Connectivism

This my mind map

According to Siemens, “connectivism is driven by the understanding that decisions are based on rapidly altering foundations. New information is continually being acquired and the ability to draw distinctions between important and unimportant information is vital. Also critical is the ability to recognize when new information alters the landscape based on decisions made yesterday” (Siemens, 2005, para. 24, as cited in Davis, Edmunds & Kelly-Bateman, 2008).

Information is all over you can’t get away from it, if you want to know anything the information is at your finger tips at the touch of a button and it is there.  One could say learning is easier now than in years gone by, but is it? My network provides me with a wealth of knowledge on the topics that are important to me, but sometimes I think it’s too much, too much information to go through. The information can become overwhelming sometimes, it is important to learn how to filter and manage the information you receive.  With that said how does my network change the way I learn? For the most part I have access to information 24hrs a day anywhere I am. Gone are the days when I needed to know something, which meant I had to get a book which means if I don’t have the book on the book shelf I would have to go to the library, not anymore, at the click of a button on my cell phone, my laptop or my tablet, there information at my finger tip. I am a visual learner and when I need to understand something that I read and I’m not quite getting it “youtube” and a video is there to make things much clearer. My colleagues and I were discussing the banking system in Jamaica and the fee structure of some of the banks and we had some questions that we needed to be answer, and my colleague said “let’s ask Google, Google knows everything”.

Has I mentioned before I am a visual learner, so the digital tools that best facilitates learning for me are the ones that has less reading and more videos. I use youtube a lot for tutorials. I gain new knowledge by doing research on the internet first and then I discuss my findings with my colleagues, they also give me some insight on the topic and they may be able to point me in a different direction if more information is needed. I also read blogs on the topic and read discussion boards if I have question I will post them to the discussion board.

Decision-making is itself a learning process. Choosing what to learn and the meaning of incoming information is seen through the lens of a shifting reality. While there is a right answer now, it may be wrong tomorrow due to alterations in the information climate affecting the decision (Siemens, 2005, para. 24 as cited in Davis, Edmunds & Kelly-Bateman, 2008). I agree with the above statement with all the information that is floating around in cyber space one as to make a decision on what one wants to learn and when. Information changes daily and what was current and correct today might just be out dated and incorrect tomorrow. I believe my personal network supports the principles of connectivism because on a daily basis I learn from a diverse set of persons all over the world through their blog and discussion board postings. Continuous learning means that I have to stay connected to all the learning sources that are in my network as was mentioned before information changes rapidly these days so one has to keep up to date and current. On a daily basis I don’t only learn from the persons I interact with but there are so many sources of learning, example youtube, websites, blogs etc. to name a few.

Has overwhelming has I find the information in my network sometimes,  it is good to have that network it makes research and learning a lot easier than days gone by.

Reference  

Davis, C., Edmunds, E., & Kelly-Bateman, V. (2008). Connectivism. In M. Orey (Ed.), Emerging perspectives on learning, teaching, and technology. Retrieved from http://projects.coe.uga.edu/epltt/index.php?title=Connectivism

Cognitive Theories and Instructional design

“Learning takes place in the brain, not at school” Spitzer

I agree totally with this statement has Instructional Designers we need to understand how individuals learn and how learning takes place in the brain. In order to design relevant learning material which will aide learning you have to become familiar with the learning theories. These theories will ultimately guide your decisions in designing your courses.

Stephen Sorden from Northern Arizona University pulled the Cognitive Theories together with instructional design into nine principles of good instructional design in his article entitled A Cognitive Approach to Instructional Design for Multimedia Learning. The principles are as follows Modality Principle, Contiguity Principle, Multimedia Principle, Personalization Principle, Coherence Principle, Redundancy Principle, Pre-training Principle, Signaling Principle and Pacing Principle

Modality Principle

The modality principle states that better transfer occurs when multimedia combines animation/pictures and narration as opposed to animation/pictures and on-screen text, i.e. students learn better in multimedia messages when words are presented as spoken language rather than printed text. This relates directly to the Theory of Dual Coding which suggests that we have two types of working memory, one verbal and one visual, and that we learn best when both channels are used together, rather than overloading one or the other.

Contiguity Principle

The contiguity principle states that better transfer occurs when corresponding narration and animation are presented simultaneously, both temporally and spatially. Temporal contiguity means that corresponding words and pictures should be presented at the same time, while spatial contiguity means that corresponding words and pictures should be presented near rather than far from each other on a page or screen. In other words, don’t place an important visual image on one page or frame, and then discuss it on a preceding or following page/frame without continuing to show the visual image.

Multimedia Principle

The multimedia principle states that better transfer occurs from animation/pictures and narration/words than from words alone. When words and pictures are both presented, learners have the chance to construct verbal and visual cognitive representations and integrate them.

Personalization Principle

The personalization principle states that better transfer occurs when narration is conducted in a conversational style (first or second person) rather than a formal style (third person).

Coherence Principle

The coherence principle states that better transfer occurs when extraneous material such as irrelevant video, animation, pictures, narration, and sounds are excluded. This is where instructional designers who employ gaming technology should be careful. He also likes to compare this effect to humorous commercials that we all love and talk about, yet can’t remember what the commercial was selling or who the sponsor was.

Redundancy Principle

The redundancy principle states that better transfer occurs when animation and narration are not combined with printed text. When pictures and words are both presented visually, it can overload visual working memory capacity.

Pre-training Principle

The pre-training principle states that better transfer occurs when training on components precedes a narrated animation. If the learner doesn’t understand the nature of each component, trying to construct a model of each component while trying to understand how they integrate with each other will quickly overload working memory. It is better to do pre-training on each component so that the learners already possesses schemas for them before presenting material that requires the learner to integrate each component into larger schemas. This connects to the concept of chunking and building schemas. Learners have to create low level schemas about a concept, before they can combine them into larger, more complicated schemas.

Signaling Principle

The signaling principle states that better transfer occurs when narrations are signaled. Signaling reduces cognitive load in auditory working memory by providing cues to the learner about how to organize the material. Signaling assists learners in the process of organizing sounds, which can result in deeper, more meaningful learning?

Pacing Principle

The pacing principle states that better transfer occurs when the pace of presentation is controlled by the learner, rather than by the program. Learners vary in the time needed to engage in the cognitive processes of selecting, organizing, and integrating incoming information, so they must have the ability to work at their own pace to slow or pause the presentation if necessary. If the pace of the presented material is too fast, then these cognitive processes may not be properly carried out and learning will suffer.

If the cognitive theories are your theories of choice then these nine principles should be of help to you in your next design project. Tell me what you think about them would they be of help you.

Refernce

Sorden, S.D. (2005). A Cognitive Approach to Instructional Design for Multimedia Learning. Informing Science Journal, 8, 263-279, Retrieved from http://elearnmap.ipgkti.edu.my/resource/dpli_r/index_htm_files/CognitiveApproachToID-ForMultimedia.pdf

A Look at Other Instructional Design Blogs

   Lets take a look at some great blogs on Instructional Design. I came across a site that listed 50 best Instructional Design blogs http://www.industrial-design-schools.org/instructional-design-blogs. I won't be looking at all 50 but I will be looking at the three I thought was most interesting.

   The first one is Big Dog, Little Dog by Donald Clark, he gives you his thoughts on Instructional Design and Performance. This blog takes a look at the different theories and learning styles. It also looks at the different parts of Instructional Design for example evaluation, the design process and Social Media. This blog is good for getting a better understanding of the theories and keeping up to date on their use in the design process.
          http://bdld.blogspot.com/

   The second blog I will be looking at is The Rapid E-Learning. It discusses many different areas of elearning such has Instructional Design, Managing your E-learning Project and the thing that got my attention PowerPoint in elearning. One should find this blog useful for the in dept information on elearning, designing. I found it particularly interesting because I use narrated PowerPoint in designing elearning therefore I should get some great ideas and new inspiration from this.
           http://www.articulate.com/rapid-elearning/

   The third blog I will be looking at is Cathy Moore she is trying to save us from boring elearning. She talks about the mistakes we make in elearning design, Scenarios and Action Mapping. Reading this blog should give you some good ideas on designing your elearning tools.
           http://blog.cathy-moore.com/

   I hope you will take a look at these blogs, I hope they will assist you in your Instructional Design  quest. If you have the time you can review the other blogs on the list tell me which ones interest you the most and why leave me a comment.

    

Welcome

Hello Everyone

This is my first blog post and I hope we will have very interesting times ahead learning from each other about the wonderful world of Instructional Design and Designers.