I once had a drama course. The teacher designed many games to help us learning performance and liberate our nature. Here are a few of my impressive games.
Marionette: imagine yourself as a puppet suspended by a string. Stand on tiptoe, the top of the head seems to have a line, from the head, neck, shoulders, armsā¦ All the way down, one by one to relax. So as to achieve a completely relaxed state, and then enter the role and scene according to the tutor’s comments.
Blind walking: led by classmates and friends, or holding hands or relying on sound source, not using eyes to sense. So as to deeply feel the difference between the real outside world and the inner world, and cultivate a sense of trust with partners, which also helps to focus and relieve tension.
Move with music: tutors randomly play different kinds and forms of music, such as light or slow, fashion or classical, rock or lyric. According to the specified music, express the music with action posture. So as to expand the performance ability, strengthen the focus and action. Moving with music can be in the form of closing or opening your eyes.
Mirror simulation: two people or two groups of people stand facing each other and imitate each other’s behavior. The behavior of both sides should be highly synchronized, such as eyebrow locking, mouth curling, twitching, sighing, etc. This can be more slowly into the other party’s identity, thus emptying themselves.
Animal simulation: imitate from all aspects, such as shape, cry, habit, way of walking, way of eating, etc
Environmental sound response: it can be the above-mentioned move with the music, or it can be any kind of sound, making an improvisational response. Requirement is a subconscious reaction, so as to know how to control your subconscious accurately and how to react.
Documented lesson plan for our multimedia project:
Lesson Plan:
This course will introduce Mind-mapping to students. The aim of the course is to introduce such a useful and effective tool to help students with their study and lives. Our course uses multimedia to give students detailed instructions, for example, videos.
There are mainly three parts of our course: ā¢ -The concept of Mind-mapping
ā¢ -The functions of Mind-mapping
-How to draw a Mind-map
Learning Outcomes:
By the end of this course, students should be able to:
ā¢ Describe the definitions of Mind-mapping
Discuss the benefits of Mind-mapping
Be able to apply Mind-mapping in daily study and life
Be able to draw a Mind-map
Multimedia Content:
We create a slide to provide a complete course, including course introduction, learning outcomes, and the three parts of learning content. We also include an original video to give step-by-step instructions about how to draw a mind-map.
The following five principles are used in our learning content.
Coherence principleļ¼Coherence principle requires learning content to be essential. Unnecessary and irrelevant details should be excluded, preventing extraneous overload and relieving learning pressure. Therefore, the explanation on our slides keeps simple and concise. We try to use single words or verbal phrases instead of long sentences. Besides, we donāt employ delicate slide template so that no irrelevant pictures would distract the audience.
Signaling principle: Signaling principle requires important information to be emphasized. When paragraphs are needed to provide a context in our slides, keywords are in the font of Bold and key sentences are underlined.
Redundancy Principle: Redundancy principle states that two forms of multimedia is better than three of them because three forms would provide too much information for the audience to process and understand. In our slides, the text is combined with related pictures and the pictures are aimed to illustrate the text more vividly and directly. In our video, audience can watch the animation while listening to the narration, and only some brief phrases are provided to explain the steps. In this way the audience would not be imposed too much burden.
Spatial Contiguity Principle: Spatial contiguity principle requires relevant information which come in different forms should be aligned rather than be separated. Therefore, in our slides, related pictures and text are put beside each other in the same slide.
Temporal Contiguity Principleļ¼Temporal contiguity principle requires the narration to appear at the same time when animation is played. We use this principle to design the animation of our video. The Voiceover is simultaneous with the steps presented.
There are two theories we adopted in designing our learning content.
Dual-coding theory: dual-coding theory means that we have two channels to receive information, one is through our eyes and the other is through our ears. We can combine the narration and animation/text at the same time. Such combination is recommended because it makes memorizing much easier. When we recall the information, both image and sound can be triggered. We use the theory in our video, the audience can watch the animation while listening the Voiceover, so that they can learn more effectively.
Constructivist Theoriesļ¼Constructivist theory provides us a fundamental guideline when we design our course. Since our learning objective is to provide students a useful learning tool and encourage them to apply in their daily lives, we donāt want to treat them as blank slate and let them receive information passively. Thus we adopt the student-centered approach. For example, in our slides we first ask students to think about the learning tools they have used for study and recall any information they have learned about mind-map, so that we can build the following new knowledge upon their previous knowledge. Besides, after we introduce the concept of mind-mapping and move on to the next partāits functions and applications, we ask students to think first independently and then provide the answer. After finished the learning, we also encouraged students to discuss with their classmates to see which way to draw a mind-map is more effective. From these steps, we think the students can have a deeper impression through interaction and independent thinking.
Evaluation:
We provide evaluation both during and after the learning course. During the course we provide formative evaluation. For example, we require students to write a paragraph about what they have learned and the doubts they have during the process after learning the concept and functions of mind-map in our slides. They can send the paragraph to the instructorās email so that they can get informative feedback. We also provide summative assessment at the end of the course, that is students should draw a mind map by themselves, which serve as the final exam to test whether they could use learning content to apply in real-life situations.
With regard to other topics, the assessment manner is decided by the type of the topics. If the learning objective emphasis on the learning process and students should fully understand each part of the content, formative evaluation is more effective. If the learning objective is to apply the learning content, itās better to provide summative assessment.
Pitfalls or areas that did not go to plan:
I think the main pitfall of our learning course is the lack of group activities. Since our group adopt the constructivist theory, it will work better if we provide opportunities for students to explore and discover by themselves.
Skills a learner will attain:
Skill to draw mind-map by hand
Skill to use mind-map for note taking and information organization
The shot switches when the character is moving. The cutting point does not have to be at the moment of the action. It can happen even when the character turns around. The beginning of the action is the end of the previous shot, and the end of the action is the beginning of the next shot.
CUTAWAY
Cuts to the insertion shot first and then cuts back to the main shot. The insertion shot is often the subjective perspective of the characters. The separation can express the inner feelings of the characters.
CROSS CUT
Switch back and forth between the two scenes. Most phone call scenes use cross cut to create suspense and tension. This technique can also reflect the inner scene of the character.
JUMP CUT
It’s also called unskilled editing. Putting two shots of the same scene together. It’s usually used to show the passage of time. Jump cut also accentuates the urgency of the shot and highlights some essential content.
MATCH CUT
Matching cut are always mistaken for jump cut, but they are different. The two shots connected by matching clips usually have the same action or composition. Matching cut are usually used in scene switching because the picture always jumps from one place to another, which causes misunderstanding. Matching clips don’t have to be visual. There are also dialogue based matching clips.
FADE IN/ FADE OUT
The shots blurs into or fades out of the all-black frame.
DISSOLVE
Superimpose the end of the previous shot on the beginning of the next. Shows the Time goes by.
SMASH CUT
Put the shots of different times and spaces together directly. Increase ornamental.
After learning the fifth lecture, I learned how to edit videos with editing software. This time, I made a long video to introduce the movie soundtrack according to my own interests. In the beginning, I did not consider the theories and principles I learned in class. I just edited an interesting and effective video with my own understanding and feeling. But after I reviewed the content of the lectures, I found many defects in my video and made some improvements.
Dual-coding theory: in the original video, I just put the frame together. But according to Dual-coding theory, people learn better when they receive visual and verbal stimuli at the same time, so I recorded the voice-over and added music to match the frame.
Signaling principle: People learn better when essential words are highlighted. I enlarge the font size of the key wordsļ¼the name of the movie or the title of the music) and mark them with conspicuous colors.
Temporal contiguity principle: I put the voiceover used to describe the plot together with the corresponding frame. And when the soundtrack is displayed, the picture clips in the original film are played at the same time without editing.
Redundancy principle: People learn better from animation with narration than from animation with narration and text except when the onscreen text is short. There are subtitles in the original video. I removed the subtitles, leaving only some keywords.
Intensity: At the beginning of the original video, I directly introduced the soundtrack of the first movie. And in front of each film, there is no introduction to the background or director of the film. Later, I added a mashup of dancing scenes from different movies in the first part. And before each part, the introduction of the plot and background of the film is added. This makes the video more vivid and interesting, arousing the viewer’s interest.
Readiness: I added an intro to illustrate the importance and aesthetic value of the film soundtrack. This shows the value of appreciating the soundtrack and creates the viewer’s learning motivation.
When we are doing something we are interested in and challenging, many of us will have an immersive experience: we can’t feel the existence of time and real things, as if our bodies and minds have completely entered into another world. You can only feel what you are doing. I have had a similar experience. I like to write novels since I was a child. But at that time, writing was just like personal entertainment. I never showed my works to others. One day last year, when I was watching a movie, a line in it suddenly inspired me. But because I was still in the cinema, I couldn’t start writing, so I took out my phone and recorded it in the memo. After the movie, I turned down the invitation to dinner with my friends and took a taxi home. On the way, I was still thinking about the plot and dialogue. When I got home, I immediately turned on my laptop and began to write. It was about 5:30 p.m. when I finished the last period, it was already dawn. It’s already six o’clock the next morning. At that time I was really surprised. My God, I typed in front of the laptop for 13 hours and nonstop. I forgot the dinner and even water. And after I uploaded the work to the website, sleepiness finally attacked me. Now this work has more than 2000 likes.
It was a wonderful experience. Like being in a beautiful dream, in the dream, I swim in the sea of words. It seems that the protagonist in my story has lived her own life. As a spectator, I accompanied her through a period of her life. Before woke up, I said goodbye to her: take care! see you next time. She waved to me with a smile, as warm as a pair of old friends.
How Augmented Reality Will Change Education Completely
AR application enables students to contact the virtual 3D model in person to enhance the learning experience and the interactivity of the experiment. Students and teachers can operate virtual equipment through gesture recognition, and the classroom experience jumps up from 2D to 3D. At the same time, each experiment can be operated repeatedly, and the operation data can be recorded. Teachers can comment on students’ operation, so as to improve students’ interest in learning and activate students’ participation.
AR technology is based on the real world, allowing users to interact with the virtual enhanced data. The phenomenon produced by 3D technology is realistic and vivid, providing a convenient and safe platform for exploration, and help students to explore and study deeper knowledge in the way of interactive operation. Like real phenomena, experimental phenomena can cultivate students’ observation ability, logical thinking ability, and stimulate students’ interest in learning.
Also, It can provide a virtual laboratory for teachers and students, which is much safer than the real laboratory. It can reduce the probability of accidents. At the same time, the virtual experimental equipment will not produce the consumption of experimental materials, and avoid the waste of instruments and drugs.
In traditional experimental teaching, teachers will first explain the knowledge through textbooks, PPT, video, and other forms. If possible, they will take students to the lab for an experiment. Sometimes the experimental reaction time is too long to show in class, students can only listen to the teacher’s explanation. Through AR technology, teachers do not need to carry too much experimental equipment, students do not need to change the classroom, they can just stay in the conventional classroom and do the experiment directly through the AR application. That will save a lot of teaching time and improve the efficiency of teaching.
References
How Augmented Reality Will Change Education Completely | Florian Radke | TEDxGateway https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5AjxGqzqQ54
I once met a literature instructor whose teaching method is similar to your music professor. He asked us to read a passage and then asked us the feelings we were aroused by it. I think this is a teaching method only suitable for art appreciation. Art arouse our senses and subconscious thoughts and feelings. When we hear a piece of music or read a piece of literature, we can empathize with it. This kind of teaching method can well mobilize our artistic perception and improve the ability of divergent thinking. However, this kind of method is not suitable for some objective and rational subjects, such as mathematics or physics. Of course, I’m not saying that there is no artistry in science, but in teaching, these subjects are more suitable for the direct input of knowledge and pay more attention to problem-solving ability.
One of the non-digital multimedia experiences I have experienced is brainstorming. On the IAT (interactive and technology)course, our instructor introduced the method to us. She breaks us into several small groups of 5 and asks us brainstorming on the final project: a 3-minutes stop motion animation. First, we voted for a leader from our group. As a leader, he needs to keep the discussion on the topic. And notes down all the ideas on the whiteboard. There are 4 core principles in a good brainstorm process. First, postpone the evaluation. When your group member is proposing ideas, don’t evaluate them. This will undermine the confidence of the proposer and affect the effect of brainstorming.
The second principle is not to set limit on ideas. We should encourage people to come up with creative and wild ideas in brainstorming. Thirdly, build your ideas on others’ ideas(chain reaction). Thus, we can extend from one basic idea to explore more creative ones. And the most important principle is āWin by quantityā, which is the goal of brainstorming. The more ideas come up, the more possibilities there are.
I think brainstorming is really interesting and effective because it lets everyone in the group engage in it. And more people can produce greater strength, more brains can create better ideas. It also improves our teamwork and communication skills. I think the most fundamental reason why brainstorming can create creative ideas is that everyone in the group has a sense of competition. In brainstorming, the competitive psychology promotes the efficiency of people’s psychological activities and creates more and better ideas than usual.
