Are you confused with the countless opinions on best practices for creating effective multimedia content?
One incredibly valuable resource that, for years, has shaped our methodologies is a book called "e-Learning and the Science of Instruction" by Clark and Mayer.
Rather than opinions and personal philosophies, this book is based on the scientific theory of how people learn, and the results from over twenty-five years of research on multimedia learning. It is a fact, supported by scientific evidence, that when used correctly, multimedia learning resources have the highest learning outcome.
I would like to point out some of the fundamental guidelines from this research which has shaped the multimedia resources on our Market Place:
The Pinacle:
Short videos (approx 2-3 minutes) with only a small amount of text to reinforce the key points have the highest learning outcome. Animations can certainly be used to help explain difficult concepts.
Slight Reduction:
If you add music, the learning outcome is reduced.
Massive Reduction:
If you have both a voice over AND the full text on screen the learning outcome reduces significantly. Using either a voice over or the text by itself, has a better learning outcome than exposing the learner to both at once. Unfortunately many authoring tools encourage developers to create exactly these "input-overloaded" resources. The authors would admire their work for cating for people with hearing impairements, while unknowingly decimate the effectiveness of their learning resource for everybody else. The sad truth is - it is easy to support learners with hearing impairements whilst maintaining a high learning outcome for everybody.
Ammonite Market Place:
At present, there is over 42 hours of videos on the market place! These videos are approximately 2-3 minutes in length, get straight to the point of the topic, and only use text to reinforce key points. Your Ammonite platform has access to these videos for a very reasonable fee which goes to the author. If you use these videos, Ammonite automatically caters for learners who have a hearing impairement (ask us how). You also benefit from a single click update if the multimedia resources are superseeded.
We'd like to thank the authors of these videos for their continued brilliant work!