I have updated a screencast I made about Quicklinks in Brightspace. The original:

Process

I compiled a list of theories and principles of multimedia learning, and then watched the original video several times, making notes about how the screencast sub-optimally addressed the theories and principes:

  • Dual Coding Theory
    • I don’t always demonstrate as I describe – under-utilizing the dual channels.
  • Coherence Principle
    • The bookmarks bar, extra Chrome tabs, Windows task bar, and extra whitespace are all extraneous.


      Extraneous whitespace
  • Signaling Principle
    • Quick link button is very small.
      quick link button
  • Redundancy Principle
    • Screencast is just video and narration – good.
  • Spatial Contiguity Principle
    • Not relevant – no ‘added’ text.
  • Temporal Contiguity Principle
    • I speak to concepts as I demostrate – good.
  • Pretraining Principle
    • I invoke prior knowledge of links and Moodle links but I describe without demonstrating.
    • I use the term ‘quick link’ without explaining that it is a Brightspace-specific term.
  • Modality Principle
    • My screencast is graphics with spoken text – good.

Improvements

  • Signaling: Changed screencasting apps. Screencastify highlighted my mouse clicks and allowed me to add zooming. I zoomed in on the Moodle link and Brightspace Quick link buttons.
  • Coherence: Closed extraneous tabs; hid the bookmark bar; reduced the size of Chrome; only recorded Chrome (hiding taskbar).
  • Pretraining
  • I rewrote my script to better invoke prior knowledge. I enhanced by:
    • explaining ‘Quick link’ explicitly as a Brightspace term rather than a generic term.
    • adding a segment demonstrating links and linking in Moodle.
  • Dual coding:
    • Demonstrating Moodle links and linking rather than just describing.

Adding the segment demonstrating Moodle links and linking was key to setting the context for describing Quick links in Moodle. My audience is adjusting from using Moodle (for many years) to using Brightspace. Invoking their prior knowledge and connecting it to new functionality is key for them to scaffold and construct comprehension of how to achieve the same thing in Brightspace as they did in Moodle. By demonstrating internal links in both systems and explaining their common importance, I’m also attempting to generalize concepts and create transferrable knowledge.