The Effect of Positive Emotions on Multimedia Learning.

Um, E., Song, H., & Plass, J.L. (2007). The Effect of Positive Emotions on Multimedia Learning.

Paper based on research done to examine the effect of positive emotions on multimedia learning. Basic comparative setup of 2 multimedia learning presentations, same content but one designed to be appealing and attractive, and the other much less so. Some positive learning outcomes associated with the attractive design, but more detailed discussion of what constitutes the designations of attractive and appealing design are not part of the scope of the paper. For me this raises the question of, how can one make the connection between attractive design and positive emotions in the first place if one cannot identify why something is attractive and guarantee that a majority would agree upon the criteria? I.e., the notion of “attractiveness” is a pretty subjective one.

Shedroff- Information Interaction Design, a Unified Field

Shedroff defines “information interaction design” as, not surpisingly, the merger of 3 disciplines: information design, interaction design, and sensorial design. The result is the “content”.

The underlying goal of information interaction design could be described as “effective communication”, though Shedroff goes on to theorize about a continuum of communication which moves from data to information to knowledge to wisdom.  Thank goodness he backs off from trying to tackle “wisdom” too much.

Shedroff continues by taking each of these disciplines (information design, interaction design, & sensorial design) individually in that the particular issues and strategies of each are laid out. For example, Shedroff outlines 7 ways to categorize “information”- including alphabetically, numerically, by location, by time, by continuum, by categories, and by randomness.  I find this useful- and Shedroff also counters the idea that “metaphors” can be another way of organizing information. (Interesting! in that I often think in terms of the visual metaphor of the interface…)

When Shedroff examines interaction design, he first suggests that the best interaction he can think of is a “conversation”- a conversation had over dinner with a good friend, for example.  I’d perhaps agree (!).  But Shedroff also profers another useful outline, this time what he calls a “spectra of interactivity”.   This spectra charts the range of interactions and “conversations” that the system supports:  interactions that allow for feedback, control, creativity; co-creativity,  productivity, control, and adaptations.  Feedback and control allow the user to modify and tailor the site and get feedback for any actions taken; creativity/co-creativity and productivity allow  and assist the user in being creative, in creating new content, or making modifications to the site; adaptivity is more a response of the system to the input of the user, such as a game site that becomes progressively harder as the user becomes more skilled at playing.

Lee, Plass, Homer- Optimizing Cognitive Load in Simulations

Optimizing Cognitive Load for Learning From Computer-Based Science Simulations

Article by Lee, H., Plass, J.L., and Homer, B. D. (2006). Simulations are increasingly being used in science education because of their inherent capacity to portray dynamic information and complex concepts. However, because of the potentially high level of visual complexity in a simulation, associated issues of cognitive load should be taken into account. Cognitive theory of multimedia learning is applied here to primarily visual materials.

This study attempted to investigate how to “optimize cognitive load” by manipulating factors in the display that contribute to intrinsic and extraneous cognitive load.  What was manipulated:
Visual complexity & intrinsic load- by separating the display of the simulations into 2 screens (low complexity, low intrinsic load) or all on 1 screen (high complexity, high intrinsic load)
Mode of visual representations & extraneous cognitive load- manipulated through 3 points, over 2 scenarios:
Scenario 1—important info. in symbolic representations only (text labels, 3 control sliders grouped together, and chart with only most recent data point taken by student
Scenario 2—important info represented through icons, with 3 control sliders placed next to their respective objects of control, charts with all data points taken by students (iconic + symbolic modes)

Results:
That it is possible to reduce cognitive load by manipulating the intrinsic load on the semantic level and by manipulating the extraneous load on the surface level of the visual materials. Where these measures did not prove effective were when there was a higher level of prior knowledge.

Pierce, What is a Sign?

Pierce, “What is a Sign?”
Pierce analyzes the way we communicate meaning through language. And essentially, Pierce identifies the basic linguistic units of meaning as being what he calls, “signs. ” Signs operate by signifying their meaning, by conveying a reference to objects and ideas in the world.  And furthermore, there are three kinds of signs:

Icons- or visual likenesses, which signify through resemblance- e.g., pictograms (such as Egyptian hieroglyphics)
Indices- indications, which show something about things on account of physical proximity or connection, e.g. guideposts, weather vane, even a relative pronoun, or vocative exclamation such as “Hi there!”
Symbols- which are associated with their meanings through usage, “conventional signs” e.g. words, phrases, books, libraries.

Pattern Languages

Alexander, Ch. (1977). A Pattern Language. New York: Oxford.

Architects can design spaces through mapping out the flow of certain kinds of activity patterns. A space is divided up, arranged into a series of rooms. It is the flow of meaningful activities that define the use of the rooms. So, an entrance may open onto a parlour for greeting guests- this is already a socialization pattern that can start to define a cluster of connected rooms that accommodate the flow and shape of this pattern.

The analogy of thinking in terms of patterns for designing architectural spaces is to translate the same analysis of patterns, flows of activity, to the smaller scales of the user interface and the information architecture map.

Basics of Information Architecture (Jenifer Tidwell)- Notes

According to Tidwell, Information Architecture:

Is about 1) DIVIDING STUFF UP. Categories for division, note “nouns” and “verbs”:

• noun:List of objects-e.g. email, songs, books, images
• noun: List of subject categories- e.g. genomes, applications, Microarrays, videos
• verb: List of Actions/Tasks- e.g. browse, tag, buy, read, answer problems
• verb: List of tools- e.g. calendar, help, index, notepad, email form

Note, the nouns are obviously objects, groups of objects; and verbs are the activities, or those applications that enable activity. Keep the relationship of nouns and objects clear on the interface.

Is then about 2) ORGANIZING the Stuff. Most commonly used models for organization the interface to present the stuff depend on the emphasis of your stuff, if focused on presenting objects, these interface models are commonly used:

• Linear (sorted)
• 2D tables
• Hierarchy that groups items into categories
• Hierarchy that conveys relationships (e.g. parent/child, containers, etc.)
• Spatial organizations such as maps, desktops, networks,

Henry Jenkins- Participatory cultures

Jenkins, H. (2007). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. MacArthur Foundation.

Definitions: Participatory culture describes the kind of communities and practices that kids and teens are involved in when they go online or use new forms of communication & entertainment technologies- “participatory” because it is a feature of culture (rather than focusing on features of media). The main characteristics of the culture are that there is relatively easy access to participation;  participation is characterized by a sense of civic engagement and an emphasis on expression and shared creations; and there is some form of informal mentorship where what is known by most experienced is shared with novices.

Summary Aspects of Participatory Culture and Activities:
Affiliations- memberships in online communities centered around various forms of media
Expressions- producing new creative forms (mash ups, sampling, modding, fan creations)
Collaborative problem solving- working in teams to complete tasks and develop new knowledge
Circulations- shaping flow of media thru podcasting, blogging

Ideal Learning Environments
Affinity spaces are “informal learning cultures”. The new participatory cultures are ideal learning environments or affinity spaces. Affinity spaces is a term coined by Jim Gee to describe these online communities where the ground for participation (and therein, learning) is the interests that are shared- such affinities cut across barriers of race, gender, age, etc.

Lisa Guernsey: Children’s Perceptions of Visual Media

This is the major question for children so young when confronted with all the tools and artifacts of our heavily visual culture: how do young children, even infants perceive visual media??? There’s a lot of interesting research on image perception and young childrenthat Lisa Guernsey looks at that break down the factors at play.

So, at a very basic level of the perceptual organs involved, do little children “see” the same way adults do? Lisa Guernsey notes the sensory organs of infants are just developing and so it is hard to truly know what a 10 month old “sees” and in fact at that age, they can’t focus the same way adults can on images. So what they “see” as infants are probably more imagistic and blurry, not sharply focused.

Lisa also points out Judy DeLoache’s research on “insensitivity to picture orientation” which is pretty typical until age 2 1/2. So a 2 year old can look at upside-down pictures and perceive them just as well as right side up pictures.

The research on how and what infants see is perhaps particularly hampered by how much research can be done with infants as subjects. Anyway, vis the research about what IS known about how children perceive visual images, Guernsey asks: what does it mean to expose such young children to visual media on a screen (video, TV) —is it doing any good or doing any harm? How can we shape their exposure, which is almost unavoidable given the social and commercial phenomena of visual media directed towards and consumed by infants and young children?

This is for me the “message” or one of the messages of Lisa’s book- that all this visual media (and now, “interactive” media) is here to stay, and so what we should be doing is making the best kind of choices around how we and our kids engage with it.

Guernsey: When Do Children Start Thinking in Symbols?…

Lisa Guernsey (book: Into the Minds of Babes, 2007) reviews the research and discussion around issues of young children (infants to around 5- 7 years old) and television/video media.

In Chapt. 3, she cites the research of Judy DeLoache (developmental psychologist at Univ. of Virginia) who has been researching the question of when children start thinking in symbols? Until about age 3, children tend to see objects in terms of what’s in front of them. When given a picture or video representation of the same object, they do not relate the two together. The picture is a separate object. In various studies with 2 and 2 1/2 year olds, the children were not able to view a representation as related to its referent (such as an actual room and a small scale replica model of the same room) until they were told that the two were actually the same (in the study using the rooms, the children were made convinced of the idea that the small scale model was THE ACTUAL room, only that it had gotten shrunken and that’s why it was smaller). DeLoache did similar studies comparing the 2 year olds to 3 year olds, and by 3 years old children seem to start being able to think about representations, or what DeLoache calls “dual channel” thinking.

But this is a cognitive skill that is still developing. Even 4 and 5 year olds can refer to the images they see on TV as if they are the things themselves- so that a child could wish for Mr. Rogers to come out of the TV box so they could play!

Lemke- Multimodal Semiosis

Jay Lemke- Visual and Verbal Resources for Evaluative Meaning in Political Cartoons & Travels in Hypermodality 

Lemke is a social semiotician (he uses the term, “social semiotics”) and linguist, he analyzes the representational languages we use to convey and make meaning of our social experiences. Here he proposes units of discourse analysis: “evaluative meanings”. Evaluative meanings are the representations we deploy in order to make “evaluations” of “states of affairs or propositions or proposals”… Evaluative meanings are critical since they link belief to action.

Lemke is concerned with examining “evaluative meanings in multimodal texts.” In analyzing representational systems, Jay Lemke proposes that all semiosis is multimodal semiosis. Every representational artifact, the “material sign complex”, always manifests as a mix of representational modes. For example, even a textual artifact is read on the level of linguistic meaning and also visually on the level of its typeface and layout.

“…we always produce material signs that are susceptible of interpretation not just according to linguistic codes or meaning systems, but also according to visual ones or actional ones”

And further, Lemke writes that these “semiotic resource systems” have evolved together, so they determine and influence each other.