Learning Reflection Report

When reflecting on the course, I can see various areas of personal growth throughout the course projects and challenges. This course gave me a strong foundation of what makes a good educational experience. Not only did the course explain various principles and theories of interactive and multimedia learning, they were implemented within the course itself. This has allowed me to recognize the usage in my other courses, and apply them to assignments in other classes.

Revisit the Plan:

Throughout the course, I was able to directly engage with the theories and principles addressed in the course frameworks. This included the theories of multimedia and interactive learning, design principles, and storytelling. I applied each of these concepts in the planning of Challenges A, B and C, Substantive posts, Discussion, and Peer review, which taught me how interactive and multimedia experiences engage with the learner overall. 

Prior to taking this course, the different principles were neither something I had thought of conceptually, or identified in my own education. In each of the challenges I was able to apply key theories such as Dual Coding to add both a visual and verbal output to my projects, Signalling to highlight areas of significance, and Contiguity to reinforce the information. Additionally, I applied the technique of Personalization and Modality to have a deeper engagement with the viewer in a linguistic and narrative way. With the planning, prototyping and creation of these projects, I was able to utilize new tools that I may not have used before, such as Canva and Powtoon to more efficiently produce an educational resource. In addition, I was able to exercise my creative thinking and design skills when hand drawing resources for my projects. 

The Substantive posts allowed me to critically reflect on the important concepts taught within the course. This enabled me to gain a deeper understanding of the principles and theories before fully delving into my projects. The posts acted as a sort of pretraining for the larger projects themselves. When writing the substantive posts, I was able to objectively view the course matter, which allowed me to think critically when discussing, sharing, and helping with my peers. 

The interactions and discussions with my peers provided me with a broader perspective on my progress, helping me identify areas of weakness and further improve upon my projects. Additionally, it provided me with support in an active sense, allowing me to make connections and feel support in my progress.

Identify the Turbulence:

Overcoming conflicts and challenges are a crucial aspect to learning and developing skills. Personally, one of the biggest challenges I had come across in my projects for this class was applying storytelling aspects into an educational resource. For example, with both the comic from Challenge A, and video from Challenge B, I had chosen to do a story driven narrative, and found it difficult to balance the creative storytelling aspect with the education information itself. Both the feedback and reinforcement of my peers helped me solidify my final project. 

Evidence of Growth:

After reflecting on my learning process throughout the course, I recognized that I gradually learned and developed a strong foundation in Interactive and Multimedia Learning. My learning was supported through the repetition of using these principles throughout each of my projects, reviewing my peers’ work, and recognizing the principles within other projects and the course itself. It is evident that throughout my projects, the application of these concepts are more consistent. This was because I attempted to exercise more of them as I produced the projects and wrote for each of my substantive posts and discussions.

Next Destination:

As a visual arts student in a BFA, I see great potential in multimedia for education. The creative and visual outputs in education help support me as a learner, and I think this way of educating can be applied to a vast range of subjects. Not only is multimedia engaging, it can be applied to add accessibility for a diverse range of students, allowing for a more personalized learning experience and an overall stronger learning outcome. As I plan on continuing my studies in the arts with a loose plan on moving on to education, I think there is a lot I can take away from this course to apply in both my field and general skillset. More specifically, I think the creative and storytelling aspects can be used in my education for visual arts, and the education frameworks can be used to further my studies in education.