American Red Cross Disaster Services Orientation - Personalization Principle

For this assignment, I chose the American Red Cross' Disaster Services Online Orientation. The course can be found at: http://www.redcross.org/flash/course01_v01.

This is one of the first of the Red Cross' online learning ventures and the only course to be made available on the public website. This learning experience uses a dramatic, first-person accounting of individuals involved in a multi-family apartment fire to convey the basic concepts about how the Red Cross provides Disaster Services within communities across the country. Despite the course's obvious design flaws caused by the violation of other important principles, the course provides several examples of how the Personalization Principle can be used effectively in online learning.

The course effectively applies Mayer's Personalization Principle in three ways: (1)Early on, Erika, your on-screen host will introduce herself and provide an overview of the course and provide an opportunity to explore the navigation tools provided by the screen interface. Periodically, she will help with transitions between topics and present certain key points.(2) By way of a dramatic apartment fire, you are introduced to both Red Cross clients and disaster services workers and public safety workers who convey their personal, first-person account of their experience. (3) On occasion, a pop-up screen presents a still photo of a Red Cross Celebrity Cabinet member along with a first person quote to explain an important concept. In combination, these three methods contribute to an effective and compelling learning experience.

ESL for adults

elearn611

I find the concept of personalization intriguing - especially with adult ESL. By the powers-that-be teachers are encouraged to teach formal English, to enunciate carefully, break out contractions, so e-learning opportunities have a double line to play with. With open-source English, (http://opensource-english.org/moodle/) teachers can develop their own programs for students, and they are shown in the "how to use the lesson module" how to do it. Even within the module, how to lessons are indeed how-to lessons - you must read the directions and complete the quizzes as you learn how to set these lessons up yourself. The language is formal - no contractions, slang, or pronouns - yet care was clearly taken to have the language simple and clear, with higher level vocabulary. It is definitely a work-in-progress, with few bells and whistles such as flash or movies, yet by it's nature of being open-source, it draws in higher level learners...

HOW TO USE MAPQUEST

Mapquest offers a short tutorial on how to use its site. It uses the Redundancy Principle in that it makes excellent use of audio, text, and graphics to assist the user in using Mapquest. How many time have we been on a trip or we were in the process of planning a trip and we wanted to find a hotel or entertainment near the area we are traveling to.
The tutorial makes excellent use of the redundancy Principle because it allows information to flow in through the ears and allows the user to view what and where they are to click to retrieve information. The site also makes good use of graphics/text also.

http://www.autodemo.com/samples/group/001/demos/552/552_mapquest_findit.htm

Dissecting Frogs and Signaling principle

http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/frog/Frog2/home.html

This website which demonstrates frog dissection is a good example of the Signaling principle, but not the Redundancy principle. In each step of the dissection you can choose audio to explain the procedure. In each step signal words are used such as a list of needed supplies, bulleted steps, and words such as “first, initial, bisected” etc. The pictures are accompanied by text boxes that show which steps are to be performed where. This is a good example of the Spatial Contiguity principle. The steps are right next to the pictures, and essential steps are on text boxes on the picture. While the site does not have a completely animated dissection, in each step the user can choose to watch a video of the step. This section is accompanied by audio. There is also a section that allows the user to try it, and in each section there is text and steps accompanying the pictures very closely. This is not a good example of redundancy, but in this type of procedural situation, it is good to have the text on the site for review. The user can go back and forth from one step to the next easily.

Review of howstuffworks.com

I decided to review the popular site, How Stuff Works (http://www.howstuffworks.com/).


Check out the boomerang article (http://science.howstuffworks.com/boomerang.htm). Good use is made of personalization. It talks about "we" and "us" and "you" throughout. It makes the complex physics of how a boomerang actually comes back to you more clear and accessible. Most of the explanations I have looked at on this web site are very clear and easy to follow, in part because they use the personalization principle. It is not like being lectured to by a professor, it is much more like a friend taking the time to explain how it works.

Also, the site demonstrates the coherence principle, because extraneous information is excluded from the site. As you go through the content on boomerangs, there's not distracting information about aborigines in the bush or comic and trick uses of boomerangs, just the facts about how the boomerangs work (until they talk about the history of boomerangs, where it is appropriate). There are hyperlinked references to other relevant details, like the principle of lift from how airplanes work or a reference to how gyroscopes work to explain how the force on the top of the boomerang doesn't knock it out of the sky.

I would definitely recommend howstuffworks.com to anyone interested in a broad variety of topics. It is very informative and very accessible, even to the scientifically inept.

On-line Training for Lifeguards and the Redundancy Principle

The site I chose is from an aquatic managment group—Ellis & Associates. This group has been experimenting with on-line training for lifeguards for the past 5 years or so. In this course content information is presented on-line and the learner would then make arragements to attend a class in the area to practice and be tested on his or her skill performance. It contains alot of still photographs with both text and narration.

Check out the section labled "The Professional Lifeguard". This screen is a good example of how the use of text and narration can be very distracting to the learner. Perhaps a reason for this design would be that it accomodates both hearing and hearing impaired learners.

However, it is interesting to note that you can turn off the narration but the closing out the text is not optional. I would think that as a designer you would want to make the text optional since most people would prefer the narration.

Finally I discovered that the demo is not consistent in the use of narration. Check out the section title "Surface Rescues". You will notice that the designer uses narration to introduce the three types of rescues but then uses text to describe the specific steps.

http://www.ecsinstitute.org/courses/emergency_care.cfm

Coherence Principle

I used lynda.com's video tutorial for this exercise. http://movielibrary.lynda.com/html/modPage.asp?ID=206 (New panel management and user interface color). I feel this is a good example of coherence, since the narrator used the screen shot of the software interface to teach the lesson. The tutorial shows the user exactly what steps to perform with no extra distractions.

Richard Mayer's Redundancy Principle

In Richard Mayer's study, one of the principles examined was Redundancy. I chose to focus on this principle for my assignment. I looked at the website Auto Demo. On the website, there is a learning module for travel arrangements through Expedia. The learning module can be found at http://www.autodemo.com/samples/group/001/demos/642/642_expedia_itinerary.htm. This learning module follows Mayer’s Redundancy principle because it is a fast-paced multimedia message, it doesn’t have learner control, and the instructions are presented with narration. At the beginning of the lesson, the user is prompted to click a button to display the text instruction. This is a good feature for the hearing impaired. However, the default programming is to present the lesson with narration, not text. With this type of lesson presented with full-screen screenshots, it’s best not to include text instruction because the learner will have too many elements onscreen to comprehend. As Mayer presented in his findings, people learn better when on-screen text is not added to narrated animation.

Redundancy/Coherence/Personalization Principles

This site is designed for students in the elementary grades. It covers all subject and most topics. It encompasses redundancy, coherence, and personalization principles. It’s a fun and interactive site to be used by students. Please visit the site www.brainpop.com When you enter the site click on Social Studies, Bill of Rights, and Full Screen Movie. You should be able to play the movie one time without entering a username or password. If it won’t let you view the movie, then enter tcameron13 and horizon for your username and password. Anyone is able to join for a free 14 day trial.

Personalization – The video clips of the lessons are spoken in 3rd person by cartoon characters. They add in funny little jokes that students will find interesting.

Coherence – The video clips discuss the lesson being learned and do not stray from topic. There are no added pictures or materials.

Redundancy – The video clips are all narrated by the cartoon characters. There is no writing on the screen to distract the learner.

Guitar Red./Coh./Per.

http://www.freeguitarvideos.com/

The site gives free video lessons for anyone learning to play guitar. I think it does well in all three of the categories, redundancy, personalization, and coherence. Please visit the site and click on one of the “Watch the Video” Quicktime links.

Personalization – You are instructed by a human being. He speaks in a friendly conversational manner. This kind of instruction mimics what it would be like if your guitar playing friend sat down and teaught you.

Redundancy – The instructional videos generally have no writing on the screen. Just a man playing a guitar. This keeps the instructional area uncluttered. The site itself is actually rather barebones.

Coherence – There is no useless material on the site or in the videos. The lessons are very straightforward and discuss nothing but learning guitar and are generally focused on the specific lesson at hand.

Redundancy/ Coherence/ Personalization Principle

Visit http://www.rioneasygreenhouse.com/ and click on high bandwidth. When the avatar appears click on the green arrow beneath her.


Redundancy Principle:
Graphics are explained by audio alone rather than by audio and text. To see the example click on “Frequently Asked Questions”. The avatar explains and gives answer to each question using relevant graphic and audio narration. There is no use of text.

Coherence Principle:
There is no background sound or other distractive music added to hinder learning about the website. The avatar only presents the main points and highlights of the website without providing any irrelevant material that can hinder learning.

Personalization Principle:
The avatar looks visually realistic. The avatar acts as a coach to explain the contents of the website. The style of the audio narration is very natural & conversational that involves words like Hi, I, we, my, you, your.

Fairfax Co. schools online learning and supporting principles

The site you can visit:


http://www.fcps.edu/DIS/onlinecampus/welcome.htm

View Video about FCPS online Campus and Choose high resolution

Personalization - The students speak in their own voices, from their own experiences. There is ethnic and gender diversity of speakers. This also markets to the high school student, who is the target audience of the site.

Coherence - When the user plays the video, there is just audio narration, no text. This makes a very simple, yet effective and persuasive presentation. The user can concentrate on the video to discern its main points.

Redundancy - Most of the selling of the online campus is through the video, not the text on the web, even though there is some text to aid potential students. By using the video as its primary media, visitors will not be confused and will gain a better understanding of what the online campus is about.