Week 10 CECS 5110

First of all... how is it already week 10 of this class?! ...And of my OWN class!  So hard to believe!  This week's project was pretty simple because I ironed out all of the kinks when creating the design document.  However... embedding the audio and exporting to Acrobat was challenging!  There's nothing better than completing a project and clicking through and all your buttons work and the sound plays correctly!!!

As I have said several times before, I truly believe that the MORE forms of media that you can use, the better!  By doing this, you are making sure to meet the needs of all types of learners.  Having the audio and the picture is nice.  If learners did not quite understand the audio, the picture is there to help them and vice versa! 

On to week 11!   ...but first... it's time to celebrate HALLOWEEN!!  :)

Happy Halloween from Cruella and her favorite little Dalmatian!

Week 9 CECS 5110

I am enjoying the classes at UNT way more than I anticipated!  First of all, the Adobe Creative Cloud subscription might be my favorite thing on the planet.  It has given me access to all kinds of awesome software that I have always wondered about!  With each class I take, I am learning more and more about how to use these softwares and I. Am. In. Love.  

This week I dove into InDesign and Adobe Acrobat to create an interactive PDF.  I watched tutorials that made me realize, "AHH!!  THAT'S how companies make interactive pdf catalogs that I download from their websites!!!".  I assumed it was some kind of crazy-complicated software and after this week, I feel as if I could do it!  A simple catalog.  Maybe I'll make one for the little business that my mom and I have!  ...in all of my free time! ;)

...Back to class!  As far as using this for instruction, absolutely!!  I think I could make some really cool things, even for my kinder babies!  I think that being able to combine audio, text, AND visual is great!  Especially if I could figure out how to highlight the text to go along with the audio!  That would be a real plus for my students, but I'm guessing a complicated task to create such a thing!  So maybe I'll leave that to the professionals! ;)

I think that including all three types of media is a great way to make sure that you are meeting the needs of ALL of your students.  I cannot think of any potential issues, but as with everything, I am sure there are some! 

Week 8 CECS 5110

The first thing that was different (and more difficult) about developing instruction with audio was for this mama to find a time when our house was quiet enough to record!  Next. To. Impossible. The kids were occupied, so I hit record and then the dogs started barking.  It was nap time, so I hit record and a neighbor rang the door bell...and the dogs started barking.  I know, more of a personal problem but it definitely effected my feelings towards audio instruction and creating it!

I believe that it is more efficient to use other types of media rather than audio, in most cases.  For the creator, the software is more technical and complicated when creating audio instruction.  Text instruction can be easily created with any word processing document.  Pictures can be added along side of the text as well with zero to little knowledge of any type of complicated software.  

I think one major limitation of audio instruction, which I discussed in my last post, is that it is more complicated for a learner to "rewind" to hear a step or instruction again. It is much easier to read a step or go back and look at a picture again. The learner can do this as many times as needed and read the instructions at his/her own rate and take time to process.

My favorite is still Text + Visual!

CECS 5110 Week 7

I believe that when learners can hear the instructor’s voice with instructions, they do benefit and gain extra insight by the instructor’s tone and deliverance of the instructions.  In the real world, I have had to call a substitute teacher and give her verbal directions for my position.  While it was faster for me to tell the substitute what I needed her to do, I do not think it was best for the substitute (my learner).  She had to take notes and rely on her memory of our conversation in order to carry out her duties the next day.  This was a rare situation and I only in extreme cases would I use it again.  I like giving learners (or substitute teachers!) written directions.  I think that when given audio directions (even when pre-recorded and not speaking of a phone conversation) it is harder for learners to go back and review steps or directions that they may have missed.  This is particularly true for longer sets of instructions.  When given a page of text or text/image directions, I think that learners benefit from being able to complete steps at their own pace and review when needed.

I have seen directions recorded on little devices like THESE or QR codes for students in younger grades.  I think small snippets like this, for quick reminders, are a great idea, but I don’t care for audio instruction (on it’s own) for younger grades.  Too many of my students are visual learners and I would not feel as if I was giving all of my students a fair advantage if I solely used audio.  While I enjoy recording tracks and using the software, I don’t think this is the best method for my little friends or those providing instructions that are more difficult/longer.

CECS 5110 Week 6

When creating instruction with both images and text, it is very important to consider the overall layout.  With so much information being presented, the creator must make sure that the document is visually appealing to the learner.  Things to consider are the color scheme, organization, and white space on the page.  I do feel that using both is beneficial in my line of work (Kindergarten).  The limitations would be that designers can fit more information on fewer pages if they stick to one type of media.  When needing to combine multiple forms of media, it takes up more space and documents may span across multiple pages.   Again, this worked out fine for me with the nature of my project, but I am sure that some of my classmates were left with design documents that were much longer when they combined the two projects (visual and text).

CECS 5110 Week 5

I believe that the benefit of using 2 forms of media is huge; especially with these projects that we are working on for CECS 5110.  The nature of my project and the age of my learners make it very appropriate to have both graphics and text in my instruction sets.  My students are five or six years old, so providing pictures along with text is very beneficial for them.  I have students who can read, so they may not need the pictures.  They can complete the project without pictures; however for my babies who cannot read yet, the pictures are very helpful.  I also like the idea of the text accompanying the pictures for my students that are starting to read.  They can sound out the words and look at the pictures for clues.  This is a very important reading strategy that we teach them.  Pictures accompanying text is also helpful to English language learners (ELLs).  I would prefer to give my students more than they need rather than not enough, so I think it is crucial to use various forms of media to accommodate the needs of all students.

CECS 5110 WK 4

So far this semester, I have learned that it is possible to create instruction sets using a single media, but I have concluded that it is not ideal for learning.  As teachers, we are taught about the variety of learning styles in which individuals achieve success.  While one person may be able to take auditory directions and complete a task just fine, visual learners need to be able to SEE what is expected of them.  Visual learners would benefit from visual instructions like those we made this week in class.   If you are using just one media, then you probably have not met the needs of all of your students. 

Take IKEA instructions for example.  I believe that the creation of picture only instructions included with products that are shipped around the world is genius.  No matter what language a consumer may speak, they can view the directions and assemble the product.   While this is cost effective and brilliant for the company, I know I have heard many people complain about putting together IKEA products.  Why is this?  Could it be that some learners simply desire or maybe even need words to accompany these directions so that they understand the task.  I think so.  I know that, while drawn very well (clean, organized images, easy to follow), I have had to stare at a picture in order to figure out exactly what my next step was to complete the task. 

 At this point in the semester, I prefer text AND graphics to create instructional design which is great because I get to combine the two in our next assignment.  This may be because I work with young children and they benefit from words AND graphics as they are just now learning HOW to read.  I am anxious to continue on this media journey and see if my views change!