How have you found the balance of passive and active learning in this course for your learning? How does it compare to your experience in other courses?
I have found a really good balance of passive and interactive learning within this course. I think this is one of the first courses where every module has multiple interactive options to explore. The material really supplements the interactive options that I get to try out after being exposed to the topic. I have a hard time reading through blocks of text or listening to long lectures, so this has really helped concepts solidify in my mind. In my Statistics and Math classes I do get the chance to try new software, but it is usually one per class. In addition, the exploration with these types of software is extremely limited and rather boring. Instead of getting to use the software for any topic I would like in this class, our explorations are limited to what we are learning. Additionally, the programs I use in my other class are either dated or can only be used at the UVic computer labs. It’s really nice that what I have learnt in this class I can use at home and for other classes.
What was your experience of trying out H5P? Which of the activities do you think you would make most use of in your teaching context and what would you use them to do? Which ones do you think require the most resources to create?
I was surprised at how simple H5P was to use. I decided to go with a simple question set because I wanted to see how it compared to google forms which I have often used. I was happy with how simple the program was to use and how many additional options there were compared to google forms. The progress bar at the bottom can be animated, whereas in google forms it is a simple “page 1 of 3” for example. I really liked the quiz options as these are what I am most comfortable using. I think the interactive video could be really useful for a tutorial such as a science experiment where kids need to follow along. Flashcards could be good for a vocabulary quiz or simple content based studying. Sort the paragraphs would be useful for needing to know the steps to a lab or even memorizing a play.
What Generative AI applications have you found useful? What apps have you used that are not in the Explore section?
I have only had the chance to explore ChatGPT prior to this course. I have found that ChatGPT is best used for studying rather than actual coursework. It can be super useful to input a difficult chapter and have it simplified or create a list of possible essay questions on an upcoming exam.
How might the use of these tools create a more inclusive learning experience? Who might be excluded?
What first comes to mind about who might be excluded in these tools are those who have vision disabilities. Many of these tools require the ability to see the screen and navigate the platform visually. As far as I can tell, without the use of an external application, many of these tools do not provide the option for described video or text to audio. Perhaps there is a market for generative AI for those with visual disabilities. I have heard of applications that take an image of an apple for example and describes it to the user. I wonder what other uses of generative AI may help those with visual disabilities.
What ethical concerns do you have (or not have) about the use of some of these tools?
As we have learnt in the course, many of these tools use copyright protected media for the generation of the material they produce. I can see how to an independent artist this would be absolutely devastating. To make a name for yourself in such a saturated, content driven world is already extremely difficult. Then to have it recycled into something that might be considered arguably better due to the use of technology would be frustrating. This makes me wonder though if the use of such material by generative AI could be beneficial for these smaller artists. Perhaps generative AI companies could buy the rights to these smaller artists whilst also crediting them. This would allow for smaller names to get recognized and compensated for their contributions. The issue that I see with this though is that many generative AI images for example draw from hundreds to thousands of different images to create one product. It would be futile then to credit this many artists and therefore the monetary compensation would most likely be the best result from this.
Where do you think these tools will be in their evolution in 2-3 years’ time?
I think that in 2-3 years’ time generative AI tools such as ChatGPT or Perplexity will be able to use the opinions of professionals such as doctors, professors, or accountants to provide advice. I wonder if the use of dieticians would be used in creating my meal plan on Perplexity. It would be interesting to see how generative AI platforms would mitigate ethical issues or lawsuits with such advice. Would a simple warning how advice should be educational only be sufficient or would they take the risk to use the generative AI as you would going to an in person doctor’s appointment?
Use of Perplexity
Recently I was told by my doctor that I would need to start a dairy free and gluten free diet for my health. I am already vegetarian so my options for food have become extremly limited. I decided to use Perplexity to help me come up with some easy meals that follow my new diet. The program is super easy to use, simply type in your prompt into the search bar and the AI will beginning generating a response.
I typed in the requirements for my meal plan and the AI did a great job of creating a week of meals that look great!
SECTIONS Analysis of Perplexity
Students: Anyone willing to learn a magnitude of things can use Perplexity. It is free to use and super convenient as long as the student has access to wifi and a device. People with vision disabilities may have issues navigating the program without additional help or applications.
Ease of use: Perplexity is very simple to use. The search bar is easy to find and prompts can be written as sentences or simplified. Digital literacy skills needed for this are very limited as the user only needs to be able to type the sentence in. There are some limitations with what the program can actually produce and the user must be aware of this.
Cost: The monetary cost to the student is free for Perplexity. Students will not have to spend much time to find answers that they wish through Perplexity, as long as it is within the limitations of the program.
Teaching: Perplexity can be abused by students and used as a way to avoid learning material and completing their own work. It can also be a great tool for simplifying complex topics, creating essay questions, or improving grammar and spelling. As long as the student and instructor are aware of how the program can be abused/used, guidelines can be made around what is acceptable.
Interaction: Perplexity is best used for the interaction between student and content. I wouldn’t say that it allows for much additional interaction between student and instructor, but it may allow for more quality conversations when the student has access to a program that can simplify difficult subjects.
Organization: Policies from the institution will need to be provided regarding privacy, security, and use of generative AI if Perplexity is used at a University.
Networking: Perplexity doesn’t really allow more people to join a course; there are certain requirements and barriers to entering a university level course and Perplexity cannot change this. I would say that it does however improve the quality of education that people receive in a course though through simplifying difficult subjects, finding sources, and creating additional study materials.
Security: As far as I can tell, Perplexity is secure. There is an option to use the program as a guest and as long as you do not enter personal information, it is fairly anonymous.
Use of Dishgen
In addition to Perplexity, I decided to use Dishgen to find some recipes that fit my new diet. The platform was super easy to navigate and I would highly recommend to anyone wanting to find some more ideas on meals to make. The program allows for three free uses before paying for a more advanced version. When entering the prompt you wish for the recipe you can be as detailed as you want, from a simple gluten free dessert recipe to a sugar free crustless apple pie for eight servings.
After entering the prompt that you wish, the AI will generate a recipe for you with simple step by step instructions and ingredients. The recipe I got looks delicious!
Sources
“Create a meal plan that is dairy free, gluten free, and vegetarian” prompt. Perplexity, 29 Mar. version, 30 Mar. 2024, perplexity.ai.
The learning purpose of my video is to share a quick step by step instruction on how to crochet a flower. This project should be easy enough for absolute beginners to follow along to. I wanted this video to be at a pace for anyone at any skill level to understand.
Why is video a good medium for this learning purpose?
Video allows learners to watch how the crocheting is done and lets them follow along at their own pace. They can pause, go back, or come back to it when they choose to. This video shows the movement of my hands and yarn and allows for the viewer to copy easily. Without the visual aspect of the video, I would have had to really break down how to do each stitch. The visual aspect saves time and allows for easy comprehension.
Which of the principles we’ve covered this term (e.g., Mayer/Universal Design for Learning/Cognitive Load Theory) did you incorporate into your design and why?
Crocheting is nice because you are only ever doing one thing at a time. Therefore it naturally uses the segmenting principle by taking each step individually. I showed the flower first and then showed how to create each stitch on the petals. I used the redundancy principle to avoid showing the four other petals and risk losing the attention of my viewers.
What was challenging about capturing your own video?
The most challenging part about capturing my video was working at a pace that a learner would be able to follow along to. I usually go quite a bit quicker than what I showed, but it was important for me to go back to when I was learning and reflect on what pace I would have found useful. I really had to slow down and take breaks to allow for my voice overs and introductions to different types of stitches. There had to be a balance between being fast enough that I don’t bore my viewer, but also being slow enough that my viewer can see and follow each stitch easily.
It was additionally difficult to think of how to create my video when storyboarding. Crocheting is something that happens quite fluidly where each step is done individually on the same medium, rather than something that needs multiple steps in multiple locations. I decided to stick to quite a simple layout like the videos that I watch, where all the crocheting is done at once. This simplifies the video for the viewer where all the crocheting is in one clip. If the viewer needs to find a certain part of the video, they can read the written instructions on the clip.
What did you find easiest?
It was really easy to set up the video. All I had to do was find a good camera angle that showed my hands well, turn my lamp on, and crochet like I usually would. I think that a step by step video where my hands were the only thing on screen was the best option for this type of video. When I follow crocheting videos I like the most simplistic ones that keep me engaged and learning.
How would you approach capturing video differently next time?
Next time I think I would probably do a bit more of an introduction into how to crochet. I think I went through the stitches quite fast without an explanation on how to hold everything, and this was a challenge for me personally when learning. I think just slowing down a bit and talking through hand placements could really help beginners. It is important that next time I try creating a instructional video, I really think about all skill levels and try my best to cater to beginners.
Script:
Hi, my name is Kylie and today I’m going to show you how to crochet a flower. All you need is some yarn and a crochet hook.
We’re first going to start by creating a loop. We’re going to wrap around our two fingers and then grab the yarn with our ring and thumb finger. Wrap around again and pull the left side over the right side. Now put our hook through the top loop and pull to tighten. We’re going to start by chaining 6. This means putting our hoop underneath the yarn and just pulling through. There is my first one and I’m just going to repeat this five more times. It’s important that we don’t keep our chains too tight otherwise we won’t be able to go back and put her hook into it. At this point we have 6 chains done and we’re ready to make a circle. Go back into our first chain and we’re gonna pull through once and then pull through twice so we only have one loop left on the hook. Here you can see that we’ve created a little bit of a circle. The circle is what we’re going to be working out of and where we’re going to be putting our petals through. We’re going to start with our first petal by chaining 6 again off of this circle. Remember don’t keep these loops too tight. These six chains are going to make the outside of the petal. The middle of the petal is going to be 3 triple crochets. To make these three triple crochets we’re going to wrap around our hook twice with the yarn and then we’re going to stick it into the circle in the middle and pull through once, so that we have 4 loops on the hook. We’re going to pull through the first 2 loops then the next two loops and then the next two loops until we just have one on the hook. I’m still learning so sometimes the yarn comes off my hook. We are simply just going to repeat this triple crochet two more times and then to finish the petal we will do six more chains. The triple crochets are done. We’re just going to chain the six now. At this point we just need to attach the left side of the petal, so we’re going to stick our hook through the hole and pulled the yarn. We’re going to grab the yarn and pull through both to create a slip stitch and this is our first petal done. All we need to do is repeat this four more times and we will have a finished flower.
I really love making these flowers because they’re so simple and easy and make a really good first project. You can pick any colour that you like and you could even layer them if you want.
One of the most meaningful learning experiences I have heard was during a conversation about my anxieties about the future with the sister. I am lucky to have a sister who is four years older than me and a great role model who I can often take inspiration and advice from. Since she is four years older, I was able to see her go through high school, her undergraduate degree, masters, and then career right before I did.
I expressed to my sister not too long ago about my worries about the future after realizing I no longer wanted to pursue my original career plan and not knowing which direction to go in. We had a conversation over my interests and possible career plans, but I still was feeling fairly stressed out over the uncertainty. My sister described her own anxieties with the uncertainty around applying to medical school and having so many factors and possibilities out of her control. She told me about how uncertainty is something we have to accept and to focus on what we can control. She described how she has learned to grasp the idea of change and control her anxiety with distraction, exercise, and surrounding herself with supportive people.
This story was so impactful for me because it was so personal and related to what I was saying that I was able to apply so many of her own lessons that she had learned to my life. I was able to reflect on how she has changed over the past few years with regards to her anxiety and gave inspiration to brainstorm what could help my anxiety. The senses that appealed to me were mostly physical when thinking about not only the anxiety she went through, but also the relief she found. The storytelling techniques that I noticed she used was focusing on the learning incomes but keeping her story relevant to mine, using a conversational and personal tone, and including active learning to help me come up with solutions to my anxieties.
My Storytelling Techniques
The storytelling techniques that are instinctive to me are using a conversational tone, including active learning, and adding visual elements. Whenever I am telling stories I have to pull up a picture of what I am talking about either on Google or in my photos. I believe this is because I am quite a visual learner and want to keep my listener engaged. I additionally don’t think that having a friendly, conversational tone is difficult for me and I honestly prefer avoiding formal language in conversation unless necessary. I find that people try to use larger, more advanced words when they speak formally, and this can be a barrier to those who have auditorial processing issues.
I definitely have to think about keeping my stories short and relevant to the topic at times, especially when I am excited about the topic. I tend to have disorganized stories at times which can make my stories a little all over the place, but I usually find my way back to the topic after a couple minutes. I find that having a plan for the story, such as a mental sort of storyboarding, helps me stay on topic and voice the key points I was wanting to make.
When I ran my WAVE accessibility report on my blog posts I was happy to see that I only had two contrast errors. I honestly was having a bit of difficulty seeing the text in the colour that I had chosen previously. When writing my second blog post I decided to darken the colour a bit to increase the contrast which really helped, and I assume contributed to my low contrast error score. I am surprised that I got a contrast error on the text that I have in grey. To me, the contrast looks sufficient, but I am not thinking like someone who has worse vision needs than my own. Going forward I am going to change this text colour to a darker grey or even black and keep in mind that those who access my blog posts may have worse vision than I do.
My Experience with Text to Speech
I have used text to speech before for projects in high school. Unfortunately, I did not find it useful as the projects were presentations in my French class and the pronunciation on the application I used was horrible. While the text to speech allowed me to practice certain phrases or words, I couldn’t get a good idea of how the French should be pronounced. Most of the time, the speaking voice was saying the French words with a half French half American accent, so I had better luck understanding the pronunciation from my teacher. I can see how text to speech would really help people with other topics or if I found an accurate French voice. I tend to have issues processing information auditorily so this would not be my chosen learning tool if I didn’t have to know how to pronounce something.
Definitions and Experiences with Inclusive Design
To me, inclusive design means designing media or multimedia with the awareness that learners have varying ranges of needs and accommodating to these needs. I personally have ADHD and with the advancements in graphic design with clear labels, easy to navigate tools, and attention-grabbing elements I have never had an easier time learning. Things like subtitles which may have been intended for those with hearing issues also help me with my auditory processing issues. Of course, I can also see how certain applications such as TikTok or Instagram with an endless scrolling design can also take advantage of those of us with poor executive function and low attention spans. For the most part, I think these shorter video platforms can be extremely effective learning tools for those of us with varying needs but self-regulation and staying on topic can be a huge barrier to effective learning.
My Infographic
I used contrast and differing colour to help my learner navigate through my infographic. This follows the signalling and coherence principles. I did focus on alignment by aligning all elements on the left or right side of the text box, with all text boxes alternating on which side they sit on. I kept proximity in mind by having the elements that I chose to have on the side of text boxes be representative of their respective topic. I followed the signalling principle by aligning the introduction text box to the middle of the infographic. I optimized colour to allow for easy transitioning between topics with high contrast between text colour and background colour.
The template that I chose really helped me design how I could allow for an easy transition between the four principles. The only issue that I found with this template was that the colour contrast was not very high and that the chosen elements were a bit too generic for my topic. The template allowed me to see the potential of what my infographic could look like, while Canva allowed me to easily change and edit what I needed to to allow for a more accessible infographic.
Google Calendar is such a useful tool for those of us with busy schedules. When creating my screencast it was important to me to use conversational language as according to the personalization principle. I slowly built concepts by showing how to first create a one-time event, and then showing how to create a repeated event. This encompasses the segmenting and pre-training principles. After learning about the image principle, I decided to opt out on using my dashcam to keep listeners engaged on the screen (and honestly to help myself stay on topic). All together I was able to show a simple guide for students on some of the ways I use Google Calendar to manage my time with the help of Screencastify.
Intuitive and Surprising Parts of Multimedia Learning
The most intuitive principles of Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning included the redundancy, coherence, and segmenting principle. I think that these were intuitive to me because I believe many people including myself try to follow these principles in everyday conversations. For example, when talking to a friend about something that occurred the other day, I will avoid unnecessary information to keep them focused on the story. This correlates with the coherence principle. The segmenting principle can be seen when I explain something I am learning in class to my parents who have never learnt the topic before. I will start with a basic introduction of the topic that my parents may already be familiar with and add a little more as I go.
The principles that surprised me the most were the modality and image principles. I am not very familiar with multimedia learning and how people learn most effectively, so this was interesting to learn. It makes sense that we learn best with just a slide rather than a slide and speaker image as watching the speaker can be distracting. I wonder if this principle best applies to those who are neurotypical, as it implies that the image of a speaker would be a distraction rather than an aid. This may not be the same for those with auditory processing issues or neurodivergence who could use the speaker image to stay engaged.
The Audience of My Screencast
For my screencast on using Google Calendar, I imagined the audience to be busy university students just like me. This was particularly simple as I could think of all the ways that I personally use Google Calendar and use it in my teaching. I was able to understand the needs of other students and how Google Calendar can be a useful tool to organize, plan, and structure your time. This impacted my design as I was able to recall when I was learning how to use google calendar and what helped me get around all the new features. I used the principle of segmenting to slowly introduce the calendar as even though Google Calendar is pretty straightforward to use, it can be confusing when a bunch of new information is thrown at you. Additionally I used the coherence principle to avoid mentioning areas of Google Calendar that either wouldn’t be useful to a student or would be irrelevant to just an introduction of the calendar.
Hey EDCI 337! My name is Kylie Ogilvie and I am a fourth year economics student. I am interested in pursuing a career in data science following my graduation.
I decided to take EDCI 337 as I needed a new elective and thought this would be the perfect course. I haven’t learnt much about multi media yet in my degree and thought I should take this course to try something new. After looking through the syllabus, I am excited to work with my peers and create my website.
In my spare time I like to read books of all genres including science, fantasy, romance, and mystery. I enjoy yoga, hanging out with friends, watching new shows, and baking. I have a one year old ragdoll cat named Daphne who is like my daughter 🙂
I’m looking forward to this semester and seeing what I accomplish in this class!
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