Open Learning Multimedia
Welcome to the Open Learning Multimedia Project website!
The goal of this project was to create a website with research-informed examples to support TRU Open Learning developers as they design their OL courses. Instructional designer Dr. Verena Roberts led the project with the support of OL developers and TRU research students.
The content is split into three separate components:
- The Guides are specific summaries and overviews directly connected to Mayer and Fiorella’s The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning (2021, Cambridge University Press). Dr. Jonathan Yang reviewed and summarized the key themes and principles of the chapters and expanded upon the literature by highlighting discipline-specific examples.
- The Annotated Bibliography is an annotated collection of recent and emerging literature based on the themes covered in Mayer and Fiorella’s handbook on multimedia learning. The annotated bibliography was written by TRU research students Puneet Malik and Karan Singh.
- The Additional Resources are links to current TRU resources across campus to support the design, creation, and integration of multimedia in all OL courses.
All of the content is connected through WordPress #tags to help support developers in making connections and finding multiple examples of multimedia opportunities.
Please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Verena Roberts (vroberts@tru.ca) with any questions.
How to Use These Guides
These guides are meant to help TRU OL developers make media choices as they develop their course materials. Note that these guides only make up a starting point. Please discuss your media needs with your instructional designer as they are your liaison with the Open Learning Media Team. The Media Team is available to support you with the inclusion of media from initial consultations to creation and finalization.
Browse Guides
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Video Lectures
Popular instructional videos have such different styles, and there is no consensus in research about how to make the most effective instructional videos (Renkl,…
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Reasons to Use (or to Avoid Using) an Image
Images can be effective for explaining concepts that cannot be described adequately in words alone (Ainsworth & Loizou, 2003). The terms “image,” “picture,” and…
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Interactive Media
The use of interactive media in education may depend largely on the subject matter. A casual search of interactive, educational media on the internet…
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Voice
Instructors have the option of lecturing with the human voice or a computer-generated voice. In a study involving a lecture on lightning formation, students…
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Improve the Use of Images
When incorporating an image into educational material, the first step is to evaluate whether the image is relevant to the learning objectives and has…
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Student-Generated Drawings
Incorporating drawing as a learning activity to accompany textual information can be helpful for meeting learning outcomes compared to no drawing (Leutner & Schmeck,…
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Immersive Media
When used to describe media, immersion is the replacement of physical reality with virtual reality (Cummings & Bailenson, 2016), and educational media have varying…
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Visualizing Quantitative Information
Numerical data are commonly presented as tables or graphs (Ainsworth, 2021). Tables have the additional advantage of including non-numerical data, as exemplified in Table…
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Concept Mapping as a Review Activity
According to the mapping principle, people learn deeply when they translate complex word-based information into a combined word- and visuospatial format (Adesope et al.,…
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Giving Feedback to Students
Feedback is a signal to learners to let them know whether they are on the right track in meeting the course objectives and to…