Agenda

The Educational Uses of Hypermedia

Why create hypermedia for learning?

Use of multiple modalities has been associated with increased learning

Interactive multimedia can support individualized learning styles

Today's students are more visual and more expecting of interactivity than students may have been in the past

Processes that are too complex, abstract, dynamic, or micro(macro)scopic to be visualized can be learned more easily

See summary of research into animation at Carnegie Mellon

"Animations are best suited for information that is procedural in nature, has a certain degree of complexity, and is difficult to observe in the real world."

 In particular, animations are useful for processes that:
  • take place over very long periods of time such as continental drift, embryological development, etc.
  • take place too quickly in real time, such as engine cycles, neuronal conduction, etc.
  • are microscopic (or invisible), such as a cell membrane, viral infection, etc.
  • are macroscopic, such as astronomical motion
  • have many complex sub-processes, such as photosynthesis
  • require concrete visual representations of qualities, such as speed, density, or temperature

(For Future Reference: the Carnegie Mellon page also includes several significant "principles of animation")

From: Animated Diagrams: An Investigation into the Cognitive Effects of using Animation to Illustrate Dynamic Processes. Sara Jones, Mike Scaife,
Cognitive and Computing Sciences, University of Sussex, Brighton, UK

"animation imparted more information about the dynamics of the system than pupils could obtain from a static diagram, for example, they could construct clearer models about how the valves worked, how the heart 'pumped' and the temporal relations between the two"

"animation can provide more information about dynamics than a single static representation"

"animation depicts more information about motion changes, temporal sequences and relational effects of motion or temporal aspects on the dynamic system than a single static representation."

next

 

HOWEVER:

the use of animated diagrams to facilitate understanding of a dynamic process is not merely a matter of providing visually explicit information. Visual explicitness may result in increased availability of information about dynamics. In terms of computational offloading visual explicitness should reduce cognitive processing through increased availability of information. However, visual explicitness can result in an overconfidence in the knowledge accrued from the diagram inhibiting efforts at comprehensive learning.

[animation] is too complex in a non-interactive, illustrative capacity, resulting in cognitive overload and
ineffectual learning

"provision of an animation in and of itself may be insufficient to generate learning of a dynamic process or system"

 

Also:

From: Designing for Understanding: A Learner-Centered Approach to Multimedia Learning Roxana Moreno Educational Psychology
University of New Mexico

"presenting a multimedia explanation of how a system works
does not insure students’ understanding unless a learner-centered approach based on research principles is applied to the design"

 

 

 

"active learning occurs when a learner engages in the cognitive process of selecting relevant words and images, organizing words and images into coherent verbal and visual models, and integrating the corresponding components of the verbal and visual models"

"When designing multimedia learning environments (especially if visual and verbal information are presented simultaneously), present words auditorily rather than visually and do not add extraneous sounds unless relevant to the lesson’s main message. A concise spoken multimedia explanation allows the learner to build a coherent mental representation--that is, to focus on the key elements and mentally organize them in a way that makes sense."

next
by Craig A. Cunningham, Ph.D./http://craigcunningham.com