EDCI 337 Ling

I did three parts of this assignment, the project template, the infographic and explanation of Merrill’s First Principles and Infographic Design Principles. Jiahao and I combined our explanation together about Design Principles.

Here is our project post:

Based on what we learned this week, I’ve noticed that AI is helpful but not necessary in learning. Although it is artificial intelligence, it is still based on data and algorithms. As the experience of learning in Duolingo, in fact, it helps learning better but not in field of AI. Actually, Duolingo did a good job on gamification, but I don’t agree with “humanize” and AI. The difference between AI learning and people teaching is that you can ask questions if you don’t understand the content and teacher will answer it, but you cannot ask questions in AI learning. You passively accept the learning content, even though you actively choose what to learn. What I feel about Duolingo, it does help in some ways, like daily language, but it doesn’t teach grammar. Therefore, it can only be a tool or aids for learning a new language. The formal learning from teacher is necessary if you want to learn this language deeply. Furthermore, the training data used largely from English language learners will impact the user experience for other languages. There are grammar and meaning differences between two different languages. Sometimes the sentence is right, but not what native speakers usually use. The sentence is translated from English. As a Chinese speaker, I felt strange when I tried to learn Chinese in English in Duolingo. So, I guess it happens in other languages learning. In my opinion, AI learning will never replace human.

After the materials in this week, I noticed that gaining marks really encourage me more than taking points off. Gamification is more effective because it adds elements of game design to a learning activity. It makes the learning process more interesting and fun.

About gamification, the first thing coming in my mind is Duolingo, which is used to learning foreign languages. I used it to learn Japanese before. At the beginning, you need to choose the purpose of your learning. It will teach you about hiragana with how it looks like and how it pronounces. You will remember and practice them. Instead of remembering words by yourself, it will mix every character to make sure you really understand the character, not just rote them. The challenges of learning sections increase over time. You will know more vocabulary and sentences about what you want to learn, based on which purpose you chose before learning.

In my opinion, the most important element of creating engagement of Duolingo is levelling up. If I miss one question when I am practicing, I cannot get the points to level up. It looks like you get two stars out of three stars because you miss one small part of the game. I feel very dissatisfied with it, so I will start it one more time until I get three stars at this section. The process of getting three stars keeps me review those words again and again. Therefore, the knowledge will be impress in my brain. Levelling up and gaining points are more effective for me to engage in the learning.

Here is my interactive story:

https://camillejiangling.github.io/interactive-story-1/

After understanding the active and passive learning, I realized that the importance of active learning. Based on my experience, most of my classes like math and statistics are passive learning because teachers write down the notes on the blackboard while they are teaching new contents, and students are all busy copying the notes, and cannot focus on what the instructor is saying. Instructors are providing knowledge visually and aurally, but students need watch, hear and write them. I am distracted when I am watching, writing and hearing at the same time. In this case, I choose to give up one of writing and hearing, and catch up the materials after the class with taking photos of notes on the blackboard. While I am copying these notes, what the instructor was teaching in class will be more clear with the notes together. It seems that I take the lecture twice, so I remember more new knowledge. It’s one way that how I balance active learning and passive learning.

On the other hand, I experienced a very active class this term. It is a chinese classic literature course. The instructor uses the scaffolding a lot to teach the knowledge. Since we do not have to remember something like poetry, we just learn how to analyze them, we are not passive recipients of knowledge. The instructor guides us to understand what the author was trying to tell, but not tell us the meaning directly. We need to guess the meaning on our own first, and the instructor does not tell us it’s correct or wrong, he just provides some background information like what the author was experiencing. Therefore, we have more hints to guess, and we could make us as the author to feel the poetry.

In conclusion, I believe that active learning is more effective that passive learning because it is based on people’s own desire. They will keep thinking during active learning, instead of learning by rote.

Learning Objectives

This PowerPoint was made to teach primary school student mathematics. The learning goal of this PowerPoint is to understand how to calculate the volume of a rectangular prism.

Updates and Changes

There are not too many places to change because this topic and PowerPoint is very simple. Most changes I made is deleting redundant information in the pages. Instead of writing these texts in the pages, I choose to explain more with my voice now if I make this presentation again after understanding the Modality Principle. In page 3, the Redundancy Principle and the Coherence Principle are emphasized because I delete the explaination of why it is not a prism. The Redundancy Principle suggests that people learn better with narration and graphics than narration, graphics and text. There were too many words that can be overwhelming for a learner. Also, based on the Coherence Principle, simple text and simple visuals that relate to the topic are more effective for learning. In page 6, I add some bold to the text to highlight the important information which is the Signaling Principle.

Not change

Most of the pages remain the same as before. I do not change the order of these pages because it follows Merrill’s First Principles. Knowledge is activated, demonstrated and applied in order. The existing knowledge of shape/length/width/height/area is activated in the topic which is the Pre-Training Principle. The Image Principle, the Multimedia Principle and the Spatial Contiguity Principle are used a lot because I used a lot of images to explain the topic and make the volume visible instead of imaging it in the brain, and most text are next to the image to illustrate what I am try to say. The link in page 6 demonstrates the Segmenting Principle well, because learner can control the cube to understand how the cubes form a prism and how the volume is calculated step by step. For the general design of this PowerPoint, I keep the color same and balance the text and images in most pages. Also, I left a lot of negative space to make the PowerPoint succinct.

Merrill’s five principles:

• learners are engaged in solving real-world problems

• existing knowledge [and skill] is activated as a foundation for new knowledge [and skill]

• new knowledge is demonstrated to the learner

• new knowledge is applied by the learner

• new knowledge is integrated into the learner’s world

As a student, I totally understand how learning is promoted. Merrill’s first principles are accurate and correct to point out what can we do to promote our learning. When the learners know something new, they are learning. The learners will have a grasp of knowledge if they use it again and again through solving problems or as a foundation for new knowledge. Merrill’s first principles summarize the process of learning from getting new knowledge to hold the new knowledge.

Here is my planning process for learning Python:

Computer science learning is more practical because it can easily connect to real-world problems; for example, sort data in a file, or summarize grades. When the learners study Python, they must write codes by themselves. First, they should understand how to write the code, and then, they need to use it and run it. When they write codes and run them in the software, the process is interactive. I plan to let the learners use Python to make a simple game including the conditional statement and loop. It can help the learners understand which code is in the part of conditional statement and which part is in the loop and how the order of lines affects the output.

References

Merrill, M. D. (2002). First Principles of Instruction. ETR&D, 50, 3. pp. 43-59.

As we all notice, all presentations in The World’s Worst Powerpoint Presentations are messy and hard to read, not only for abled people, but also for disabled people. There is too much information in one slide and no highlights for main ideas. These presentations are lack of organizations and cleanliness. They are missing multiple principles, such as the Coherence Principle, the Signaling Principle, the Segmenting Principle, the Modality Principle, the Multimedia Principle. Furthermore, they do not focus on alignment, so they look very complicated and messy. And there is no negative space for most of them, these presentations are full of information and pictures.

For my infographic created in Canva, I focus more on design principles, for example, alignment, repetition and balance. I use these three principles to make my visual picture more organized. The use of color which are green and yellow keeps the visual harmony. There is not too much negative space but still some space between elements. The Signaling Principle makes my infographic simple and clear. It emphasizes the main idea I want to say. Also, the Spatial Contiguity Principle and the Multimedia Principle combine the texts and visuals. Text is next to the visual. Based on the Pre-Training Principle, readers can easily understand what I am trying to say. These fruits are well-known by everyone. The whole view of picture is easy to read and understand.

Universal Design for Learning

Universal Design for Learning is used to design a universal learning environment for everyone. There are multiple learning methods that different people focus on. While some people like study in class with the teacher’s speech, some people are more comfortable with study online through videos and articles. There are differences between disabled people and normal people as well, such as hearing impairment, visual impairment. Universal Design for Learning tries to combine different people’s learning methods into a general framework.

Inclusive Design

Like Universal Design for Learning, inclusive design contributes to make a learning resource that fits everyone; for example, video with subtitles and images helps people who have hearing impairment understand what is talking about in the video, and Text to Speech tools helps people who have visual impairment understand texts. Inclusive design is not only a method to help study, but also a way to remove differences and biases between disabled people and normal people. At least in the field of learning, there is no exclusion for different groups of people.

As I mentioned before, text to speech is a great tool to help people who have visual impairment. Even though I do not have visual impairment, I can use text to speech as well. I have tried this before when I was learning English. It is helpful for my listening ability. But for me, the voice and tone are very important. I barely absorb information from the speech when the voice is low and tone is flat, and I may fell asleep quickly with this kind of speech. If the voice is emotional and goes up and down, it is more attractive for me.

References

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_6S6eUjT88

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