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Module 4 Multimedia Principles for Online Course Design, Part 1

The document discusses multimedia principles for online course design, emphasizing the importance of using spoken words, written words, and visuals together. It introduces five key principles: Personalization, Voice, Signaling, Interactivity, and Pre-training, which enhance student engagement and learning. These principles aim to create a more personal and effective online learning experience, with a promise of additional principles in future content.

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Jacqueline Mera Rodríguez
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14 views

Module 4 Multimedia Principles for Online Course Design, Part 1

The document discusses multimedia principles for online course design, emphasizing the importance of using spoken words, written words, and visuals together. It introduces five key principles: Personalization, Voice, Signaling, Interactivity, and Pre-training, which enhance student engagement and learning. These principles aim to create a more personal and effective online learning experience, with a promise of additional principles in future content.

Uploaded by

Jacqueline Mera Rodríguez
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Multimedia Principles for Online Course Design, Part 1

Sarah: Okay, everyone! I have developed formative assessments and I am ready to move on to developing the rest
of my learning assets in my hybrid module framework. I still have a lot of my course left to develop! I am going to
have videos, readings, discussion boards, and more. Any tips?

Sarah: It looks like some people have responded to my vlog. Let’s see what they have to say. @TeacherForLife
says, “Great to see you moving along. You know who you should check out? Dr. Richard Mayer. He’s an expert in
multimedia learning and well-respected in the instructional design community. He has a list of multimedia
principles that could help you develop your learning assets. I’ll send you a brief overview.” Sounds interesting! Oh,
and @EnglishisEverything says the same thing: “I love Richard Mayer’s work!” Sounds like someone I need to learn
more about.

Narrator: Richard Mayer, a researcher at the University of California Santa Barbara, has done research on online
learning and has developed different multimedia principles that can help first time designers. These principles
were first published in 2001. However, in his research, Mayer worked with students whose first language was
English. So, we have adapted or changed his principles so that they work with students who are learning English.

In this module, we are going to learn about 10 of these principles that you can use in developing learning
assets. But first, let’s define multimedia principles. Principles are like rules or ideas that guide you. Multimedia is
using spoken words, written words, and visuals together in one learning asset. In other words, you use all three
ways to communicate with your students. For example, in this video, you see me talking, you see words on the
screen, and you see visuals. So multimedia principles are rules or ideas to guide you in using words, spoken or
written, and visuals in learning assets, all of which are used in developing online learning assets.

Let’s take a look at one of the multimedia principles that you


can use in developing learning assets: the Personalization
Principle. It says that students learn better when words are
presented in a conversational style rather than formal style. The
conversational style helps to make your connection with
students. So your ability to connect with students matters a lot
online. For example, in videos, you should use language that
feels real and warm and imagine that your students are right in
the room.

Next let’s look at another principle: the Voice Principle. This


principle says that students learn better from real, clear voices
and not from machines. In other words, students learn better
from humans, not computers. Isn’t that good to know? Your
voice is important, especially in online classrooms! Now, just a
word about how to speak on screen. When you speak on screen,
it’s important to speak in an engaging way, so that your students
who are not in the same room as you, feel like they are right
there!

© 2021 by Arizona State University. Multimedia Principles for Online Course Design, Part 1 for the
Online Professional English Network (OPEN), sponsored by the U.S. Department of State with
funding provided by the U.S. government and administered by FHI 360. This work is licensed under
1
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, except where noted. To view a copy of this license,
visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Another multimedia principle, the Signaling Principle, is when a
teacher changes intonation, or the voice goes up and down, at key
points and with key words. Sometimes a video has visual
information, like text or images on screen to show a key idea. But
when there is no visual information, you should use YOUR voice to
show which ideas are the most important. Did you hear what I
said? I said “YOUR voice” not “your voice.” I used voice signaling
to show you that your voice is a key idea in this principle.

And while it is important for you to be clear, another key way to


make the experience more personal for students is to give them
the chance to control the speed of a learning asset
themselves. This is another one of the multimedia principles, the
Interactivity Principle. But how can a student control the speed of
a learning asset? For example, when you use a video asset, you
can give students the ability to pause, go back, go forward, and
watch the video again. You could also give students the ability to
read at their own speed, pause when they want, and go back. You
can also give students the ability to take quizzes again or take more
time on quizzes. Just like in this course, Creating and Implementing Online Courses, you can control how you watch
the videos, when you take the quizzes, and how much time you spend on a reading. Because you can control how
you interact with or use these learning assets, you can take more time on difficult assets for you.

Finally, let’s look at one last principle: the Pre-training Principle. It


says students learn better when they study key words or difficult
words before these words are used in the learning assets. With pre-
training, you should help students with the names and definitions of
major concepts or ideas. For example, a glossary of terms, at the
beginning of each module, just like in this course, gives students
training in the words that they will see before they start the module.
Pre-training can really increase student learning.

These first five principles can be used to make the students’ experience more personal or more like a real
classroom, but online. But what if I told you there were five more principles to think about? You’ll learn about that
soon. Thanks for watching.

References
(The content in these references is copyrighted, and cannot be adapted, or distributed after the end of this course.
It is not Public or Creative Commons-licensed, and therefore not for public use.)

Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. Cambridge University Press.

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