blog entry over at my personal website about various software tools to help you keep on top of organizing research articles. I've included DevonThink Professional for Mac-users, but also present three options for Windows-users. If interested, check out this overview article:

staying-on-top-of-research article

Visualizing Cognitive Load

Indexed_example, originally uploaded by Mathew Mitchell.

I thought some of you might appreciate the comic strip named Indexed. These comics are developed by Jessica Hagy. Above is an example of her work. Each day a new index card chart is posted. This one card seems to unintentionally explain some aspects of cognitive pretty well. Jessica's site is a great example of how somebody has developed a very simple-to-draw comic strip based on an ingenious ideas. Even lowly index cards can make great visuals!

Session 7 Live Materials

I'm posting the audio from our class last night mainly for Rebekka. If you were at class and you want to download, then you're also welcome. I'm posting the audio at the Session 7 Slideshows page, but also just below:

session 7 live audio download

Banner Image Removal

As mentioned in class, I'm trying an experiment. For some of you it may be easier to navigate the website if the banner image or header image is removed. I'd like to hear feedback about whether you prefer the banner image, or prefer the website as it is now (without banner image). After our next class I'll change back to a banner image showing if that's the preference of the class.

Friday Experiment

Tonight's class will employ a little experiment. Most of the class I'll have an etherPad screen in front of us. This allows those in the class (and perhaps one or two who are sick at home) to engage in live comments and questions. I don't know how it will really work in practice but this is an easy tool to implement. I'll describe more in class.

One of tonight's activities will involve using your last knowledge dig e-conversation. I converted this dig into a PDF. We'll be reading the PDF in class tonight. I'll bring hard copies, but some may prefer an electronic copy. Download if you'd like.

knowledge dig 7 discussion download

For the time being you may want to check out tonight's interactive whiteboard brought to you by etherPad (below). To keep our conversation private, you'll need to provide a password. The "word" is: usfmml. Please let me know if you have any problems accessing this page link.

session 7 whiteboard link

Submitting Multimedia Descriptions

I know all of you are working hard on your three multimedia products (audiobook, slideshow, and Flip video). Even if your products are not done, this is the time of the semester when it would be very useful for me to gather your written descriptions of each product.

Thus, before November 20 (midnight) please send me descriptions for each of your three products. Each product should have a title (e.g. "Scientific Method Audiobook") and at least a one paragraph. Navdeep provides a very nice model of how to write up such a description—see Navdeep's creation page.

You can send the descriptions within the body of an email—I don't need a standalone Word or PDF document. Putting the description within an email message is easier for me as I can then more quickly copy/paste into the relevant course website page.

If you absolutely don't know what you want to create yet for one of your products, then just let me know in the body of the same email.

Journal of Ed Psych Goodies

The new issue of APA's Journal of Educational Psychology was published today (Volume 101, Issue 4). This new issue may have several articles of interest to each of you, but specifically it has 3 articles that impact our discussions in Multimedia Learning. Since the articles were just released today, I'm providing these as an optional download instead of required reading.

three article download

Below are the abstracts for each of the three relevant multimedia learning articles:

Stull et al. study on 3D graphics & spatial ability

In 2 experiments, participants learned bone anatomy by using a handheld controller to rotate an on-screen 3-dimensional bone model. The on-screen bone either included orientation references, which consisted of visible lines marking its axes (orientation reference condition), or did not include such references (no–orientation reference condition). The learning task involved rotating the on-screen bone to match target orientations. Learning outcomes were assessed by asking participants to identify anatomical features from different orientations. On the learning task, the orientation reference group performed more accurately, directly, and quickly than did the control group, and high-spatial-ability individuals outperformed low-spatial-ability individuals. Assessments of anatomy learning indicated that under more challenging conditions, orientation references elevated learning by low-spatial-ability individuals to a level near that of high-spatial-ability individuals. The authors propose that orientation references assist this learning process by defining the object’s main axes or providing distinguishable features.

Craig et al. study on multimedia tutoring

Collaboratively observing tutoring is a promising method for observational learning (also referred to as vicarious learning). This method was tested in the Pittsburgh Science of Learning Center’s Physics LearnLab, where students were introduced to physics topics by observing videos while problem solving in Andes, a physics tutoring system. Students were randomly assigned to three groups: (a) pairs collaboratively observing videos of an expert human tutoring session, (b) pairs observing videos of expert problem solving, or (c) individuals observing expert problem solving. Immediate learning measures did not display group differences; however, long-term retention and transfer measures showed consistent differences favoring collaboratively observing tutoring.

Rittle-Johnson et al. study on prior knowledge

Comparing multiple examples typically supports learning and transfer in laboratory studies and is considered a key feature of high-quality mathematics instruction. This experimental study investigated the importance of prior knowledge in learning from comparison. Seventh- and 8th-grade students (N = 236) learned to solve equations by comparing different solution methods to the same problem, comparing different problem types solved with the same solution method, or studying the examples sequentially. Unlike in past studies, many students did not begin the study with equation-solving skills, and prior knowledge of algebraic methods was an important predictor of learning. Students who did not attempt algebraic methods at pretest benefited most from studying examples sequentially or comparing problem types, rather than from comparing solution methods. Students who attempted algebraic methods at pretest learned more from comparing solution methods. Students may need sufficient prior knowledge in a domain before they benefit from comparing alternative solution methods. These findings are in line with findings on the expertise-reversal effect.

Links Section Completed

I've completed a first draft of the Links section. After this course is done I'll switch the links page to be on my personal website. Over time I'll add more information and options to it. Currently I have short descriptions and links regarding suggested audio software, visual software, multimedia creation software, websites, and hardware.

If any of you have additional recommendations, then please send me a link with a short description. (I'll give you credit for authorship of the added item.) Although several Windows software programs are represented in this area, I know I must be missing some key wonderful products on that platform. If you see something missing please help contribute to this developing list of links.

Session 8 Materials Ready

The learning materials for Session 8 on Video are ready to download. Make sure you can download these items before this upcoming Friday class. If you experience any downloading problems, then let me know.

session 8 page link

Vancouver & e-Learn

I'm in Vancouver this week attending the e-Learn conference. On Friday morning I make a presentation on the use of "research alouds." (Some of you may remember this technique from last year's Cognitive Psychology class.) Put differently, I won't be responding to emails this week.

I haven't been in Vancouver in over 20 years. It's always been a beautiful place, but I really like the makeup of the population here. This is probably the most international city I've been to (perhaps more so than London or Paris). There's a great vibe here. So between the conference and walking about the city, I'm enjoying an invigorating week. See you soon!

Belated Birthday Wishes

The whole month of October has been very busy for me. So much so that I missed one student birthday, and am very likely to miss another!

First, happy birthday to Monica (October 3rd). I hope you had a great celebration of your 29th birthday. Is this what has inspired your recent immersion into cultural activities?

Second, happy pre-birthday to Beth Ann (November 1). I hope your birthday isn't as scary as it would seem being so closely linked to that upcoming holiday. Any musical shenanigans in your near future?

Where's the Rubrics?

Some of you may be wondering where the rubrics are for our course projects. The simple answer: there aren't any! The longer answer is, well, looonger. In a course like Cognitive Psychology it makes lots of sense to have a rubric for the audiobook assignment since the students are beginning students and the audiobook products being created are for the same audience (first-year doctoral students).

In this class it's a wildly different situation. Each of you are making your audiobook, slideshow, and Flip video products for very different audiences. We're ranging from fourth graders to doctoral students right now. More importantly, the purpose of these assignments is to force you to experiment with three different forms of multimedia communication. A very common question from students that I hear outside of this class is: How do I decide what type of format to make my product? It's not always easy to decide. Towards that end I want each of you to have a hands-on experience with creating different products. In turn this should help increase your understanding of when or why you might want to use each of these three different formats.

The key is I want you to increase your multimedia-making experiental resevoir and to give you the opportunity to experiment with creating multimedia. Rubrics wouldn't capture the experiential-experimental focus of these assignments. At this point I only want to encourage you to give each project your best attention and care. We'll share the work and we'll discuss (at the last class) what are the trends and the implications of the various products created by students this semester.

The Cheryl Amendment

I'm amending (slightly) how people can submit their three main projects given some of the comments Cheryl has made over the past few days. (Note: all the comments from Cheryl were good.) Here's the amendment:

Your total audiobook materials need to be 10 to 15 minutes in length, and your total slideshow materials need to be 7 to 10 minutes in length. The implication of this amendment is that, for example, that you could create two slideshows with lengths of 4 and 5 minutes and meet the project guidelines.

Why create the Cheryl amendment? Simple really: for some of you creating shorter audiobooks or slideshows may be more beneficial for your learners. That's fine. What I want to hold constant is that everyone has created a certain amount of multimedia material—so as long as all your slideshow "stuff" is between 10 and 15 minutes then you've fulfilled the spirit (and now the letter) of the project's intent. Ditto with your audiobook materials.

I hope this slight amendment makes the course projects more useful for some of you.

Games and Assessment

I'm reposting the very useful web link that Monica provided in the Knowledge Dig 6 discussion. If you haven't already viewed this, then it's worth your time to check out. The presented is James Gee from the University of Arizona.

Session 7 Materials Ready

The learning materials for Session 7 on Slideshows are ready to download. Make sure you can download these items before this upcoming Friday class. If you experience any downloading problems, then let me know.

session 7 page link

Creations

There is a new Creation section to our course website! (Notice the tab to the far right, just to the right of "Links.") This is where all of your project work will be placed.

I want to draw your attention to a few key elements of this section. First, when you go to it you will find 15 subpages (just under the website banner). There's one page for each of you. The font used on these subpage tabs is somewhat small, but that's because I needed to fit in all fifteen names.

Next, when you go to a specific subpage, it will contain 4 "areas" by the end of the course. It will contain entries for each of your three products—this includes a general description of the product plus any relevant links to download the product. The fourth "area" will be at the top of each page and will contain an overall description of your three projects and why you created them. This general description text is likely the last bit of information that each student will submit, but it will comprise the top of each page.

Currently three students have one product posted on their pages. It's worthwhile checking out their pages so you get an idea of what the description text for a product looks like—relatively short but also specific. So it may help to check out the pages for Dionne (video), Kristina (audiobook), and Navdeep (audiobook).

You do not need to post all three products at once. Simply get me a product, with the descriptive text, when complete and I'll post that product to the website within 24 business hours.

Dissertation FAQs Form

I briefly told all of you about a Dissertation FAQs form that we had created for the L&I Department website. In the background we are working on making the Dissertations section of the website much stronger. One of the ways we want to do that is to include a Frequently Asked Questions page where we can give extended responses.

In theory all of this makes sense, but in practice we need to be able to respond to real questions that real students have. Put simply, we need you!

Thus I've added an extra assignment for you over the next two weeks: to submit at least one question via the Dissertation FAQS form we've provided. Of course, you can submit more than one question if you want. I've set up the form so that once you submit one question you'll then be recycled back to a blank Dissertation FAQ form—in this way it's easy to submit multiple questions, or just submit one and go back to surfing Amazon!

Whether you are a new student, or a wiley veteran, your questions will help us create a more useful webpage for future students. Many thanks in advance.

dissertation faq form link

Session 5 Updates

I have updated the Session 5 page on Editing to include the live audio plus the handouts from our class meeting on October 9th. The audio is mainly for Gina, but others can download if they want. Check it out at the Editingpage in the Learn section.

Editing page in Learn section

The University & the Future of Knowledge

Below is a presentation given a couple of weeks ago by David Parry from the University of Texas at Dallas. You may want to check it out.

Session 6 Materials Ready

Most of the learning materials for Session 6 on Audiobooks are ready to download. The one exception is a live lecture to be given this evening titled Rethinking Education in the Age of Technology. I'll be audio recording and posting the presentation tomorrow (hopefully).

Make sure you can download these items before this upcoming Friday class. If you experience any downloading problems, then let me know.

session 6 page link

Delay in Posting Session 6 Materials

I won't be posting the learning materials for Session 6 on Audiobooks until Thursday or Friday of this week. Yesterday and today my office is going through renovations—specifically new windows are being installed. That's great news overall, but in the short term it means I have to work away from my office and thus don't have access to all of my "stuff." I should be able to use my office tomorrow (Thursday) or Friday at the latest. Once I have access, then I'll post the new learning materials. This shouldn't be a practical problem for anyone, but I did want to give you advance notice about why the new learning materials haven't been posted yet.

DropBox Video

The video below was recently released to explain Dropbox to new potential customers. It's a bit less that 2.5 minutes. Long enough, but not too long. I suggest looking at this video because it's created in a very simple, yet very clear way. No "fancy" graphics, but they use clear hand-drawn graphics rather than computer snapshots. This, and a series of other videos to explain things, have been created by the folks at Common Craft.

Links: A New Section

You may have already noticed that I've added a new section to this website titled Links. This is in a rough draft format only. The purpose is to provide you with short, concise access to a variety of software and hardware products you might want to use. For right now this area is pretty incomplete—save for the information about audio editing software. However, over the next few weeks a number of links will be added—and in turn hopefully this will be an easy resource for you to identify software and hardware you may want to use at some point.

If some of you have specific recommendations you'd like to make, then submit that info to me and I'll add. I'll certainly include cross-platform software, and Mac software, but I'll be weaker on Windows-only software. Recommendations from Windows folks will be much appreciated.

Since we are now pretty far underway with the semester, I have moved the Help section to be a subsection under News.

Mayer's 2008 Paper

In 2008 Richard Mayer received the APA award for "Distinguished Contributions of Applications of Psychology to Education and Training." The article that accompanied this award can be downloaded below. It includes a bio of Richard, plus an article titled, "Applying the Science of Learning: Evidence- Based Principles for the Design of Multimedia Instruction."

In this 2008 article Mayer uses the terminology of extraneous processing, essential processing, and generative processing—and provides key principles for optimizing these various sources of cognitive processing. This article is a must read.

Mayer 2008 article download

One Great Graphic

If you're interested, you can download the complete set of one-page hand-drawn graphics created in class last Friday.

one-great-graphic pdf download

Across the Universe

Across_the_Universe_3lg, originally uploaded by Mathew Mitchell.

The 10 minute segment I shared in class on Friday night is from the 2007 movie titled: Across the Universe.

The movie is easy to rent, or buy. The bonus features in the DVD provide interesting insights into how Julie Taymor works. Taymor has worked mainly in theater (she created the Lion King stage version), but she's directed a few films including Frida, Across the Universe, and The Tempest (coming in 2010).

Session 5 Materials Ready

All of the learning materials for Session 5 on Editing are ready to download. Make sure you can download these items before this upcoming Friday class. If you experience any downloading problems, then let me know.

session 5 page link

Graphic Design, Blank Pages, & Sharpies

Interacting_with_Women_Study_300, originally uploaded by Mathew Mitchell.

Whenever you want to create a new presentation it's easy to start off using something like PowerPoint or Keynote. There are clearly times where that's the best approach. However, in general, I like the blank page approach where you start with a literal blank page. I prefer the homely piece of paper, but a blank slide in presentation software can also work quite nicely.

What you see above is an example of a rather complicated visual for statistics. This visual was used as part of a multimedia presentation on calculating effect size (Cohen's d to be specific). Below you can download the full presentation that includes a movie and supporting documents (such as the original article the data came from).

You can click on the image above. When you click you'll then be taken to my account in Flickr (free versions are easy to sign up for). When you are in Flickr you'll still see a smallish image, but just above the image you'll see several icons that give you options for how you interact with the image. Click on the "all sizes" button. You'll then be taken to a page where you can see this image in a variety of sizes: including quite bit versions. Pretty cool! Using this technique (I know I'm leaving out the details), one can present a little "preview" image and still let your learners see the full big image.

The movie itself is mainly composed of scanned images. Ironically I then "scan" the scans by zooming in closer to certain sections of the page as the video progresses. The download is 47 Mb.

effect size revisited movie

Fall 2009 Technology Survey Results

Fall 2009 Technology Survey Results, originally uploaded by Mathew Mitchell.

Above are the results of the quick survey I did at the beginning of the semester with students in the Multimedia Learning (15) and Applied Statistics (20) courses. These results are very similar to the results from last year.

A noticeable addition to the results is the iPhone (42% of students have one). One key deviation I notice from the year before is that there's now a much bigger percentage of people with digital cameras (97% compared to 83% a year ago). The other change is that there's fewer people reporting having digital audio recording devices (39% compared to 50% the year before). Unfortunately this survey is comparing apples to oranges since the numbers I give from the year before only included people in the Cognition course.

Surveys Open

The five group surveys from the Applied Statistics course are now open to be completed. You need to complete all 5 by September 24th at midnight. These surveys really have nothing to do with multimedia learning, but your responses will help those in the statistics course have real data to work with.

It's probably easiest to answer all 5 surveys at the same time. There will be some repetitious questions, but the data ends up going to different groups so please be understanding.

I have linked the five surveys. That means when you successfully complete Survey 1 then you'll be taken to Survey 2 and so on. After completing Survey 5 then you'll be taken to a general confirmation notice page. In total you can probably respond to all 5 surveys in less than 5 minutes. What a deal!

Please be honest when you are responding. I won't know the names of individual respondents, but I will have running counts of how many people from a few different courses have responded.

applied statistics survey one link

15 Draft Ideas

I've just posted a 25 minute movie that stars each of you. The purpose of posting this movie is to provide a practical example of how hand-drawn scans can be integrated with something like PowerPoint or Keynote to give them a more "polished" look. This is an optional download. The download is only 21 Mb.

graphic design page link

Class List

It's about time we have a convenient class list so people can contact one another if they so wish. Towards that end I've created a new "mini-assignment" that needs to be completed by Monday the 21st. Complete the class list form (see link below) and a list of names, emails, and more will automatically be created. To see the results of the form, click on the brand new class list subpage link just above.

class list form link

Survey Mania Coming Soon

You may have noticed that there are currently placeholders for your to complete five surveys by September 24!!! Don't worry. Each of these surveys will take you less than 2 minutes to complete (probably much less). You will be supplying data for my students in Applied Statistics to work with. All of your responses will be anonymous. I'll have links to these surveys posted later this week.

Wingfield Audio

There are a few good places to buy audio products including Broadcast Supply Worldwide and B&H Photo Video. However, my favorite website is the one run by Stephanie Wingfield. She's a musician, but her website is all about portable recording devices. She sells (naturally), but she also provides lots of useful information about recording devices, microphones and more. I highly suggest checking out her website if you want to get news, or perhaps buy, some audio equipment.

Wingfield Audio website

Session 4 Materials Ready

All of the learning materials for Session 4 on Graphic Design are ready to download. Make sure you can download these items before this upcoming Friday class. If you experience any downloading problems, then let me know.

session 4 page link

Paris-in-Three-Days Bonus Audio

I've created a bonus audio product that includes a 30 minute audio file along with 4 maps describing some key places a person might want to visit on a three-day visit to Paris (excluding the typical tourist attractions). This is an optional download, but serves as another example of an efficiently created multimedia product. Read more details at the Session 3 Audio webpage.

session 3 audio webpage link

Media Release Forms

As discussed in class, having an appropriate media release form is important if you plan on including students in any of your multimedia productions. Please check with your specific institution about requirements and guidelines for creating a suitable release form. You can download some sample release forms. In the downloaded package you'll find three Word documents that U.C. Davis uses with credential students. You'll also find three variations on one document used by Milpitas Unified School District. In the Milpitas case I've included: (1) the original scan, (2) an OCR version of the scan where you can copy/paste the text, and (3) an RTF version which does not come out perfectly but allows you to easily copy text if you want to use their wording in part of a media release form you create.

In general instructors working with over-18s can pretty easily craft their own media release form (but it's always good to double-check with your administration). On the other hand, instructors working with under-18s need to use media release forms that are tightly aligned with the requirements of their particular school district. In several cases those working with under-18s will need to use a district-mandated form.

media release form examples download

Yvonne in Tanzania

I've just posted Yvonne's 8.5 minute movie to the L&I Department website. Please download, view and post a comment by Friday midnight. As you already know this is a secret assignment. Of course, you are welcome to post more than one comment, or post replies, if you want. The Disqus commenting system has just been installed at the department's News page. Thanks in advance for contributing to the development of a wider multimedia using community!

yvonne in tanzania @ l&i department website

Session 2 on Photography

This is to announce a couple of follow-up items from our class last night. First, I have posted the audio presentation from the first 50 minutes of class at the Photography Session 2 webpage. This is mainly for Bianca, but anyone can download.

Second, I do need three photos from each person. Currently I have a complete set of photos from 11 people: Beth Ann, Bianca, Cheryl, Dionne, Gina, Kristina, Lara, Melina, Monica, Navdeep, and Ramsey. For the other four folks I have either an incomplete set or no photos. No problem, but please make sure to get me your photos by Monday midnight at the latest.

Bonus Extravaganza

There are currently 4 bonus packages posted at the Session 2: Photography webpage. All of these bonus materials are optional downloads, but you still might want to check out if any of them might be useful to you.

To make things visually simpler, I will always post bonus materials in the form of colored web-stickies (you'll see what I mean when you visit the page). Thus it should be very simple for you to see what materials were the foundational learning materials for a session (regular black titles) versus materials posted later as bonus materials.

session 2 on photography page link

Pixels-vs-Vectors Bonus Movie

This is the second bonus movie created during this crazy and hectic week. This one tries to address some of the questions people have been posting in the Knowledge Digs about pixels and vectors. The movie was developed quickly, so the most noticeable issue is that I haven't optimized the sound levels. You'll need to turn up the volume more than usual with this movie (as well as the first bonus movie).

To find out more about this bonus movie, just visit the he special entry on the Session 2 Photography page in the Learn section.

Session 3 Materials Ready

All of the learning materials for Session 3 on Audio are ready to be downloaded. No new resources have been posted, but the page itself has been updated so it's clearer and more complete. Make sure you can download these items before this upcoming Friday class. If you experience problems, then let me know. I'll bring a USB flash drive that you can use to transfer the materials to your computer in class.

session 3 page link

Looking-at-Photos Bonus Movie

I've created a bonus movie to describe how/why I took some of the photos I did this past summer. The themes covered in this 30 minute movie include: audience as performer, compositions, groups, posing, quick timing, shooting angles, and wide angle lenses. This is an optional download.

I created the movie partly to demo how presentation software (PowerPoint, Keynote) could be integrated into the creation of multimedia products. In addition I wanted to demo how a somewhat lengthy product could be made in relatively little time. Read more at the special entry on the Session 2 Photography page in the Learn section.

New Commenting System

After investigating the very recent changes to the service I was using for hosting this website's comments, I found their new service to be . . . terrible. Seven days ago the company I was using completely changed their commenting features. Typically this involves refining or expanding features (which would have been fine), but this particular company decided to get rid of almost all of their good features and replace them with marketing hype. So after several hours of thought and work, I've redone this website to work with a new commenting service named Disqus (pronounced discuss).

As of today the Disqus page replaces the old "Discuss" page. Most of you have not added any comments yet, but for those of you that have, you'll need to resubmit. If you made a longish comment then just email me and I can send you the full content of your previous comments.

By far the best way to submit a comment is to first create a Disqus profile. This is very easy as you'll only have two options when adding a comment for the first time: comment as a guest or comment via a Disqus profile. To create a profile click on the DProfile link (see screenshot below).

When you click on the DProfile link up will pop a registration window! You don't even need to go to another website. Here's what it looks like:


The advantage of using a Disqus profile is that it will subsequently be easy to track the various comments of any given person in the class.

I'll briefly discuss the positive features of Disqus at our first class, but amongst those key features is the ability to sort comments, subscribe by email to the complete commenting thread (a big feature), to submit new comments via email, the ability to edit and remove comments, and more. Check it all out at:

disqus section link

Welcome

Welcome to Multimedia Learning! This is the Fall 2009 semester version of the course. Our first live meeting will be on Saturday, August 22 @ 9:00 a.m. I've sent out an email to all pre-registered students in the course so you can get a bit of a head start if you want. I'm doing this because the beginning of our semester is a bit hectic with teaching weekends on both August 22 and August 28. Your first task is to read all of the news entries below this one to get some key information about the course.

Handbook of Multimedia Learning

Many of your readings will come in the form of original research articles that I post to this website. However, we will also be using one text titled The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning edited by Richard Mayer and published in 2005. I did not think I would use this book back in April, and as a result it will not be available at the USF bookstore. This is not a problem as you can easily buy it at Amazon and other online book services. That said, please order this $50 book as soon as possible. You won't be doing any readings in the handbook for our August 28th class, but there may be some readings in the book for the September 11th class session.

handbook of multimedia learning link

Getting Started

You have a variety of learning materials to download for Sessions 1 and 2. All of the Session 1 print materials I will distribute in class. However it's useful to also download the electronic versions of the documents (such as the course syllabus).

For Session 2 you'll have a collection of learning materials including an audiobook, a QuickTime movie, and more.

Notice that you can access the learning materials for a class session by going to the Learn section (see top tabs) then selecting the appropriate class (see options just under the banner image). Alternatively use the Sidebar and scroll down a wee bit until you see the area labelled Learning Materials. This provides you with direct links to all of the class session learning materials.

Three Assignments

The beginning of this particular semester is quite difficult since class 1 and class 2 are only one week apart. I have made some accommodations for this, but nonetheless there are still a number of things that need to be accomplished in this first week. Beyond using the learning materials for Session 1 (Overview) and Session 2 (Photography), you have three assignments to complete:

Technology Survey
This will take you less than 5 minutes. You can easily complete it during your first weekend. There's nothing you need to learn before you take this survey.

My Exciting Summer
This is a very simple assignment to make sure all of you know how to use the commenting system built into this course's website. Again, this assignment could easily take you less than 10 minutes to complete.

Knowledge Dig 2
This assignment can't be done until after you've used the learning materials for Session 2 on Photography. It's where you need to post at least one comment or question about the content in the learning materials.

Please note that all of the assignments for an upcoming class will always be posted at the top of the Sidebar (see the far right top of the screen under the banner image). In this area you'll see when each assignment is due and you'll be provided with a link that takes you directly to the relevant page.

Mobile Devices

This website is iPhone, iPod Touch, and Android enabled. This means the website can identify whether you are using a web browser or if you are using one of the 3 mobile devices listed above. If you are using an iPhone/Touch/Android then you'll see a version of the website that contains the same information but has been formatted to read much more easily, and load much more quickly, on those devices.

The menu options work a bit differently on the mobile devices to optimize space. But you will be able to navigate everything, see text at a good and easy reading size, plus more.

The mobile device version of this website is not good for downloading materials, and probably not good (though possible) for submitting your knowledge dig comments. But the mobile device version of the website can be great for keeping up to date with new posts in the News section or new comments in either the News or Office sections. So if you have one of the devices listed above, insert this course's web address, bookmark it in your device, and use as best fits your learning needs.