Ashlee's Teach Create Motivate

The uses of digital technologies are obvious and the impacts of technology over “generation z” are tremendous. But beyond its surface of recreational capabilities, there are some beneficial ways that can be used in an instructional environment. One of them is to use virtual reality that we first introduced in class with Google cardboard. It is the pioneer that sets an immersive experience to go beyond the entertainment, and it gets weary in time.  Virtual Reality is the simulation of a real or imagined environment that appears as three dimensional (3D) space. Immersion of VR into the classrooms started with affordable devices such as Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard and Windows 10 VR (Lawrie,2017). The headsets attached to any smartphone device and free VR apps such as Titans of Space VR or Google Arts and Culture can give a new tune to learning just by hitting the icons in the apps and can help learners to virtualize the themes like space; walking on the moon by i...

We live in millennial era that make our children digital natives with the advance of technology. Digital native is defined as a person who has grown up in the digital age and having knowledge of digital systems as an adult. Those all also be called as Net Generation as mentioned by Prensky (as cited Setiawan,2019). The ones who were born between the 80s and 2000s called as Millennial and the ones were born  after 2000s named as Generation Z. We may observe the differences between young and old generation by observing their digital literacy since younger ones spend   most of their time by surfing in the web pages or popular social media sites. While some elderly are trying to turn the pages and highlighting the words in a book, others are scrolling through digital pages and interacting with the text using web tools. The way we interact with others and learn things is quite different from then and now. As Prensky (2001) discussed that our greatest problem that we face in...

Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) is the cornerstone of educational psychology and it is very important in terms of guiding the design of multimedia and teaching materials effectively.   Educators need to take into account the fact that learners are constantly under high cognitive load especially in online learning environments nowadays. The cognitive structure of working memory is limited as Miller (1956) stated that our working memory can hold about seven items and process only three or four items of information simultaneously. In addition, Sweller (1993) defined CLT as a mental state in which new information exceeds learners’ working memory capacity and impedes information processing. So, how does learning a new language differ from learning other subjects? Actually, the answer to this question can be explained by referring to three types of cognitive load which I will touch them one by one in this week’s blog. As Dylan Williams, a professor emeritus of educational assessment defi...

Schools all over the world have shifted to synchronous learning (online education that happends in real time) just after Covid-19 coronavirus outbreak. While all teachers and school administers are getting used to teach online via some online teaching tools and apps, there are some crucial elements of online education that we need to take into consideration to navigate the new tools comprehensively and equally.  I believe that this is not only setting up infrastructure but also adopting a systematic approach that we need to get ready for instructional design of online teaching. This is not that simple to reclaim “we set up “zoom” and we are ready for teaching since there is a critical process that is called acculturation. As all educators, we need to realize the process of virtual acculturation which refers to deal with psychological stress, acquiring new skills and developing a sense of identity and navigating through the system synchronously (Ward,2001). We need to deve...

There are around 350 million of internet users in the world and most of this great number of users are the students who use more technology outside of the school than they do in the classrooms. That’s why, keeping pace with new innovations and technologies for the sake of teaching is very important in order to meet with needs of z generation students’ characteristics. The technology we perceive and the technology they use in real life are totally diverse regarding to socioeconomic situation of the learners. The use of computers at school might be limited and restricted in some schools and the way we implement lessons is restricted to the digital knowledge of the teachers and ability to use smart board technology in class in an effective way.   In addition, learning styles have an impact in increasing one’s perception and development in learning by the help of smart technologies in education. For instance, using multimedia sources to teach target words through smart board could ...

Learning is just a click away but font size matters… There are variety of online tools and educational platforms providing content through a computer screen. Visual design elements provide the content embedded in colors, different fonts and scheme, all those can effect learners’ performance in recalling information.  Once the text is well organized in terms of paragraph style, size of font, text line spacing, and word length, the readers’ performance in ability to recall information referring to readability ( Hojjati & Muniandy, 2014). Hence, computer based instructions such as online courses or tutorials are crucial to engage learners effectively and to contribute one’s meaningful learning. In addition, it is indisputable that students’ screen time is getting higher with the generation of new apps and media tools day by day as well as making them socially distant from others and isolating them from face to face environments. Here is the reason why texts are important i...

Multimedia is an engaging and motivating way of introducing a wide range of material. However, coordinating the visuals with the target message is needed to be designed well organized in order to deal with cognitive load in working memory. The principals for multimedia learning which was developed by Richard Mayer, who is a professor of psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara, in 2001.   He suggested that words and graphics are more effective than the words alone. Let’s have a look at the diagram about “middle ear” as shown below (figure 1), what might be wrong with the diagram in terms of cognitive load theory? The answer is clear that it leads you to waste a lot of cognitive processing, and it includes a lot of words and it is hard to coordinate the words with the graphic referring to the “spatial contiguity” as defined by R. Mayer. In addition the words in the diagram should be given just next to the graphic. As an instructional designer or a lesson ...