Multimedia Principles and ISD

Our readings by Clark and Mayer discuss and illustrate several design principles regarding the use of multimedia within instruction. Both support and frame their discussions by describing research and cognitive theory. They also argue for learner-centered, rather than technology-centered instruction. The image above is from the Thinkmap's Visual Thesaurus, a very interesting tool.

I actually had a tough time locating examples of the design principles online. Finding free, appropriate instructional content was the most time consuming. In the end, I settled for the following examples of three of the principles: the Multimedia Effect/Principle; the Personalization Principle; and, the Contiguity Principle.


Multimedia Effect/Principle
The multimedia effect affirms that learning is improved when graphic images are added to text, or when audio is added to graphic simulations. The screen capture to the right is from an animation on YouTube that is a bad example of the principle. This animation only has graphics with no audio or text to aid the learner in understanding.

A video that exemplifies the positive aspects of the principle is a Flash instructional movie about mp3 files. The movie is on the BrainPop site which hosts educational animations for kids. This animation skillfully employs the use of animation, audio and text to explain how MPEGs compress audio.

Personalization Principle

The personalization principle describes the capacity for learning improvement when informal, conversational styles of language are used within the instruction. I found an excellent example on the IRS website that also employed pedagogical agents to help improve the quality of the instruction.

Contiguity Principle
Finally, the contiguity principle is concerned with the proximity of graphics and text. If textual explanations are not near the graphics they explain, learning can be compromised. I found an excellent example of this principle on ESRI's Virtual Campus site. ESRI is the leading vendor in the GIS software industry. One of the modules they provide for free discusses cartographic design principles and this particular example provides two graphics side by side with the text explanation in a caption below the images. It also allows the user to enlarge the image to improve visibility.