Limited Capacity

As we dove into this week's module, we learned about the Modality and Redundancy Principles. My hope this week was to: 1) properly apply this principles to my narrated presentation and 2) provide information that may be beneficial to e-Learning instructors on creating multimedia tools.

In my narrated presentation, I accompanied my graphics with narrations rather than printed words for my fast-paced lesson overview. According to Clark and Mayer, "Presenting words in spoken form rather than printed form allows us to off‐load processing of words from the visual channel to the auditory channel, thereby freeing more capacity for processing graphics in the visual channel" (pg. 114). This principle applies "especially when the graphic is complex, the words are familiar, and the lesson is fast‐paced" (pg. 115).

According to Clark and Mayer, redundant on‐screen text refers to "graphics using words in both on‐screen text and audio narration in which the audio repeats the text" (pg. 131). Because we have a limited cognitive capacity for each channel, redundant on-screen text may cause overloading. Clark and Mayer explains that "learners may experience an overload of their visual/pictorial channel when they must simultaneously process graphics and the printed words that refer to them...especially when the words and pictures are presented concurrently at a rapid pace, the words are familiar, and the graphic" (pg. 116 & 119). 

My goal this week was to present an engaging lesson overview without overloading the visual processing channel of the learner's memory system by minimizing my on screen text. Please leave a comment and/or suggestion on whether or not you believe I accomplished this goal. I can't wait to hear back from you as we embark on this journey together.