During this first blog for EDCI 337, I will be responding to the following prompts:
“Outline one thing you hope to get out of this class, and one thing that you’re unsure about with this class”, and “Can you think of an example of an interactive or multimedia learning experience you have experienced yourself that you enjoyed or made a positive impact on you? What made it impactful to you?”
I was very excited to learn that this class was being offered this summer as technology in education is a topic in which I am constantly trying to improve on and expand my understanding. Not only is an in-depth knowledge of tech important to me as an individual when it comes to keeping up with a fast-paced digital world, but it is also crucial for me as an aspiring educator to be informed on all new education-related technology and how it could positively benefit my students.
What I hope to get out of this class the most is an insight into the best technologies to integrate into a classroom and to use with students, and how to use technology in the classroom in a way that makes sense and is genuinely beneficial for students (as opposed to just using tech for the sake of it). One thing that I am unsure of is the potentially large overlap between this course and another course that I took in 2018 (EDCI 336). Even though I would deeply appreciate a review of what we learned in that class, I would also like to be exposed to some new technologies that I haven’t used or seen before (which I’m sure there are many).
For me, the first thing that comes to mind when reading the prompt about a multimedia learning experience is a lesson that actually occurred in my EDCI 336 class. In that course, we were deep-diving into a huge amount of different tech programs and tools, some I had previous experiences with, and some that were completely new. One tool that I was most excited to try out was the Oculus Rift Virtual Reality set. Even though I was excited, I really had no idea what to expect and couldn’t really see how it could connect to education. On the day of our VR class, our instructor prefaced our VR time with an explanation of how it works and potential uses for it in our classrooms. Still slightly skeptical, I walked across campus to the VR lab.
The minute I put on the goggles and experienced virtual reality for myself, I fully understood the appeal and potential of this technology. (You can read about my experience by clicking this link to my post about it)
The visual and experimental aspect of that learning is what really cemented the concept of VR for me. In this example, the text was my instructor’s explanation of VR and the image was me experimenting with it myself. The combination of both of those factors is what made this an effective learning experience for me because as Mayer states, “People learn better from words and pictures than from words alone”.
Sources:
Mayer, R. (2014). Introduction to Multimedia Learning. In R. Mayer (Ed.), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (Cambridge Handbooks in Psychology, pp. 1-24). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/CBO9781139547369.002
Amanda Street's Education Blog 
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