My content module formed around my digital story. I did not decide on which module I would focus on for the content module until I was preparing to create my digital story. For the digital story, I immediately knew I wanted to talk about brainstorming and outlining because it had personal significance. With that decision made, I decided to develop the content for the second week of my course: brainstorming and topic selection.
For my digital story, I chose to use VideoScribe. I feel this was the right tool because, as a teacher, the ease of use appealed to me—it was accessible in China and developing a digital story using VideoScribe did not cost me a significant amount of time (until it came to uploading). Pedagogically, the main reason I thought VideoScribe would work best to tell my story because it allowed me to incorporate both visual and audio. With my students in mind, I was reminded of Bates’ (2014) point about modality: “[p]eople learn better from graphics and narration than from animation and on-screen text.” Additionally, providing images along with narration would give important contextual clues to those students who may not understand every word. Being able to record the narration myself was helpful in two ways: first, I could control the pacing, and seconding, as per Bates’ (2014) suggestion for voice, “[p]eople learn better when the narration in multimedia lessons is spoken in a friendly human voice rather than a machine voice.” Therefore, I believe VideoScribe was appropriate for my particular context.
While I am pleased with how the digital story was created, I now feel slightly skeptical about how effective it will prove to be within the confines of a course, but I also see how it could be useful. My main concern, as the digital story shares my personal experience with the topic, is that it may colour the students’ perspectives, potentially preventing them from thinking critically about the topic. To mitigate this in my content module, I did add an optional discussion topic where students could discuss their opinion. The best case scenario of using my digital story is that it does provide my “personal spin”, a strength of audio media outlined in Bates’ (2014) chapter on pedagogy. I also believe the digital story could strengthen the sense of community in the course as the students would see me in a different light—not just a giver of information, but someone who has been affected by the content. As my digital story does not specifically outline how I brainstormed, it may serve as a tool to promote curiosity on the topic. Ciampa (2013) classifies curiosity as a type of intrinsic motivation and, as my digital story is an audio-visual piece, it would stimulate both sensory and cognitive curiosity (p.84). With this in mind, I purposefully placed my digital story before the students were asked to independently explore different methods of brainstorming by viewing two infographics. I did this with the intent that, if the students were curious about brainstorming, they would be more likely to complete the task.
Thinking of my content module as a whole, three main themes dominated my choices: student motivation, using a learner-centred approach, and ensuring the content was appropriate for the target audience. My initial focus was to design a module that students would be motivated to complete. Ciampa (2013) outlines in his discussion of control as intrinsic motivation, that, when students are given control over their learning, they become more motivated (p.84). As my students are accustomed to a “stand and deliver” approach to teaching, I wanted to put the students in control of their learning. To do this, I leaned toward a learner-centred approach. As Anderson (2008a), summarizing Brandford and colleagues, notes, a learned-centred approach “includes awareness of the unique cognitive structures and understandings that learners bring to the learning context. Thus, a teacher makes efforts to gain an understanding of students’ prerequisite knowledge, including any misconceptions that the learner starts within their construction of new knowledge” (p.47). However, with no face-to-face interaction, I knew I would be lacking in this knowledge. Therefore, I had to make many assumptions on how best to fill in the gaps while delivering a lesson the students would be able to follow without face-to-face interaction with the teacher.
In making these assumptions, I initially fell into a trap Bates (2014) cautions against catering to learning styles and completely ignored Anderson’s (2008a) declaration that “a learner-centred context is not one in which the whims and peculiarities of each individual learner are slavishly catered to (p. 47). I wondered how I could meet the learning needs of every student and attempted to cover each style. I was soon overwhelmed, so I decided I would provide a range of media—including videos, infographics, text, tables, and flowcharts, but not put too much emphasis hitting every learning style. Using a wide range of media does have drawbacks. For instance, Bates (2014) acknowledges the importance of being aware of student preferences, but he also asserts that, if adding stimulating features, their educational value should be worth the strain on bandwidth. In choosing to create videos, for example, I thought the strain on bandwidth would be worthwhile. In Bates’ (2014) SECTIONS model under teaching and media selection, he considers segmenting, multimedia, and voice as having particular strengths. For my students, using short videos would help divide the content into digestible chunks, would add variety, and would serve as a way for students to connect with their instructor. While Bates (2014) does indicate that there is no discernible benefit to adding the speaker’s image to an audio presentation, I thought it would be important for the students to put a face to the voice as a way to build community, so I did use my webcam to record a mini-lecture. There is also a significant text component to my lesson, which I am not thrilled about. However, I was hesitant to create too many videos as the students become grow weary of them. Also, videos of a teacher talking are dangerously close to the “stand and deliver” model I was trying to avoid.
If I were to summarize my experience developing my content module I would say it was like being lost in the dark. I had no student feedback to draw from, so I had to blindly add and arrange components in a way that I thought would work. I feel cautiously optimistic that I made sound decisions, but I won’t know for sure until I receive feedback. Then, the revision process can begin.
References
Anderson, T. (2008a). Towards a theory of online learning. In T. Anderson & F. Elloumi (Eds), Theory and practice of online learning. Edmonton, AB: Athabasca University. Retrieved from: http://www.aupress.ca/books/120146/ebook/02_Anderson_2008-Theory_and_Practice_of_Online_Learning.pdf
Bates, T. (2014). Teaching in a digital age. (Chapters 7 & 8). Retrieved from http://opentextbc.ca/teachinginadigitalage/
Ciamp, K. (2013) Learning in a mobile age: An investigation of student motivation. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 30(1), 82-96.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=AUTE4Yy9lKM