My experiences with elearning - part III

I continue my experiences in elearning. After level 1 and level 2 elearning (which I described in my earlier posts) we wanted to make elearning more interactive and pedagogic. We were guided by several principles of psychology - Instructional Systems Design which are very well summarised by Ruth Clark & Richard Meyer in their book elearning and the science of instruction.

The chapters 4-10 describe multimedia principles and chapters 11-15 describe instructional methods. These are a must read for anyone in the field of elearning. I remain ever grateful to my Learning & Development manager for introducing me to this treasure of knowledge. I offer my summary of each chapter in my next posts. I request users to read the book for detailed examples and guidelines. 

Multimedia principle = people learn more deeply from words and graphics than from words alone.

Words = printed text on the screen which people read OR spoken text – words presented as speech that people hear with speakers or earphones; Pictures = static graphics - drawing/photo/chart/graph/map OR dynamic graphics – animation/video. Students learn better from reading a lesson followed by viewing video examples rather than reading a lesson followed by reading text-based descriptions of examples.

Multimedia principle works best for novices / learners with low knowledge of the domain than experts. If you are working on a course for a less advanced group of learners ~ beginning trainees, supplement text-based instruction with coordinated graphics. 

Pictures should not be an after thought – instead of selecting pictures after the words are written, instructional designers should consider how words and pictures work together to create meaning for the learner. People are more likely to understand material when they can engage in active learning . Multimedia presentations can encourage learners to engage in active learning by mentally representing the material in words and in pictures and by mentally making connections between the pictorial and verbal representations; presenting words alone many encourage learners  to engage in shallow learning. Many bad elearning have window after window of text; many may even have graphics that only decorate the page and not help you understand the text.

I can offer more experiences if contacted on +91 9158444664 or [email protected]

Disclaimer - These views are personal views of the author and not of his organisation. This article does not aim to reproduce portions of the book described or infringe on copyrights of the book publisher / editor / authors. The views are not meant to promote or undermine products of any organisation.