Assessment 4

Assessment 4:
Cognitive Load in Multimedia Instructional Messages

Cognitive Load in Multimedia Instructional Messages on Prezi

References

Bannert, M (2002) Managing cognitive load—recent trends in cognitive load theory, Learning and Instruction, Volume 12, Issue 1, February 2002, Pages 139-146

Hollender, N, Hofmann, C, Deneke, M, Schmitz, B (2010), Integrating cognitive load theory and concepts of human–computer interaction, Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 26, Issue 6, November 2010, Pages 1278-1288

Kirschner, P (2002), Cognitive load theory: implications of cognitive load theory on the design of learning, Learning and Instruction, Volume 12, Issue 1, February 2002, Pages 1-10

Mayer, R. E., and Moreno, R. (2003). Nine ways to reduce cognitive load in multimedia learning. Educ. Psychol. 38: 43–52.
Mousavi, S., Low, R., & Sweller, J. (1995). Reducing cognitive load by mixing auditory and visual presentation modes. Journal of Educational Psychology, 87, 319-334.

Muller, D. A., Sharma, M. D. and Reimann, P. (2008), Raising cognitive load with linear multimedia to promote conceptual change. Science Education, 92: 278–296. doi: 10.1002/sce.20244

Schnotz and Rasch, (2005)Enabling, facilitating, and inhibiting effects of animations in multimedia learning: why reduction of cognitive load can have negative results on learning. Educational Technology Research and Development,  53  (2005), pp. 47–58

Schwamborn, A,  Thillmann, H, Opfermann, M, Leutner, D (2011), Cognitive load and instructionally supported learning with provided and learner-generated visualizations, Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 27, Issue 1, January 2011, Pages 89-93

Thorsten, R (2005). Enabling, facilitating, and inhibiting effects of animations in multimedia learning: Why reduction of cognitive load can have negative results on learning. Educational technology research and development 53, no. 3, October 2005

Verhoeven, L, Schnotz, W, Paas, F, (2009) Cognitive load in interactive knowledge construction, Learning and Instruction, Volume 19, Issue 5, October 2009, Pages 369-375

Zumbach, J, Mohraz, M (2007), Cognitive load in hypermedia reading comprehension: Influence of text type and linearity, Computers in Human Behavior, Volume 24, Issue 3, May 2008, Pages 875-887

Assessment 3

Here is my assessment 3 task.

OLPC

I should be posting my week 6 task right now, but I will post this now and the week 6 task tomorrow.

OLPC stands for One Laptop Per Child. It is the brainchild of Nicholas Negroponte, and others who have worked at the MIT Media Lab. 

The idea was to create a low cost, rugged laptop that could be distributed, en masse, to kids in developing countries. The OLPC foundation was seeking to make the internet available to every child, no matter their wealth. The project has had mixed success. So far a little over 2 million laptops have been distributed around the world.


Hardware
The specifications of the computers are not particuarly impressive.  

• 400MHz cpu
• 512 MB Ram
•  2GB internal flash hard drive
• 7.5 inch LCD screen
• Keyboard is a single piece of rubber that is moulded into the shape of a keyboard.

There are some great things about the design, though, that are worth mentioning.  These laptops are designed for kids aged 6-12 who might live anywhere.  The laptop has no movin parts in it, so moving it while it is on won't hurt it.  It's designed to be able to survive being dropped a lot.  If it is turned off and dropped into a bucket of water it will probably suffer no ill effects (although I wouldn't try it).  It has a handle so the kids can carry it easily.  These guys knew their audience and the design of the computer, though clunky and boxy, is actually quite practical.  The screen can swivel right around and fold back over the keyboard.

The idea of the laptop is for it to have very low power consumption, as kids who don't have access to electricity are going to have to charge the battery themselves.  This is done, I think, by linking a hook to your foot and pulling a string, kind of like a pull start on a lawnmower, which creates an electrical current and charges the battery.  I'm not sure about this, though, I feel like I might be wrong.  Feel free to look it up and correct me.


The monitor has two modes:

1. Normal colour.  It's not particularly impressive, but it works.
2. There is also a high contrast gray scale mode that allows the screen to be easily read in direct sunlight.  For kids who can't stay indoors a lot, this is a real advantage.

The screen is very high resolution for its size, getting something that looks around 1024 x 768, but the pixels don't work quite like a regular LCD.

Software
The operating system on the OLPC is called Sugar.  It is a unique operating system in almost every aspect, not least because it is written completely in Python, which is unheard of.  Of course it includes byte code as well, but the OS itself is Python.  Python is an extremely high level programming language and the idea, I think, is for it to be accessible to as many developers as possible.  The operating system uses the linux kernel.

Most of the programs written for the OLPC are written in Python also.  
Here is a picture of the Sugar home screen, or 'desktop', for lack of a better word.  

 The icon in the centre is the control panel.  Underneath it, the picture of a notebook, is the journal.  The journal is where all of your user data is saved.  It's like the 'My Documents' folder on a PC, I suppose.  From there students can open up applications where they were up to when they closed the computer last time.


The icons that make up the circle are the programs installed on the machine, but they are called 'activities', not programs.  These are the programs available in the standard installation.  There are a myriad of others that kids can download from a few different sites.


At the moment I'm writing a maths program that is unlikely to make it as one of the main programs, so when it is ready kids will be able to download it and add it to their circle of activities should they wish to do so.


Some of the activities are pretty average, but there are a few standouts that are really great.  The ideology behind this laptop is greatly influenced by Seymour Papert and so there is a huge emphasis on computer programming.  
'Turtle Art' is your classic logo program but it uses tiles so that kids don't have to learn the code themselves.
'Pippy' (the snake icon) is a python IDE and gives some simple examples of how to program in python.
'eToys' (the icon of a star shooting up) is a program which is, in my opinion, one of the greatest pieces of educational software ever written.  It is incredibly powerful and has loads of great features for kids to use to learn computer programming, maths and science.  The problem with it is that it was written in a computer programming language called 'Squeak', and it is extremely buggy.  It was developed by Alan Kay and his team at the MIT Media Lab, and he himself says that it is a great innovation, but that he needs a load of money to completely rewrite it.  If anyone ever does it properly then it will be an extremely powerful tool for learning.
'Scratch' (the icon of a cat's head) is another icon based computer language for kids.  This is written in java and is stable.  I use Scratch in my teaching almost every day and I think that it is the best way to introduce kids to programming.  Kids create blocks of code that fit together like a jigsaw.


That will do for now.  I imagine that there are lots of questions.  Feel free to ask and I will do my best to answer them.


I'm interested to know what others think about the project.  It's extremely ambitious and it has had lots of praise and criticism.


Oh, and here are a couple of pictures of the XO-3, rumored to come out next year, but we'll see.  I imagine it will look quite different and that it will come out late.

Assessment 2

Here is my assessment.

Activity 2 - Screen Rotation

iPhones, iPods, smartphones, tablets and the like are able to change their screen orientation from portrait to landscape when the user turns the device. They are able to do this because they contain an accelerometer.

An accelerometer mearures forces of acceleration applied to a device. The sensors in an accelerometer are able to discern the direction from which the force is being applied. Accelerometers are also able to detect the pulling force of gravity. Thus they can detect whether or not the device is being held in a portrait, or landscape position and adjust the screen accordingly.

It seems to me that this has many useful applications. Sometimes the user is able to decide for themselves which way they prefer the device to display the information they want. For example on smartphones, when entering a text message, the keyboard is much larger when the device is being held in a landscape position, but less information is able to be displayed. The user is given the option of either, so that they can choose the view that best suits their needs for each situation.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerometer
for information on accelerometers and how they work.

Assignment 1

Adding a feed to your blog

AMENDMENT:
You could followthe 16 ultra easy steps below to create an RSS for your blog, or you cold just follow Lindsay's laborious 2 step approach, which works much better and is in the comments section.  It's your choice I suppose...


I have noticed that some of us had had some trouble adding a feed to our blogs.  I myself thought it would be very easy and did what I thought was adding a feed, but it wasn't.  Adding the right kind of feed was somewhat more complicated (although not beyond anyone doing this course).

As far as I can tell there are basically 2 types of feeds you can add to your site.  The first is the easy way, and it is just a widget on the side of your blog that lists some posts from another blog.  This is, I don't think, is especially useful to our course and it is not what Sarah was asking for when she asked us to consider putting a feed on our site so that it would make it easier for her to follow our blogs.

The second type of feed is a link that looks like this



This kind of feed allows a reader to subscribe to your site through their own RSS reader.  This means that, potentially, anyone who is able to access all of our blogs can view all our posts in one place without having to go from blog to blog.

This is how I created a feed for my site.

1. go to your dashboard at blogger.com/home
2. Click on the settings link for your blog.
3. Click on the blue link near the top of the page that says 'Site Feed'.
4. Click on the blue link that says 'FeedBurner'.  This will take you to the Google FeedBurner site.
5. Login using your Google ID.
6. Once you have logged in there should be a label that says 'Burn a feed right this instant'.  Underneath that is a text box.  Copy and paste the URL from your blog into the text box.  So for me I went to my blog, copied and pasted in http://edge903graham.blogspot.com/
7. You probably want to leave the 'I am a podcaster' check box unticked.  Click next.
8.On the next screen you have 2 options.  Choose the second option, that is an RSS feed.  Click next.
9. The next page should automatically populate the two text boxes for you.  Change them if you like, otherwise just click next.
10. Ignore the next 2 pages, just click next in both of them.
11. You should now be on a page that has the name of your blog along the top.  You've now created your feed.  The next step is to add it to your blog so that others can use it.
12. Click the tab near the top of the page that says 'Publicize'
13. On the left hand side are some blue links.  Click the one that says 'Chicklet Chooser'.
14. Make sure that one of the two radio buttons next to an orange RSS symbol is selected.  I left it on the big one.
15. Go right to the bottom of the page and there should be a drop down menu.  It says 'Use as widget in' and the option that is chosen is 'TypePad'.  Click on the arrow next to the word 'TypePad' and choose 'Blogger'.  Click Go.
16.  A new tab will open up on your browser and you are taken back to the settings for your blog.  Just click on the blue button 'Add Widget'.

And voila!  In 16 easy steps you have a feed for your blog that anyone who has access to your blog can follow.

I think.  If this doesn't work just start clicking buttons that you think might possibly work.  That's how I figured it out.