Write about your game experience and connect it explicitly to teaching and learning, as well as principles of and research about multimedia that you are aware of to date.

I regret to say that I have not been into gaming nor a gamer. I recollect the first game I played on an IBM machine in the ’80s. While following my masters, due to a class requirement, I had downloaded Pokémon and played for some time. With the winding of the class, that was the end of the game. While following the Authoring Systems class in my master’s program under the guidance of Dr. Hayes, I had a 90-degree mind shift on learning how games play a major role in students’ information retention. Mainly seeing my son playing games continuously most of the time but still excelling in his studies, I realized how games promoted his skill advancement. It is not that I don’t like to play games, but I seem to have many important obligations before games.

Gamification is described as a strategy to increase knowledge retention while the learners are engaged in an immersive learning environment (Brull & Finlayson 2016). Games created effectively influence both psychology and technology in ways that can be applied outside of the environment (McGrath et al., 2013). As per Ertmer et al., (2013), constructivism connects learning with creating meaning from experience and metacognitive strategies. Schrader (2015) states that learning is created through active engagement and social interaction. Knowledge is recognized as being constructed socially and individually based on experience. Motivation for learning, constructing, and reconstructing knowledge is essential to the learner. 

As per Brull et al. (2016), gamification focuses on providing intrinsic needs to the learner by offering immediate feedback, inspiring curiosity, and control over the material. On the other hand, the learner wants to participate, improve knowledge, and achieve learning and development. The primary factor in the instructional model has been the motivation that provides a meaningful learning context that supports self-regulated, intrinsically motivated learning. Interactive multimedia is the latest interactive learning system that automatically motivates learners, including music, still-pictures, voice, text, animation, motion video, and a friendly user interface on the computer (Reeves, 1998).  

The leading multimedia principle is that people learn more intensely from words and graphics than words alone. When a presentation has words spoken, graphics can be as animation, or the textbook lessons presented on paper are shown on slideshows. A face-to-face presentation can be a captioned video via a computer as words and graphics together promote learning. Also, the presenter needs to focus on essential materials and eliminate unnecessary materials that distract the learner.

Below are some of the multimedia research principles that I have used and known about while working in the information technology environment.

1. Design lessons to grab their attention to essential materials
2. Help the learner build connections between the words and graphics when presented rather than far from each other.
3. It helps the learner build connections between graphics when narrations are presented simultaneously rather than successively.  
4. Allowing the learner to process one step before moving into the next fully

Although I did not know the multimedia principles listed above (as per Mayer, 2014), earlier in my career having worked in the information technology field, I have practiced some of these instructions in my earlier job functions when developing presentations to the user.

Reference

Brull, S., & Finlayson, S. (2016). Importance of gamification in increasing learning. The Journal of Continuing Education in Nursing, 47(8), 372-375. 

Clark, R. C., & Mayer, R. E. (2016). E-learning and the science of instruction: proven guidelines for consumers and designers of multimedia learning. John Wiley & sons.

Ertmer, P. A., & Newby, T. J. (2013). Behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism: comparing critical features from an instructional design perspective. performance improvement quarterly, 26(2), 43-71. doi:10.1002/piq.21143 https://libproxy.library.unt.edu:4060/doi/abs/10.1002/piq.21143

Mayer, R. E. (2014). Research-based principles for designing multimedia instruction applying science of learning in education. Applying science of learning in education: Infusing psychological science into the curriculum. Recuperado de la página web de la society for the teaching of psychology: http://teachpsych. org/ebooks/asle2014/index. php.

McGrath, N., & Bayerlein, L. (2013). Engaging online students through the gamification of learning materials: The present and the future. In ASCILITE-Australian society for computers in learning in tertiary education annual conference (pp. 573-577). Australasian society for computers in learning in tertiary education.

Reeves R, (1998) Evaluating what really matters in computer-based education,                  

https://www.eduworks.com/Documents/Workshops/EdMedia1998/docs/reeves.html

Schrader, D. E. (2015). Constructivism and learning in the age of social media: changing minds and learning communities. new directions for teaching & learning, 2015(144), 23–35. https://doi.org/10.1002/tl.20160

LTEC 6210, Spring 2022