Blog 1

From this class I hope to gain the skills to navigate new online platforms and be proficient in digital multimedia. I hope to incorporate digital technology into the classroom and want to feel confident in my own abilities, so I can effectively teach my students. Something I am unsure about is how I will learn the online skills through an online class. In the past, I found even in a traditional classroom it is difficult to grasp ideas and learn how to do digital tasks. I have found that I learn the dense information best with face-to-face communication and visual cues.

Rich’s son playing a web-based game is a good example interactive and multimedia learning. The game provides an informational visual for players to interact with. This self-paced interaction allows for students to learn at their own pace, gaining new information as they progress further in the game. The information is also accurate and the narrative provides a fun way to learn. This example of a web-based game is engaging and informational for Rich’s son. When there is a narrative, students are engaged in learning and their understanding of the material becomes much deeper. This is also evident in the online reading “The Hidden Importance of Teaching with Stories” when the author explains how his students connected more to learning when it was through personal stories. Whether his or student’s stories, the understanding became deeper when there was a sense of connection (Juliani, n.d.). In this reading, I realized how powerful narratives are. The author describes how his daughter still vividly remembers bedtime stories and this made me ponder my own experiences. It has been over 15 years and I can still recall stories I was told before bed as a child. Narratives provide a way to connect to information for a rich learning experience. I think it is crucial to involve teaching through stories and create ways to use interactive and multimedia learning that includes narrative in the classroom to engage students.

A non-digital interactive learning experience I have was playing “Robot Turtles.” This board game creates an easy immersion into how to code online without touching a computer. It incorporates terms and basic principles of coding. For me, I found learning complex concepts of coding through an accessible board game was a good introduction. I am fond of board games and was engaged with the easy to follow and hands on material. This experience reminded me of a key concept brought up in the video, which said we should design high tech multimedia that is in sync with how people learn (Mccue, 2020, 3:45). No matter how advanced the multimedia becomes, if students cannot grasp the ideas then it renders it useless. I think this learner centered approach is critical for teaching in a classroom. In regards to my experience, learning how to code was designed in a way that appealed to my style of learning. As a result, I was able to understand the concepts on a deeper level.

References

Juliani, A. J. (n.d.). The Hidden Importance of Teaching with Stories. Retrieved from http://ajjuliani.com/hidden-importance-teaching-stories/

Mccue, R. (2020). EDCI 337 Topic 1 – Introduction to Interactive & Multimedia Learning [Video file] Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watchtime_continue=319&v=V39sIKsRpUI&feature=emb_title