This semester has been filled with different types of multimedia methods. Some of them, such as working with images, creating videos and online assessments were not new to me. Other methods were novel, and I got to learn a lot about what’s available in educational technology. I’ve put a lot of time into creating the assignments, and I really enjoyed the whole course. I have degrees in industrial management and nursing, and I can’t say that I found them fun. But I’ve looked forward to each project every week and am enjoying the whole graduate school program.
My thinking about technology use has broadened. I am not a classroom teacher and while I sometimes recommend blending technology into a classroom, my job is to create multimedia. I have always tried to encourage my fellow trainers to adopt more usage, but I have only relied on one tool. This course has made me think about how I could use things like infographics, augmented reality, memes and Sutori to transfer knowledge to my end users.
I found that Mayer’s Overview of Multimedia Instruction captured what you really need to know when you are creating online content. I have done my job for 15 years and the 12 principles are reflected in my experiences. The most important principle is coherence. It all comes down to this. Remove the extraneous and focus the core meaning of what you are trying to train. It’s hard to be concise, but it is so important in training. Clinical workers especially just want to know the core elements.
I enjoyed all the topics and felt they were all helpful. It was a nice mix. The readings were also helpful, but a few stood out. I liked the overview of multimedia in week one. It summarized the what, why and how of multimedia. The Padlet on copyright had very helpful resources on how to use other people’s media and how to attribute it. Copyright is hard to understand, and this combination of information helped. Is Augmented Learning In Your Future was a helpful summary of the topic as was The Multiple Uses of Augmented Reality in Education. I probably knew the least about augmented reality.
I especially liked the augmented reality assignment. It was very easy to use, and I could quickly create something fun. The infographic was something different for me and I found concentrating my message into something that small a challenge. I learned how to use variables in a different way in the assessment assignment and will use that in my tests at work. The coding assignment helped me start to learn HTML, something that I have wanted to do for a while and had not gotten around to.
I think this course will make me try different modalities when creating multimedia projects. I have learned more of what is available and concrete ways to use them. This reflection assignment has been helpful as well. My workload is extremely high. I don’t really reflect on anything anymore and this is a good reminder to stop and re-evaluate what I am doing, why I do it and how to make it better.