As if 2020 could not get more wild.
Our Grammie, my husband’s paternal grandmother, built her home with his late Papa in the mountains. As of now (Tuesday afternoon) the home is on the end of a road that has a row of homes being consumed by wildfires. We haven’t heard any updates since early this morning, but good thoughts are appreciated.
Friday Morning Update: the cabin survived!
Many homes below it did not survive these horrific fires. I am so incredibly thankful for the firefighters out there right now. While our family in California is safe, our family in southern Oregon is in a lot of danger due to rapidly spreading fires.
I am originally from Douglas County, Oregon and my extended family is from Josephine County. Many of the small communities I grew up visiting, exploring, and playing sports in have been completely destroyed. Living in the forest, wildfires are events I grew up around, having to evacuate both my mom and dad’s families during the Biscuit fire in 2002, but this year the fire is incredibly different.
Reflecting on Week 3 – Everything in my life comes back to Anthropology.
In week 3 of my semester, I explored how using multimedia within instruction helps learners lessen the cognitive load (Mayer & Moreno, 2002) that learning requires of us.
For some background: I studied Anthropology and briefly practiced Archaeology in the highland Philippines. While I did not end up in the field for a career, I constantly find myself making connections between topics from undergrad and graduate school.
This week’s topic was no exception. When I began to read about the connection between multimedia and learning (particularly learning through animation and narration) I began to think about this cognitive strategy in evolutionary terms.
One of the things that make humans uniquely human is our ability to communicate verbally. As a species, language is a way to learn and educate others. Some scientists argue that language is a major factor in our explosion as a species across the globe and has allowed us to continually adapt to new environments. We can speak, and we can describe the steps in which to complete a task. Prior to current day, these verbally communicated tasks were likely survival-based tasks. I would argue that communicated tasks now are more likely to be instructions on how to build an Ikea dresser. Same communication task-centered concept, slightly (only slightly) less dangerous to our well-being as a species
This is where I started thinking about multimedia learning, but in prehistoric terms. It’s only been a couple of years since the U-Th dating of carbonite crust revealed the origins of Iberian cave art (Hoffman et al., 2018) were far older than previously considered and could be attributed to Neanderthal artists. Neanderthals didn’t have a formal language, per se, but are thought to communicate via high pitched verbalization.
So what if these paintings weren’t just pieces of art? What if they represent some of the oldest multimedia instructional messages (Mayer & Moreno, 2002) in the world?
Basically, if I can find a way to bring everything back to my love of Neanderthals, I absolutely will.
I’m New Here Podcast from Nyla Spooner
It is no secret that I am a massive fan of podcasts. Particularly because I, like many people, work from home now. Having a podcast in the background is an excellent way for me to learn while I am doing the dishes or taking a break from work (and feels like a little bit of social interaction from a new voice!).
Nyla Spooner, the podcaster, does a masterful job of describing ID basics for learners and while I have experience as an ID, I find that even reviewing the basics is important for any ID. Reviewing the basics over time has allowed me to continually build on my own design process.
In tie with a ReL, this podcast is quick! Most episodes are less than 12 minutes and cover topics such as theory in the field, the interview process for IDs, and portfolio building.
Find this podcast by clicking a link below:
References:
Clark, R. (2002). Six principles of effective e-Learning: What works and why. The E-Learning Developer’s Journal, 6(2), 1–10. https://www.elearningguild.com/pdf/2/091002des-h.pdf
DeBell, A. (2020). How to use Mayer’s 12 principles of multimedia [Examples included]. Retrieved September 4, 2020 from https://waterbearlearning.com/mayers-principles-multimedia-learning/
Hoffmann, D. L., Standish, C. D., García-Diez, M., Pettitt, P. B., Milton, J. A., Zilhão, J., … & Lorblanchet, M. (2018). U-Th dating of carbonate crusts reveals Neandertal origin of Iberian cave art. Science, 359(6378), 912-915.
Greenwood, J. (2017). Mayer’s principles for multimedia learning. Retrieved September 4, 2020 from http://instructionaldesign.io/toolkit/mayer/
Lowery. O. (2017). Designing with CRAP (the four principles of design). Retrieved August 4, 2020 from https://www.linkedin.com/learning/after-effects-scripts-tips-2-design-theory-animation/designing-with-c-r-a-p-the-four-principles-of-design
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