SIgnaling+Principle+gone+wrong+resources,+discussions+due+Wed+oct+13+for+posting

Atkinson, C. & Mayer, R. E. (2004). Five ways to reduce PowerPoint overload. Creative Commons. 1.1. Retrieved from Five ways to reduce power point overload []

Discussion:

Mayer's signaling principle adds cues to guide the learner's attention to key elements to help in reducing extraneous processing Signaling should be "used sparingly" (to avoid overload), "when learner has low reading skills, when multimedia lesson is disorganized or contains extraneous material" (p. 108)

In my experience, Power Point presentations can easily be abused with overloaded information, boring lists of words only, too few diagrams, signals or overuse of signals.

Here is a summary of the intent of this article:

__ **Five Solutions** __

Our understanding of the way the mind works has three implications for PowerPoint: 1) PowerPoint presentations should use both visual and verbal forms of presentation; 2) filling the slides with information will easily overload people's cognitive systems; and 3) the presentations should help learners to select, organize, and integrate presented  information.

A set of research-based principles take these implications into account, and can help reduce cognitive load in PowerPoint:

1. The Signaling Principle 2. The Segmenting Principle 3. The Modality Principle 4. The Multimedia Principle 5. The Coherence Principle

Signaling examples of what to do and what not to do:

1. Write a clear headline that explains the main idea of every slide

**The Signaling Principle**

It’s common to find PowerPoint slides with a “Title” at the top, such as //Marketing// //Objectives//, or //Second Quarter Projections//. Titles usually serve as signposts to tell you where you are, but they don’t offer explanations of the idea on your slide. There is a better way to help your audience understand more clearly:

//Research finding: people learn better when the material is organized with clear// //outlines and headings (the Signaling Principle).//

Instead of writing a Title, write a //Headline// that explains the main idea of every slide. Just as in newspapers, write your PowerPoint headlines in active voice, with a subject and verb. Summarize the single overriding idea of the slide in clear and conversational language. This process of writing a headline will help you distill and clarify your own thinking about your topic.

In the PowerPoint document you’re reading, the headlines are constrained to 40 point type over 2 lines, so they can be read from the back of the room and can also be read from Slide Sorter view. When you accept consistent constraints such as these, you challenge yourself to keep your words tight and the experience understandable.

One technique to practice headlines is to look at your slide, then turn to someone else and tell them the main idea of the slide. That’s your headline.

signaling example done correctly 

signaling example done incorrectly 

Besides title issues in powerpoint slides, there are many examples of poor slides with overload and lack of signaling devices: Here is a website that has several examples of the "worst powerpoint presentations"

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__//**Terry Farris 10/12/2010**//__

The following presentation provides what not to do when it relates to Power Point:

http://www.techsoup.org/learningcenter/training/page6702.cfm

A fellow blogger posted the following on his blog. The site contains a link to a well known Power Point presentation that I have found several times over this evening during the research phase for this discussion board:

http://power-points.blogspot.com/

The presentation below, from what I can tell, is meant to be like a bad pun. It represents what a bad Power Point presentation looks like. From a signaling perspective, it is hard to determine the idea included in each slide. Many of the slides lack a //Title// or //Headline//. From its creation, the Power Point provides evidence of what Mayer speaks of within the five principles. I believe many Power Points lack signaling, and in the past, I am sure I have created presentations that were missing **Bold** statements or emphasis in the voice over.

@http://www.slideshare.net/middletonat/bad-powerpoint-example?from=share_email

There are several ideas I was able to take away from the Vodcast and in the reading in relation to signaling that includes:

1. Highlighting the organization of the essential material (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009 and Mayer, 2009)

2. Use Italics in Headings (Mayer, 2009)

2. Vocal emphasis helps and so does bold with Text (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009)

3. Focus on important information helps with Transfer (Laureate Education, Inc., 2009)

4. Graphic organizers can have an impact on transfer, if the length is adequate (example: 1 or 2, but not 3) (Mayer, 2009).


 * It is important to note that too much highlighting adds confusion and takes away from learning (Mayer, 2009).

One last idea, the research presented by Mayer (2009) states that evidence of effective verbal signaling, however, not for visual signaling. Based on information from the same topic, additional research is needed to determine if some forms of visual signaling have positive effects on learning (Mayer, 2009).

Reference:

Laureate Education, Inc. (Executive Producer). (2009). //Multimedia technology to facilitate learning.// Triarchic model: reducing extraneous cognitive processing (Richard E. Mayer). Baltimore: Author

Mayer, R. E. (2009). //Multimedia learning// (2nd ed.). Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press.

Erica Ellsworth

Gill, R. H. (2009.). The multimedia principle: In action. Slideshare. Retrieved from []

This is an interesting example linking Mayer and brain based learning principles. It shows both the good and the bad. This uses all of Mayer’s principles though so it might be better suited for reference material.

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Johnson, H. A. (2009). Instructional strategies that enhance teaching and learning. Presentation to Indiana Deaf Educators and Educational Interpreters Conference. Indianapolis: IN.

This is a PPT from a conference targeted to deaf and hard of hearing education instructors. It uses all of Mayer’s principles and shares the problems with each as well as solution. Interestingly, the signaling principle that is most discussed is the auditory teachology that is used in most multimedia presentations. This is an error in deaf and hard of hearing education. Johnson discusses the fixes for this signaling error.

[|Johnson PPT]

Presentation Zen. (2007). Slide design: Signal versus noices (redux). Presentation Zen. Retrieved from []

This is a critique of John Mackey’s presentation to Berkley’s Graduate School of Journalism. The link has both the critique and the video that shows the signaling errors that Mackey made in the presentation. This is a great critique of what goes wrong when signaling principles are not used.

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