What have you learned in the course about designing instruction from a multimedia perspective?

When designing instruction with a multimedia perspective, taking time to plan your instructional design and mapping out the steps or processes of your lesson are key to creating a successful lesson. The more time that you spend planning and organizing in the beginning; the easier it will be to create the multimedia instruction. To begin with, you will want to present your information in a logical order so that the information flows fluently from one segment to the next. Also, providing specific visual examples or demonstrations of the desired outcomes in your lesson will help guide the learner. There were several projects in this class, that I personally wish I understood the outcome better prior to creating the project. Once you start constructing your resources and materials, be careful not to repeat information with multiple types of media formats. Ensure that supporting text is only used to clarify the activities and not repeat the same information. Repetition can be distracting for the learner. To draw attention to important content or key concepts, place them where the eye goes first. And create multimedia instruction that holds the learners attention, but be careful not to add distractors from the lesson. Too much interaction and color can be distracting.

Designing multimedia instruction naturally supports the characteristics of the constructivist learning theory. Providing interactive multimedia resources allows the teacher to create problem-based learning activities in which students are given a project or problem to solve and resources to research and to complete the project. Teachers act as facilitators to help students think and improve problem-solving skills. In this situation, students have control of their own learning and are expected to construct new information.  Also, the lesson can be dynamic in nature. The Internet provides links to many resources allowing the students to explore into areas that they have an interest. In addition, the constructivist approach requires students to find documents or information that is relevant to their learning. The use of hyperlinks and Boolean search strategies can help accomplish this task. The use of e-mail, list serves, and library resources can help the student acquire information. Students can request information through online surveys, chat rooms, or the use of social media.  And students themselves can utilize the multimedia tools to design and present their findings and research to others. The teacher can then provide a rubric, so students can evaluate and assess their finished project.  All of these media strategies can be easily utilized and naturally support the constructivist learning theory.

What have I learned thus far about designing instruction?

     I have learned that the instructional design process is ongoing and can look differently according to the media that has been chosen to be utilized in the instruction set. Now that I have completed the process, I would have created some of the media resources quite differently than I did. I think that it is important to begin with the end result in mind when you first begin your design document and original text lesson set. In the beginning, I didn’t fully grasp how all of the various media projects that we created would be incorporated into the webpage multimedia project. Therefore, I spent several hours recreating many of the resources that I used in the final webpage project. If I did a project like this again, I would spend more time upfront determining the media elements needed that fit into the overall lesson set framework. Then, I would map out each project so that it provided a better foundation for my final instructional set.

     In addition, my project was based on the cognitive learning theory because it created step-by-step directions that the learner could apply to future applications. However, I think that the interactive multimedia resources would be a good resource for lessons based on the constructivist theory of learning. For example, the new Technology TEKS include references to students having control of their own learning. I feel that the Internet along with multimedia lessons would be the best way to provide for students to have control of their own learning because of the abundance of information available through online multimedia resources.   

     What is different about creating multimedia-based instruction? First, it takes many hours to develop. And even more hours should be spent mapping out the specifics of the media and how it is to be used so that it best fits the goals and objectives of the instruction. You also must have some advanced technology training to use the more professional productivity tools such as the Adobe products. I found the Adobe products somewhat more challenging than using Microsoft products or some of the Web 2.0 tools that I have used in the past. I found the Adobe products frustrating in the early weeks of the class. However, by the end of the session, I realized what powerful tools they provide once you get use to their functionality. And I think that I finally understand the layer concept that is used in many of their products. 

     What is the same as other forms of instruction? When you develop the lesson set in both traditional lessons and multimedia lessons, you must still consider what is the purpose and goals of the lesson. Your learners and their learning styles are also considered in both forms. So, the processes in the design document are the same, but the media used to deliver the lesson set is different.