Reflection on Instructional Video

So far this semester I have seen some of the ideas in the Swisher article evolve in several ways.  One of the first projects that we did was to create a Photoshop collage.  There wasn’t any “movement” in this collage but one still had to keep in mind the ideas of best uses of multimedia.  Next, we created a digital story that used still images (with limited movement as photographs were zoomed in on) and the use of incorporating an auditory stimulus as we did voice-over recordings.  People had the option to also include text on their digital story as well (which I did not do because I thought it would be a distraction).  Finally, we have completed our latest assignment of creating an instructional video.  Video differs from the use of still images and digital storytelling as it takes multimedia to the next level as you are the one recording the video and are not relying on still images to tell a story.  It also is different as you also have live movement, not just still images (visual channel) and sound (auditory channel) happening at the same time.  It isn’t just still images, but it is actual movement that is taking place.  Again, one has the option to include text to enhance learning in their instructional video, which can be helpful in this context. 

My video had some of the same principles from the Swisher article that I have mentioned in previous assignments.  The principles manifest themselves differently though across the projects.  For example, The Modality Principle.  This theory basically says that students can learn better in a multimedia message if the words are spoken rather than printed.  The majority of my video did this, just like in my digital story assignment.  According to this principle, there are some cases when text with spoken words can be useful, like in a step-by-step procedure.  This is why I chose to have some text appear in my instructional video to help the learner better follow the instructions.