Category: Online Courses

Tips for Online Learning

Here in Sitka we do a lot of Online Teaching. The video below is from Michael Wesch, a faculty member at Kansas State University, who made the jump from face-to-face teaching to online teaching. He has ten tips for online teaching, which you can watch in the video below. Even those of you that have …

Continue reading

Knowing Technology

Are students just out of High School more tech savvy than older, non-traditional students? Many have this perception! Young students may have grown up with technology, but do they know the technology we use in our on-line classes? Blackboard, Adobe Presenter, VoiceThread, even PowerPoint can become challenging if the student has never used it before. …

Continue reading

12. Image Principle

The Image Principle says that people do not necessarily learn better from a multimedia lesson when the speaker’s image is added to the screen. This is definitely an area that needs more research.   So what are the pros and cons of adding the speaker’s image? On one hand, we know how important teacher presence is.  …

Continue reading

11. Voice Principle

Last week we looked at the Personalization Principle, and found that a speaker with a conversational style will have more impact on learning than a formal style presentation.  Today we are going to dive into this a bit more with the voice principle.  The Voice Principle means that we learn more deeply when being spoken …

Continue reading

10. Personalization Principle

The Personalization Principle means that conversational style is better than formal style.  Below is a video to introduce you to the principle – The first part of the video will make you want to turn it off, but keep watching – it starts with what not to do!! When we are teaching, whether we think …

Continue reading

9. Multimedia Principle

The Multimedia Principle means that “words and pictures” are better than words alone.  There has been a lot of research in this area, and it has been found that learners do, in fact, gain more knowledge with words and pictures than if they were just presented with words alone. With computing power that has gotten …

Continue reading

8. Modality Principle

Last week we talked about the Pre-Training principle, and this week we look into another principle that will help us with essential processing.  The Modality Principle means that “graphics and narration” are better than “graphics and text.” Here is a video that explains the Modality principle. If you only get one thing out of today’s …

Continue reading

7. Pre-Training Principle

The Pre-Training Principle means that we need to pre-teach key concepts for better understanding.  What this means is that learners actually learn better and more deeply if they already know the names and characteristics of the subject. So, why is this important?  We again look at working memory, and the capacity of the brain to …

Continue reading

6. Segmenting Principle

Over the last few weeks we have looked at techniques for reducing extraneous processing by our learners.  This week we start to look at essential processing, and how we make that better.  The first principle to do this is the Segmenting Principle. The Segmenting Principle means that user-paced segments are better than continuous presentation. You …

Continue reading

5 Temporal Contiguity Principle

Last week we looked at the Spatial Contiguity Principle and we found that related words and pictures need to be  close together.  This week we look at the Temporal Contiguity Principle. The Temporal Contiguity Principle tells us that students learn better when related words and pictures happen simultaneously.  So where last week we looked at …

Continue reading