D/B 12

Describe two tangible take-aways that you think you could apply in your work.
What are two ways you believe you can apply ideas in this chapter to improve your teaching/instructional design work?

The chapter on Rich Media was very interesting to me. In some ways it was like a refresher of information from education classes that I’ve taken in the past concerning how we learn and the cognitive process of learning. In other ways, it gave me new insights to information on how we learn and how to use technology for learning in a way that fosters the way that we learn and process information.

One idea that stuck out most was concerning the long term memory and working memory. Specifically interesting was how much information we can hold in the different categories of our working memory. I already try to be conscious to teach via mini-lessons and then have the students process or apply the information through quick discussions or writing prompts and then repeat the process before giving extended time to apply the idea on their own or with a group. I knew that there was a limited capacity within the working or short term memory, but finding the specifics like that we can hold 7 plus or minus 2 chunks of information there at a time was helpful. It was helpful to know that the chunks of information we can hold in our working memory breaks down into visual/pictorial and auditory/verbal channels or storage areas, and that we can be overloaded with information and not apply it to our long term memory if the instructional technology that is used has too many features from either area. An example that really stuck out here was “Since working memory capacity is highly limited, including three sources of sounds—narration, environmental sounds, and music—[overloads] the limited capacity of the auditory/verbal channel.”

Another thing I found to be interesting and helpful is the idea that the picture book makers had it correct—students do learn better from words and pictures than from words alone. I think many people would have assumed that animated visuals or video would be more effective than static images, but it was interesting to find that static images can have the same effect as animated videos.


My school recently installed digital projectors in each classroom. Since then, one of my plans has been to incorporate more visuals like video clips into lessons. The text proved a theory that I’ve had in that students learn better when they can see images of the concept you are teaching. After reading this chapter, one thing that I think will be very helpful to me in teaching is that visuals should be explained by words when presented in audio, or that showing video clips with audio narration is more effective than text narration alone. When choosing a clip to show, I will check to make sure that the animation is accompanied by narration rather than on screen text alone.


Two similar ideas stick out to me the most that sum up what I feel is important from this chapter overall:
• It is important not just to present information, but to present information in a way that fosters how we learn (working memory capacity and structure, activating prior knowledge from long term memory to interact with new information, etc.)
• Rich media must be aligned with the human learning process to be effective.


Reiser, R. & Dempsey, J. (2007). Trends and Issues in Instructional Design and Technology (2nd ed.). Prentice Hall.