What is pleasing from a design standard today? Incorporating multimedia learning principles in education can make learning more fun, constructive, and effective. If these principles are used in the wrong way, you risk overloading your working memory. Therefore, it is important to make sure that the design of what you are learning from is not too complex to understand and remember. 

For example, a multimedia learning principle that I have consistently followed in the past is signaling. This principle involves inserting cues to important information which helps you focus on relevant elements. I like to highlight and bold essential information in my school notes so when I go back to study them, I am not overloaded with pages and pages of notes that all look the same. 

A multimedia learning principle that I have broken in the past is the coherence principle. This principle conveys how irrelevant information can decrease learning and overwork your brain. In the past, I have made the mistake of putting way too many pictures in my presentations. Though my intentions were to fill up the blank spots in the slides, this can be very distracting, too detailed, and bring attention away from the main topic being presented. By looking over all the multimedia learning principles in Dr. Ray Pastore’s video, I am now aware of how I can use these principles more effectively in the future.

 

Photo by madeleine ragsdale on Unsplash