Saturday, January 25, 2020

Weekly Sporto bookmarks (weekly)

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Saturday, January 11, 2020

Weekly Sporto bookmarks (weekly)

  • tags: instructional design elearning content

  • tags: instructional design

  • tags: instructional design elearning

    • Chunking content is critical because of how our brain appears to work.
    • breaking down information into bite-sized pieces so the brain can more easily digest new information.
    • working memory could hold seven (plus or minus two) chunks of information at once, it is now thought that the number is closer to four, maybe five bits of information.
    • cognitive researchers now know that the capacity of working memory depends on the type of information, the features of the information and the abilities of the person under experimentation.
    • It means that if you are explaining something complex and the learner must hold several factors in mind to understand it, you’ll need to chunk information into bite-sized pieces.
    • eLearning content has to be organized in a logical and progressive way through chunking.
    • Chunking doesn’t only work for your typical linear instruction, it also works for learning objects, for non-linear approaches to learning as well as discovery learning, because it groups together conceptually related information
    • Use a chunking strategy while determining the content hierarchy of a course. Determine how modules, lessons and topics will be organized into a logical and progressive order.
    • Continue with this process until content is broken down to the topic level.
    • Divide modules into smaller related chunks and these will become your lessons.
    • When you have a solid module-lesson-topic structure, organize the content so each screen consists of one chunk of related information. Depending on how you design, this could be at the topic level, at the detailed learning objective level or at the concept level. As a guiding rule, avoid introducing multiple topics, learning objectives or concepts at one time.
    • think in terms of working memory.
    • Fortunately, the visuals and text in multimedia courses can lessen the demands on working memory.
    • Turn Bits into Chunks.
    • Working memory is just as willing to hold four chunks of information as it is to hold four bits of information.
    • chunking or breaking-up content is useful for our brains since our working memory (which is where we manipulate or process information) holds a limited amount of data at the same time.
    • analyze the content provided as inputs for the online course, identify relevant parts based on the learning objectives, and organize it in a logical sequence (modules in a curriculum or units in a course).
    • Another major reason for making mistakes in chunking is overlooking or leaving out important information
    • Creating crisp content is made easy if chunking is precise.
    • identify what is to be communicated to the learners and how it is to be presented
    • Determine the content and prioritize the hierarchy; make certain all aspects of learning are covered. Avoid dumping unnecessary content on your learners, instead, structure the content into levels of importance and guide them through.
    • Chunking at the course level is based on the learning objectives of the eLearning course. Once the objectives are in place, topics can easily be put into sequence
    • Chunking is done at 2 levels – the course level and the screen level
    • For chunking at the screen level, it is recommended that each screen must give an account of one learning point or unit.
    • If the learning points are very small, you can explain more than one learning point in a screen, but try to limit to 3-5 ‘learning points’ per screen
    • We need to determine how modules, lessons, and topics will be organized into a logical and progressive order. If not done at the required levels, learners will be forced to go through dumps and dumps of content.
    • If missing out essential information is one, overloading information is another reason.
    • Bite-sized content helps learners master the learning objectives. 
    • Chunking Principle
      • we should have in mind that a lot of what is said applies to training based on slides presenting information. We need to change this for our kind of courses.
    • neglecting to apply the chunking principle is the most common oversight.
    • Stay away from “under-chunking”, remember the chunking standard while organizing content.
    • Regardless of the style in use, ensure that you maintain a consistent tone, while chunking.
    • Rather, it is far superior to chunk compiled material into visual cues or numbered lists or bullet points with subheadings and a lot of whitespace.
    • Titles, headings, and subheadings should all be important and portray what each chunk of content covers.
    • Short passages of 3 to 4 sentences are reasonable and enable learners to absorb information successfully, comprehend ideas better, and hold what has been learned effectively.
  • tags: instructional design ID

    • remember to prioritize your content. Determine the main points and the supporting materials, including visuals
    • Simplify your course material to only include relevant and necessary content.
    • keep it simple and do not overwhelm your students with too much information at once.
      • Bulleted/numbered lists
      •  
      • Short subheadings
      •  
      • Short sentences with one or two ideas per sentence
      •  
      • Short paragraphs, no more than 3 to 4 sentences
      •  
      • Easily scannable text, with bolding of key phrases

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Saturday, January 4, 2020

Weekly Sporto bookmarks (weekly)

  • tags: digital badges digital-credentials challenges badges

    • This inability to recognize learning in informal contexts is one of many concerns with traditional assessing approaches. A second concern is that traditional credentials are not always effective communicators of a student’s skill or knowledge
    • These two challenges of how to recognize and reward informal learning, and how to increase transparency in traditional grading practices are two credentialing challenges begging for a solution. In the last several years, advances in the field of microcrendentialing, specifically digital badging, has shown promise in solving these assessment challenges.
    • Structurally speaking, digital badges are small digital images that represent an individual’s learning within a specific domain. These images are embedded with rich metadata that increases transparency into what is actually learned
    • Open badges are a unique type of digital badge with additional affordances built into the technology that allow for the credential to be integrated into any compatible learning or portfolio system. While some digital badges are useful indicators of learning within a closed system (e.g. Khan Academy, Duolingo), open badges can be exported into open backpacks that collect and display these microcredentials from many different formal and informal learning systems.
    • Because of their digital and open affordances, open badges can also serve a variety of functions, including as a map of learning pathways or trajectories (Bowen & Thomas, 2014; Newby, Wright, Besser, & Beese, 2015; Gamrat & Zimmerman, 2015), “descriptions of merit” (Rughinis & Matei, 2013), signposts of past and future learning (Rughinis & Matei, 2013), a reward or status symbol (Newby et al., 2015), promoters of motivation and self-regulation (Newby et al., 2015; Randall, Harrison, & West, 2013), “tokens of accomplishment” (O’Byrne, Schenke, Willis, & Hickey, 2015), a learning portfolio or repository (Gamrat et al., 2014), and a goal-setting support (Gamrat & Zimmerman, 2015).
    • including positive effects on motivation, guidance, and recognition.
    • appeal for a learner’s intrinsic motivation by rewarding effort and improvement instead of performance
    • In fact, many organizations with badging structures include self-direction as a major component.
    • key aspects of personalized learning through digital technologies, including giving learners choices, recognizing different forms of skills and knowledge, and learner-focused assessment. Open badges address these key attributes of personalized learning by increasing learning options, assessing discrete skills at a micro level, and credentialing learning both within and without traditional formal institutions.
    • These badges can then be organized into learning paths that provide guidance to learners in particular domains
    • Digital badges not only illuminate the learning pathways for future learning, but can also recognize learning experiences that previously have not been easily acknowledged through a credential.
    • While digital badges offer promise for solving some difficult educational challenges, critics have pointed out several concerns, particularly with issues of scope, awareness, and assessment practices
    • This flood of badges, particularly “lightweight” badges, can clutter the badging landscape and hinder the ability for the end user (e.g. employer, academic institution, etc.) to determine the value and quality of badges. Therefore, the responsibility of the badging community is to create and issue badges that are rigorous and meaningful.
      • Possible question concerning challenges- Badging flooding or watering down of badges can reduce the value of open badges?
    • Another challenge to open badges is the struggle to be recognized outside of their native badging ecosystem.
    • Ecosystems can be local in nature, where badges are intended to be used within an individual’s learning space, or global where badges are designed to be displayed and recognized beyond the institution’s community. While both badging ecosystems can serve an important purpose, creating a global badging ecosystem requires organizations outside the institution to recognize and accept the badge performance and assessment.
      • How can open badges break away from their local nature and in fact help build a global badging ecosystem that is key to solving some of the problems related to job mobility?
    • because of the portability of the open badge technology, it is possible for like-minded institutions of learning to form consortiums where badges could hold value with peer institutions within the consortium.
      • are there examples of consortiums where several organizations collaborate in the developing of meaningful open badging ecosystems?
    • Professional organizations with a vested interest in those skills might consider endorsing these badges to give them increased weight and importance
    • Much like any start-up organization trying to enter into a new market, new ideas, such as open badges, require brand awareness by consumers to begin gaining cultural acceptance.
    • Generally speaking, consumers must be made aware through positive interactions with a product or idea before they are willing to embrace it
    • Decision makers in government, business, and education appear to be generally unaware of the potential of badges to motive, direct, and recognize learning.
  • tags: MOOCs MOOC aggregator mooc moocs

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