Using Rich Media to Enrich the Learner Experience

Posted October 29, 2009 * Comments(0)

Content is king, but don’t forget to laugh and/or cry.

Jim’s argument is that content should always be the king.  Still he
reminds us that this content should be engaging.  What does engaging mean?
In a few simple questions, will it make your audience laugh? Will it make your
audience cry?  Will it be powerful?  These are important questions to
consider as we now have access to numerous examples of learning objects, digital
video, digital audio, etc that allows us to distribute content to students more
easily in a variety of formats, anytime, anywhere.  Although making this
content is very possible within our digital landscape, the content itself is not
appealing to students.

For most of us who have admiration for our content, it may be hard to imagine
how some one else would not eat every bit of our content up?  Swallowing
this difficult pill is a challenge for many of use.  But as educators, we
often are called to make our complex content palatable, to make it
understandable, to make is something students will transfer to new experiences.

It made me begin thinking about Micheal Wesch’s popular video, A Vision of
Students Today – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dGCJ46vyR9o Which after just days became an incredible popular video that sparked conversation among faculty, student, administrators, etc.  Although the work anthropologists do is incredibly
wonderful, we generally don’t imagine that their work would engage the main
stream as well as his did.   Largely, it was the way in which he
delivered the content, not the content itself.

It is often argued that these types of examples are just adding bells and
whistles to content as a novelty.  We must remember that the content within
this rich media must also be solid or else it may be simply seen as edutainment.

On Myths of Rich Media

Jim provided context to the discussion by providing statistics on media from
the 2009 Educase ECAR study - http://www.educause.edu/Resources/TheECARStudyofUndergraduateStu/187215/.
Reminding us that there are a lot of students using this media but rarely not in
an educational context.

As Jim showed statistics from the Educase ECAR survey, he was sure to follow
up with some of the myths of rich media.  To me, it is important to first
examine the limitations of rich media so that one does not make impossible
promises to an audience.

Making Connections

Jim made sure to point out that their is great work being done across the
system.  He encouraged the audience to utilize the resources as much as
possible.

Scott Wojtanowski

—————-

A summary of the presentation with bullet points ;-)  Jim encouraged
attendees to develop rich media that will resonate with with your audience.

Statistics on Media from ECAR 2009

  • 80% of students have a laptop less then one year old
  • 45% of student contribute to video content
  • 95% of students ages 18 – 24 that use social networking and
    texting
  • 6% of students review “academicly” created podcasts
  • 45% of students feel that faculty use of technology adequently

How is rich media used

  • Rich media is successful when…used appropriately
  • Rich media is not capturing everything,  for example it is made
    available 1hour  lecture.  It is 5-10 minutes
  • Portable
  • Flexible
  • Promotes individualized learning

Myths of Rich media –

  • If you create it they will come – Not engaging they will turn you off.
  • More is better than less
  • Rich media makes presentation better
  • Millennial students yearn for rich media
  • More media, “that’s the ticket”

Consideration for Rich Media

  • Audience Identification
    • 24 hours per day – 2:00am in the morning
    • International audience
  • Using web streaming for other purposes.
  • Warning Signs – Don’t be dooped by the Swine Flue.  Streaming media
    is not the answer to making content available to student.  We must
    remember to keep this memorable.

Who’s Going to Watch?:  The Project: Gen Ed

Questions to the Answer

  • What is gen ed?
  • Who do you ask?
  • Who is the intended audience?
  • How do you make it engaging

Links from the Presentation

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