my EDCI 337 blog

This week I tried using Magic Sketch and Quick, Draw for my own interest. I discover these AI tools only recognize one category of an object. Taking an example of drawing a bridge in Magic Sketch, the system only recognizes the arched bridge. When I want to draw a suspension bridge, the system will assist me to draw an arched bridge automatically.

I’m more surprised by the Quick, Draw tool because it provides an abundance of data for each object. These data remind me the principle of “half-life” (VentureBeat, 2022) is true, which is collecting data base on the existed knowledge. I’m wondering AI tool is not precise when it was first invented, but Quick, Draw system would collect the present data from the first group of participants. Each doodle would ask the participant to finish in 16 seconds. The number of these doodles would still raising in the future. I really anticipated it.

Back to the Magic Sketch, this tool seems far away from the human brain. The evidence of how Magic Sketch collect data is still vague to me. Probably workers have assigned certain standards to this tool.

Would AI change the creative factory?

My concern of these AI tools is they became more and more similar than human brain. The way of AI tools let participants complete tasks in a short time is similar with managing intrinsic load. And these AI tools would optimize the strategy of learning knowledge without load. However, humans have a load of learning new knowledge.

An apparent drawback of the AI tool is that this tool doesn’t have an intrinsic ability to recognize non-moral information. Luckily, humans have abilities to restrict particular phrases for the AI tool. Just like adults teach youths about moral knowledge, so that youths would remember this knowledge in their rest of their life. Therefore, AI tools would not be used in a moral way unless these tools are under human supervision.

Reference

Ceron, Rodrigo (2019), AI, Machine Learning and Deep Learning – What’s the Difference?, IBM Systems Lab

Roose, Kevin (2022, November 5), AI-generated art is already transforming creative work, Khaleej Times, https://www.khaleejtimes.com/long-reads/ai-generated-art-is-already-transforming-creative-work

VentureBeat (2022), How Duolingo is using AI to Humanize Virtual Language Lessons, accessed Nov 11, 2022

Historia is a game-based learning system. Students would learn actively through group discussion. This learning strategy guides students to research history by themselves rather than learning from the instructor.

There are two systems of active learning. One is student-centered learning (UDL) while another is problem-based learning (Merrill’s First Principles of Instruction)(University of Victoria: Educational Technology.). This learning system has satisfied both systems, but Historia focuses on student-centered learning because students from this video reply they have positive experiences from the learning.

According to several scenes from this video, I notice the material students have used needs to be improved. Students usually research history from books. I also notice a scene in that students are using computers, which seems like students are using computers to search for information for their historical research project. However, there is no fact to show whether using a computer is students’ main method of researching historical knowledge. The most apparent problem that should have further improvement is the organization of group members. I notice each student has a fill-in-blank handout for group discussion. Other group members might unable to view written responses from each other.

Multimedia tools that can access more than one would improve the action of group assembly. Taking the example of Mattermost, group members could discuss their opinions of the research topic. This tool is best for reporting the status of group members. For example, if a group member would not attend the meeting due to family issues, they can comment in the group chat.

Planning the content for the project is also essential in the history assignment. Multimedia tools for conceptual mapping would help with that. Students would share the information from their research in a template, so that group members would see them.

Reference

University of Victoria: Educational Technology. (2022, October 29.) W9: Active and Passive Learning. https://edtechuvic.ca/edci337/2022/10/29/w9-active-and-passive-learning/

According to Rich McCue’s two versions of storytelling. The audio just describes the 3-2-1 backup plan briefly, and mentioned the story of a student who lost her laptop during the fire accident. This audio gives me an auditory sense but no visual sense, which enhances my working memory (Brame, 2015). For one thing, this audio recording is useless for audience engagement. For another, recording audio clips have a similar function to storyboarding. Audio recording can highlight the thesis of the story.

The video version extends the real-life story from the audio version. This time McCue has used the first person to introduce this story. McCue describes why that student’s laptop is destroyed as well as further details of the fire. Images that link to the story give me a strong visual effect. Then the rest of the video McCue concludes the importance of the backup plan.

McCue’s storytelling of the 3-2-1 backup plan has satisfied all of Mayer’s multimedia learning principles. However, the most apparent principle is the pre-training principle. Even though the audio recording has mentioned the backup plan, it gives context before audiences watch the video.

In addition, this storytelling regardless of action learning both in Universal Design for Learning (UDL) and Merrill’s principles. Both video and audio focus on describing the real-life story (Merrill), but there’s no further step in using the 3-2-1 backup plan. According to McCue’s objectives for storytelling, both video and audio do not meet these objectives. For example, where could people find suitable storage is not mentioned.

Reference

Brame, C.J. (2015). Effective educational videos. Retrieved [todaysdate] from http://cft.vanderbilt.edu/guides-sub-pages/effective-educational-videos/.

James Greenwood (n.d.) https://www.james-greenwood.com/instructional-design/toolkit/merrill/#:~:text=The%20premise%20of%20Merrill%E2%80%99s%20first%20principles%20of%20instruction,principles%20are%20necessary%20for%20effective%20and%20efficient%20instruction.%E2%80%9D%28p44%29

The theme for this week I learn design principles, which I’m so excited about it. Even though I have learnt design principles before, this is the first time I can create my own design after I have studied design principles right away.

My favourite part of this week’s course content is creating an infographic. It reminds my experience of watching fabulous infographics on Pinterest. These infographics not only involve plenty of aesthetic skills, but also describe a theme from new angles. I was wondering when could I create these creative infographics.

BUT NOW I CAN DO IT

Visual Effects

I create the first infographic from one of my art history course, which is introduction of clay. I choose the template that is the most suitable for my theme after I write down my required texts. I design this infographic by following the colour principle and hierarchy principle.

There are two main colours in this template, so I use these colours for my texts as well. However, I add two analogous colours. I discovered this technique when aligning texts from “COLLECTING CLAY”, this light-pink colour as normal texts looks too contrasting, so I desaturate the colour of these normal texts for highlighting the subtitle. I also change the colour of numbers in jade-green, which is the analogous colour of green. Then I put each number behind each step, so that this procedure would look more creative.

Besides, I view the infographic one more time and discover texts from “COLLECTING CLAY” look unattractive, so I change these texts in the upper case to make them readable. In addition, I find a creative tip for making texts in a hierarchy by the graphic of a river. This tip is inspired by the first step “Collecting the clay near the river or lake”, so that I decided to put this graphic as a tool for introducing something. The rhythm of the river flowing to the end of the infographic leads audiences to read the procedure of collecting clay.

The story started…

In a computer class, the teacher taught us to make a website, and this assignment had a final critique. First, the teacher demonstrated how to design the webpage, then she let us do this step by ourselves. However, every classmate finished making the webpage except me because I had some technical issues. Next, I was unable to reach the next step which the teacher started talking about it. Since then, I felt awkward in the computer class and didn’t attend the critique.

Studying is our own business

Since I have learnt the UDL (Universal Design for Learning), I discover the weakest part of Chinese teaching from the UDL is Action & Expression. Teachers in China would show PowerPoint that involves various images and texts in class. They would describe the content per slide as well. However, students wouldn’t have another chance to look back at the PowerPoint one more time. This teaching strategy might test each student’s learning ability, but a few students still need more than one time to understand the knowledge, so students who would not make sense of this teaching would be defined as “stupid” students.

Possible ways to relieve this situation

There are two ways to relieve this situation: visual and physical. Both ways must be accessible and not conflict with each other. Showing students pre-recorded videos is the best way to help students refresh their knowledge visually. Pre-recorded videos are suitable for almost all subjects such as Mathematics, Chinese, and Physics. However, these videos should contain detailed contents and prevent funny components. Students already know the overview of this knowledge, so their present goal is to reinforce this knowledge. For example, if a student has trouble with composing an English sentence. A video that involves detailed steps on how to compose a perfect English sentence is suitable for this student.

Next is the physical part, students can reinforce their knowledge by doing more exercise after watching the instructional video. Students can do exercises both on paper and online. According to the learning situation in China, doing exercises online is the best method for students. Online tests and online exercises produce less pressure from classmates than paper exercises. Besides, online exercises have more privacy than paper exercises. My classmates used to mark math exercises with each other according to my experience. I was thinking everyone’s ability would be exposed, which I felt very uncomfortable.