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6 Things You Need to Know About Learning Analytics

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6 Things You Need to Know About Learning Analytics Learning analytics is a quickly emerging field in education.   Learning analytics enable educators to utilize their students’ digital footprint to improve the design and implementation of their learning.   Best practices for using these analytics are still developing, and there are a few things to know. 1. Personalization When you recognize patterns within student performance, you can predict and customize resources for students, which helps meet the individual needs of your learner. 2. Self-monitoring Students can look at their own data trends and gain valuable insight into their personal habits within a course.   This could also be used to help them reflect on their own progress. 3. Formative feedback Formative assessments used can help instructors spot knowledge gaps and adjust their own teaching approaches to meet those gaps. 4. Retention Learning analytics can be used to spot...
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Week 5 Activity 2

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Good design makes you happy if it appeals to you on three levels: 1.  visceral level - I want it!  It looks so beautiful and so will I if I have it Enables people to make rapid judgements 2.  behavioral level - I can master it!  It makes me feel smart Relates to functionality and performance 3.  reflective level - It completes me! I can tell stories about it Relates to conscious reasoning and deep feelings Voss Water bottle - appeals to the visceral level of design "The water bottle looks so beautiful I want it!" Amazon Alexa - appeals to the behavioral level "This is so easy to use, I can master it!" Prius car - appeals to the reflective level "This car makes me contribute to helping the environment!" If you can design things that appeal to the user on these levels, then you are producing something that will be received very favorably.  Your design should be beautiful/visually appealing, make the user feel as thou...
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Week 4 Activity 1

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    Instructional designers need to take into consideration the cognitive load of their learners and make sure that they do not experience cognitive overload.  Cognitive overload occurs in which the learner's intended cognitive processing exceeds their available cognitive capacity.  The Cognitive Theory of Multimedia Learning assumes three things about how the mind works.   1)  There are two separate channels for processing information (auditory/words, visual/pictures) 2)  Each channel has limited capacity 3)  Meaningful learning requires a substantial amount of cognitive processing to take place. The capacity for physically presenting words and pictures is unlimited and the long-term memory is virtually unlimited, but holding it all in the working memory is limited.   To research this principle, I am most interested in whether the zooming aspect of Prezis contributes to cognitive overload for learners.  The pa...
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Effects of Technology-Mediated Instructional Strategies on Motivation, Performance, and Self-Directed Learning

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Effects of Technology-Mediated Instructional Strategies on Motivation, Performance, and Self-Directed Learning Keller’s ARCS model of motivational design: Obtain course information Obtain audience information Analyze audience Analyze existing material List objectives and assessments List potential tactics Select and design tactics Integrate with instruction Select and develop materials Evaluate and revise In this model, Keller taps into the importance of iteration in the design process.  Starting with the audience in mind, he encourages the development of materials and tactics, then encourages ongoing evaluation and revision.  In this way, the learners of the course can have a voice in their instruction.  Although these ten steps go a long way in this regard, there is more he can include. In the article, Gabrielle discusses the ongoing student feedback cycle that helped shape design.  When the students felt their voices were being heard, their...
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What is Human-Computer Interaction?

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What is Human-Computer Interaction? Human-Computer Interaction refers to the interaction between people and machines.  Research has been done to analyze this interaction and its implications for collective intelligence.  Collective intelligence involves the combination of technical infrastructure and human to human interaction.  As patterns, norms, and data emerges in this field of research, better technology design can emerge to increase crowdsourcing products.   As an educational technologist, it's important to consider these patterns in designing and learning.  There are many implications for this information and it can be used in the fields of psychology, sociology, engineering, and design/arts.  By having a firm understanding of how humans interact with technology, you can design instruction in a way that utilizes these patterns for the betterment of your learners.   Source: Bigham, J. P., Bernstein, M. S., & Adar, E. (20...
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What is Multimedia?

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Multimedia can be defined as the use of technology to present information through texts, graphics, audio, and video. Text, still images, sound, and video are often thought to be separate media.  The word multimedia  results from the combination of those entities to present information.  There is a misconception that multimedia requires a computer to present said information, but there are plenty of examples from a pre-computer age to contradict this notion.  Illustrated texts in books and magazines, tv news bulletins, and even live theater performances could all be considered multimedia.  Additionally, smartphones and tablets have the ability to play multimedia, completely separate from a computer.   One of the benefits of using multimedia in instruction is that users can interact with it in new ways, allowing for greater understanding.  Multimedia can either be time-based or static, with things like video recordings and audio presentations b...
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