Multi-Media Instruction

When I was a manager at Wal~Mart, we used a system of training associates called Computer-Based Learning (CBLs). CBLs were basically a series of videos about every level of operation the company needed to function. Cashiers were give a series of about 50-60 CBLs that covered the operation of the registers, proper ways to engage with the customers, procedures for accepting food stamps, etc. Stockers watched videos on safety, customer service, etc. Manager had to go through about three times as many videos much of which I signed a waiver not to talk about outside the company. But the point isn't the content, as much as the way it was presented. The videos used many different combinations of multi-media to present the material. There were images and text combined with a disembodied voice speaking quietly through the headphones, and at times, there were video sequences where real people would talk or present small dramatic examples of the situations the associates were learning about. When I first started, the CBLs were the first part of an associates training, and one had to spend upwards of a week sitting in front of a computer for 8 hours a day, until they were complete, which resulted in an information overload, and the associates were basically starting from scratch when they hit the sales floor. Eventually, the time spent on CBLs was limited to 2 hours a day, and the rest of the time was spent working on the sales floor under the guidance of an experienced associate. So, while they CBLs couldn't replace real-world experience, they did and continue to work as a supplement.

I think the project that I'm working on with ConnectND is similar to Wal~Mart's CBLs in that I'm trying to use multimedia to teach skills necessary for real-world situations (even though theoretically these situations only happen in a virtual environment, they still have real-world implications). However, the big difference is that there is no experienced user helping these people to learn these skills. It is all computer-based learning, and much like the associates at Wal~Mart, I worry about information overload, which is another reason (besides accessibility) I've tried to break the actions up into smaller tasks for the student or faculty member. In terms of a theoritical framework, I've been looking at John Sweller's Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), which basically looks at the way sensory memory transfers to working memory and then into long term memory. The purpose of the tutorials I'm creating is ultimately to create long term memory that can be accessed at later times, but in order to do that effectively (at least in terms of CLT) multiple senses must be engaged simultaneously, the information must be kept to a minimum, and the target audience needs to interact with the material in some fashion.

In future blogs, I'll begin to flesh out these elements and what I'm doing at work to compensate for them.